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Saint Teresa of Avila - The after effects of union 2
Identifier
012819
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself
After this prayer of union, the soul is left with a very great tenderness, so much so that it would gladly dissolve, not in grief but in tears of joy. Quite unawares, it finds itself bathed in them, and does not know how or when it wept. But it has great delight in seeing the force of the fire assuaged by water, which yet makes it burn the more. This may sound utter nonsense, but all the same it happens.
Occasionally, when the prayer has ended, I have been so beside myself as not to know if it has been a dream or if the bliss I have been feeling has been a reality. But when I have seen myself drenched with tears, which have flowed painlessly, yet so quickly and with such violence that they might have fallen from a cloud in heaven, I have realized that it was no dream. This was at the beginning, when the condition soon passed away.