Canto XXXI of Paradise

The Saint Milicia of the white Virgin.
The hope in Beatitude.

  In forma dunque di candida rosa
mi si mostrava la milizia santa
che nel suo sangue Cristo fece sposa;

  ma l'altra, che volando vede e canta
la gloria di colui che la 'nnamora
e la bontà che la fece cotanta,

  sì come schiera d'ape, che s'infiora
una fiata e una si ritorna
là dove suo laboro s'insapora,

  nel gran fior discendeva che s'addorna
di tante foglie, e quindi risaliva
là dove 'l suo amor sempre soggiorna.

The holy militia of the white virgins that Christ married of His blood, and the other which sing 
the glory of Whom who sets it ablaze with love, as a swarm of bees at work, sometimes plunge into the abyss 
to gather the divine nectar, recover from below for a while, exhausted and fed, to rest on the petals red from blood, 
or go down in the large flower where their Love  remains eternally, not to remake surface again.

All their body is like sharp flame, their whips are of gold, and the rest white and translucent, that no snow 
resembles to them. They go down in the flower, from degree to degree, they perceive there, happiness 
and peace which they acquire while playing of their whip to overcome the irresistible force of the current. 
Neither the sight nor splendour stop them, by this multitude, swimming against the current, which interposes 
between the flower and the top; because the divine light penetrates them according to whether they are worthy of It,
so that nothing can make them obstacle, if not the radiant crown that protects the access, and that disaggregates 
under the effect of a divine force, so that one soul only penetrates it and fertilizes it of its invaluable pollen. 
This merry and quiet core, filled with an attracting light, directed the glances towards the same goal, 
the promise of a new love. 

Oh eternal light! Scintillating at their sight in a single star, and filled them thus of such an intense desire, 
that could not stop the storm of their insane race. Myself, who had passed from human to divine, from the notion 
of time to eternity, from terrestrial vulgarity to the sublimation of the Good, of what a stupor should I not be filled! 

Admittedly, between Jeanne and the hope in Beatitud, how sweet it was for me
of not hearing and remain quiet.
I called off all my wishes and I hoped to be the first to reach the sanctuary; how could I describe it to you,
 those too many and anxious who read me? Thus, I swam here and there in the luminous plasma, 
 I moved my eyes by all the degrees, sometimes at the top, sometimes at the bottom, sometimes all around. 
 I saw faces impressed from the same blind desire, radiating with the light of Another and their own desire: 
movements produced by all the sorrows at the same time as all the graces. 

My glance had already embraced, entirely, the general shape of Paradise, which resembled  
to a motionless sun, but scintillated of a light which seemed to challenge me, to call me of all its wishes,
which reinforced my dishevelled race, as that of the other souls which were bound around, maintaining,
it seemed to me, the same blind desires, the same sufferings, the same sorrows, of whom, wish to 
approach so close by the erotogenic Star. 

And, with a relit desire, I turned to my lady to question Her on subjects my spirit was worried about. 
I intended to address myself to a person, and it is another one who answered me; I believed to see Jeanne 
and I saw a lady, chastely undressed,  like these mythical graces. She had a pious attitude and spread
a soft serenity, as it is appropriate to a tender mother. 


"Where is Jeanne?"

 I said suddenly. And the Holy Lady answered me: 

"It is Jeanne who sent  me to you to carry out your desire to an end;
and if you scrutinise well your soul, you will see Her until the end of this journey."


From this so deep cavern from where the thunder bursts, no mortal eye is as distant 
as my glances were from Jeanne, but no obstacle did altered Her image. 
And I saw Jeanne in a sunbeam, naked and lightened from her steel armour, 
She merged with the ambient light, and She was then more beautiful. 

And I pray Her as follows: 

"Oh Adorable Virgin! 
In You, I put 
all my carnal hopes. You who, to drive out my anguishes, had left in hell 
the trace of Your fragile steps, I thank You, by Your grace, for having replaced, in me, 
the slavery of desires by the freedom of the supreme Love. 
Accompany my soul, then cured, so that it detached itself from my flesh 
and that it rejoins You in the eternal Extasy."

 
I saw Her, at far, who looked and who smiled at me; She turned toward the eternal cavern
where I swam on with sorrow and I knew that She was praying for me. 

And the Holy Beauty  of heaven says to me: 
 
"I was sent by The One who, driven by a sanctified Love for you, has asked me to guide you 
in this voyage and to prepare you to enter into the divine Ovula; the Queen of Heaven, 
for which I consumed myself in a whole Love, will obtain you the grace to carry out  this voyage,
 because I am Therese of Avila, and I live in extasy in front of the King of Heaven." 


I raised my eyes and I saw an intense light, with in its middle thousand angels in feast, 
with their translucent bodies and their spread wings, and I saw a Beauty in their center, 
who smiled to their plays and to their songs. I could not express, here, with terrestrial words 
or images, what I retained of Her, and how the Virgin Lady ignited my soul. 

When Therese saw my eyes fixed on her, She turned Her eyes ton Her, 
with such love, that She made mine also burning in Love for Her.