nature;--the kingdom of one's soul which is called Heaven (_cielo_)
because it hides (_cela_) God within it by patience, is seized with force
and violence. This is the food that makes the soul angelic, and therefore
it is called the food of angels; and also because the soul, separated from
the body, tastes God in His essential Being. He satisfies the soul in such
wise that she longs for no other thing nor can desire aught but what may
help her more perfectly to keep and increase this food, so that she holds
in hate what is contrary to it. Therefore, like a prudent person, she
looks with the light of most holy faith, which is in the eye of the mind,
and beholds what is harmful and what is useful to her. And as she has
seen, so she loves and condemns--holding, I say, her own fleshly nature
and all the vices which proceed from it, bound beneath the feet of her
affections. She flees all causes that may incline her to vice or hinder
her perfection. So she annuls her self-will, which is the cause of all
evil, and subjects it to the yoke of holy obedience, not only to the Order
and its chief, but to every least creature through God. She flees all
glory and human indulgence, and glories only in the shames and sorrows of
Christ crucified: insults, outrage, ridicule, injuries, are milk to her;
she joys in them, to be conformed with the Bridegroom, Christ crucified.
She renounces conversation with fellow-beings, because she sees that they
often intervene between us and our Creator, and she flees to the actual
and to the mental cell.

To this I summon thee and the others: and I command thee, dearest daughter
mine, that thou abide for ever in the cell of self-knowledge, where we
find the angelic food of the eager desire of God toward us; and in the
actual cell, with vigil and humble faithful continual prayer, divesting
thy heart and mind of every creature, and clothing them with Christ
crucified. Otherwise thou wouldst eat upon the earth, and there I have
already said to thee, one should not eat. Reflect that thy Bridegroom,