1. This purgative form which I see in the souls being purified, I feel within my own mind, especially during these last two years; and every day I feel it and see it more clearly.
2. I see my soul abiding in this body as in a Purgatory, conformed and made like to the true Purgatory, yet in the measure that the body can bear, so that it does not die, nevertheless ever increasing little by little, until at last it does die.
3. I see the spirit estranged from all things, even spiritual things, that could give it nourishment, such as joy, delight, or consolation; and it has not the power to savor anything, whether temporal or spiritual, by will, by intellect, or by memory, in such a way that I could say: I am more content with this thing than with that.
4. My inner self finds itself so besieged that all the things in which spiritual and bodily life once found refreshment have been taken from it little by little; and once they are taken away, it knows them all to have been things on which to feed and take comfort; but as they are recognized by the spirit, they are so hated and abhorred that they all depart beyond remedy.
5. This is because the spirit has within itself the instinct to strip away everything that impedes its perfection, and with such cruelty that it would almost consent to be cast into Hell in order to attain its end. And so it goes on removing all the things on which the inner man might feed; and it besieges him so subtly that not even the smallest speck of imperfection can pass without being seen and abhorred by it.
6. As for the exterior part, because the spirit does not respond to it, it too remains so besieged that it finds nothing on earth in which it may refresh itself according to its human instinct. No other comfort remains to it but God, who works all this out of love and with great mercy, to satisfy His justice.
7. This sight gives it great peace and contentment; yet this contentment does not lessen the pain, nor the siege; nor could any pain be so great as to make it wish to depart from that ordinance of God. It does not leave its prison, nor does it even seek to leave it, until God has done all that is needful. My contentment is that God be satisfied; nor could I find a greater pain than to go outside the ordinance of God, so just do I see it, and attended by such great mercy.
8. All the things I have spoken of I see and touch, but I cannot find fitting words to express what I would wish to say; and what I have said of them, I feel at work within me spiritually, and that is why I have said it.
9. The prison in which I seem to myself to be is the world; the bond is the body. And the soul illumined by grace is the one that knows the gravity of being held back or delayed by some impediment from attaining its end; and this gives it great pain, because it is so delicate.
10. It also receives from God, by grace, a certain dignity which makes it like God Himself; indeed, it makes it one and the same thing with Him through participation in His goodness. And just as it is impossible for God that any pain should befall Him, so it happens to the souls that draw near to Him; and the nearer they draw to Him, the more of His property they receive.
11. The delay, then, which the soul encounters causes it intolerable pain: the pain and the delay render it unlike those properties which it has by nature and which are shown to it by grace; and unable to possess them, though capable of them, it remains in a pain as great as its esteem of God. The esteem, moreover, is the greater the more it knows; and it knows the more, the more it is without sin; and the impediment becomes the more terrible, especially as the soul remains wholly recollected in God and, being without any impediment, knows without error.
12. Just as the man who lets himself be killed rather than offend God feels the dying, and it gives him pain, but the light of God gives him a zeal which makes him esteem the divine honor more than bodily death; so the soul, knowing the ordinance of God, esteems that ordinance more than all interior and exterior torments, however terrible they may be; and this because God, for whom this work is done, exceeds everything that can be felt and imagined.
13. And since the occupation of Himself that God gives to the soul, however slight it may be, holds it so occupied in His Majesty that it can take account of nothing else, it therefore loses all selfhood, nor does it any longer see, speak of, or know harm or pain within itself; but it knows it all, as has been said above, in an instant, when it passes from this life. And finally, in conclusion, we understand that God makes man lose all that is his own, and Purgatory purifies him.