On The Death Out of Love
St. Thérèse read St. John of the Cross’s masterpiece, the Living Flame of Love, and discovered the concept of “the death by love” or “death out of [an excess of] love.” She instinctively applied this profound theological explanation of Christian death to the Lord’s own death. Thérèse longed to understand Jesus and the mystery of His death. Her desire to imitate Him led her to aspire to this same death.
Toward the end of her life, Thérèse suffered enormously from tuberculosis, and during this time, she also underwent a profound spiritual trial. The Lord introduced her to a mysterious state, where she felt like a sinner even though she knew she wasn’t sinning. Like Jesus, she sat with sinners, sharing in the bitter consequences of sin. Despite these immense physical and spiritual trials, Thérèse experienced something deeper.
While contemplating a footnote in her book The Imitation of Christ, which explained that the Lord held both the beatific vision and endured the most horrendous sufferings, she remarked: “I know something along these lines. Deep, very deep in me, I feel peace.”
When asked if she was near death, Thérèse replied, “Natural illness is a very slow guide; I rely more on the Love of God.” She had fully assimilated St. John of the Cross’s teachings, understanding that the true cause of death is the fullness of love—a powerful impetus from the Holy Spirit that draws the soul from the body. Thérèse recognised that this was the true nature of the Lord’s death, and it was this death that she desired.
St. John of the Cross teaches that it would displease God if we did not desire such perfection of love, as God desires us to reach the fullness of love and to experience such a death. Indeed, “precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants” (Ps 116:15).
Let us, with St. Thérèse, open our hearts to what God wishes to accomplish in us.
O Living Flame of Love,
That woundest tenderly
My soul in its inmost depth !
As thou art no longer grievous,
Perfect thy work, if it be thy will,
Break the web of this sweet encounter.
‘Break the web of this sweet encounter’
25. That is, the hindrance to this so grand an affair. It is an easy thing to draw near unto God when all hindrances are set aside, and when the web that divides us from Him is broken. There are three webs to be broken before we can have the perfect fruition of God : 1. The temporal web, which comprises all created things. 2. The natural web, which comprises all mere natural actions and inclinations. 3.The web of sense, which is merely the union of soul and body; that is, the sensitive and animal life, of which St. Paul speaks, saying, ‘For we know if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven (2Cor. 5:1).
26. The first and second web must of necessity have been broken in order to enter into the fruition of God in the union of love, when we denied ourselves in worldly things and renounced them, when our affections and desires were mortified, and when all other operations became divine. These webs were broken in the assaults of this flame when it was still grievous. In the spiritual purgation the soul breaks the two webs I am speaking of, and becomes united with God ; the third alone, the web of the life of sense remains now to be broken. This is the reason why but one web is mentioned here. For now one web alone remains, and this the flame assails not painfully and grievously as it assailed the others, but with great sweetness and delight.
27. Thus the death of such souls is most full of sweetness, beyond that of their whole spiritual life, for they die of the sweet violence of love, like the swan which sings more sweetly when death is nigh.
28. This is why the Psalmist said, ‘Precious in the sight of our Lord is the death of His saints’ (Ps. 116:15) for then the rivers of the soul’s love flow into the sea of love, so wide and deep as to seem a sea themselves; the beginning and the end unite together to accompany the just departing for His Kingdom. ‘From the ends of the earth’ in the words of Isaias, are ‘heard praises, the glory of the just one’ (Is.14:16) and the soul feels itself in the midst of these glorious encounters on the point of departing in all abundance for the perfect fruition of the kingdom, for it beholds itself pure and rich, and prepared, so far as it is possible, consistently with the faith and the conditions of this life. God now permits it to behold its own beauty, and entrusts it with the gifts and graces He has endowed it with, for all this turns into love and praise without the stain of presumption or of vanity, because no leaven of imperfection remains to corrupt it.
29. When the soul sees that nothing is wanting but the breaking of the frail web of its natural life, by which its liberty is enthralled, it prays that it may be broken; for it longs ‘to be dissolved and to be with Christ,’ (Phil 1:23) to burst the bonds which bind the spirit and the flesh together, that both may resume their proper state, for they are by nature different, the flesh to ‘return to its earth, and the spirit unto God Who gave it.’ (Eccles. 12:7) The mortal body, as St. John saith, ‘profiteth nothing,’ (John 6:64) but is rather a hindrance to the good of the spirit. The soul, therefore, prays for the dissolution of the body, for it is sad that a life so mean should be a hindrance in the way of a life so noble.
30. This life is called a web for three reasons : 1. Because of the connection between the spirit and the flesh. 2. Because it separates the soul and God. 3. Because a web is not so thick but that light penetrates it. The connection between soul and body, in this state of perfection is so slight a web that the divinity shines through it, now that the soul is so spiritualised, subtilised, and refined. When the power of the life to come is felt in the soul, the weakness of this life becomes manifest. Its present life seems to be but a slender web, even a spider’s web, in the words of David, ‘our years shall be considered as a spider’ (Ps. 89:9) and even less than that, when the soul is raised to a state so high, for being raised so high, it perceives things as God does, in Whose sight ‘a thousand years are as yesterday which is past’ (Ps. 89:4) and before Whom ‘all nations are as if they had no being at all’ (Is. 40:17) In the same way all things appear to the soul as nothing, yea, itself is nothing in its own eyes, and God alone is its all.
31. It may be asked here why the soul prays for the breaking of the web rather than for its cutting or its removal, since the effect would be the same in either case. There are four reasons which determine it: 1. The expression it employs is the most proper, because it is more natural that a thing should be broken in an encounter, than that it should be cut or taken away. 2. Because love likes force, with violent and impetuous contacts, and these result in breaking rather than in cutting or taking away. 3. Because its love is so strong, it desires that the act of breaking the web may be done in a moment; the more rapid and spiritual the act, the greater its force and worth.
32. The power of love is now more concentrated and more vigorous, and the perfection of transforming love enters the soul, as form into matter, in an instant. Until now there was no act of perfect transformation, only the disposition towards it in desires and affections successively repeated, which in very few souls attain to the perfect act of transformation. Hence a soul that is disposed may elicit many more, and more intense acts in a brief period than another soul not so disposed in a long time, for this soul spends all its energies in the preparation of itself, and even afterwards the fire does not wholly penetrate the fuel it has to burn. But when the soul is already prepared, love enters in continuously, and the spark at the first contact seizes on the fuel that is dry. And thus the enamoured soul prefers the abrupt breaking of the web to its tedious cutting or waiting for its removal.
33. 4. The fourth reason why the soul prays for the breaking of the web of life is its desire that it may be done quickly: for when we cut or remove anything we do it deliberately, when the matter is ripe, and then time and thought become necessary; but a violent rupture requires Nothing of the kind. The soul’s desire is not to wait for the natural termination of its mortal life, because the violence of its love and the disposition it is in incline it with resignation towards the violent rupture of its natural life in the supernatural assaults of love. Moreover, it knows well that it is the way of God to call such souls to Himself before the time, that He fills them with good, and delivers them from evil, perfecting them in a short space, and bestowing upon them, through love, what they could have gained only by length of time. ‘Pleasing God, he is made beloved, and living among sinners he was translated. He was taken away lest malice should change his understanding, or lest any guile deceive his soul. Being consummate in a short space, he fulfilled much time, for his soul pleased God; for this cause He hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquities’ (Wisd. 4:10-14) The constant practice of love is therefore a matter of the last importance, for when the soul is perfect therein, its detention here below cannot be long before it is admitted to see God face to face.
34. But why is this interior assault of the Holy Spirit called an encounter? Though the soul is very desirous to see the end of its natural life, yet because the time is not yet come, that cannot be, and so God, to make it perfect and to raise it above the flesh more and more, assails it divinely and gloriously, and these assaults are really encounters wherein God penetrates the soul, deifies the very substance of it, and renders it as it were divine. The substance of God absorbs the soul, because He assails and pierces it to the quick by the Holy Spirit, whose communications are vehement when they are of fire as at present. The soul says this encounter is sweet, because it has therein a lively taste of God ;not that many other touches and encounters of God, of which the soul is now the object, cease to be sweet and delicious, but on account of the supereminent sweetness of this; for God effects it in order to detach it perfectly and make it glorious. Hence the soul relying on His protection becomes bold, and says, ‘Break the web of this sweet encounter’.
35. The whole stanza may be paraphrased as follows : O flame of the Holy Spirit, penetrating so profoundly and so tenderly the very substance of my soul, and burning it with Thy heat, since Thou art now so gentle as to mani fest Thy desire of giving Thyself wholly to me in everlasting life; if formerly my petitions did not reach Thine ears, when I was weary and worn with love, suffering through the weakness of sense and spirit, because of my great infirmities, impurity, and little love, I prayed to be set free— for with desire hath my soul desired Thee — when my impatient love would not suffer me to submit to the conditions of this life according to Thy will— for it was Thy will that I should live— and when the previous impulses of my love were insufficient in Thy sight, because there was no substance in them ; now that I am grown strong in love, that body and soul together do not only follow after Thee, but that my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God (Ps. 83:3) with one consent, so that I am praying for that which Thou wiliest I should pray for, and what Thou wiliest not, that I pray not for— it seems even that I could not do it, neither does it enter into my mind to do so— and as my prayers are now more efficacious and more reasonable in Thy sight, for they proceed from Thee, and Thou wiliest I should so pray, and as I pray in the joy and sweetness of the Holy Spirit, and ‘my judgment cometh forth from Thy countenance (Ps. 16:2) when Thou art pleased with my prayer and hearkenest to it— break Thou the slender web of this life that I may be enabled to love Thee hereafter with that fulness and abundance which my soul desires, without end for ever more.
(St. John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love, I,25-35)