Admirable oneness! All things are common between the Bridegroom and the Spouse. As she has nothing that belongs to herself, the possessions of the Bridegroom become common to her also. She has no longer any property or any interests but His, and hence she says that young and advancing souls, the mandrakes, give a smell; it has reached even to us. All that I have, my Well-beloved, she says, is Thine, and all Thine is mine. I am so stripped and spoiled of all things, that I have preserved, given, and laid up for Thee all manner of pleasant fruits, all sorts of excellent actions and productions, whatsoever they may be, without a single exception. I have given Thee all my works, both the old which Thou didst perform in me from the beginning, and the new which Thou effectest by me from moment to moment. There is nothing which I have not surrendered to Thee; my soul, with all its powers and operations; my body, with its senses and everything that it can do. I have consecrated the whole to Thee, and as Thou hast given them to me to keep, permitting me the use, I preserve them wholly for Thee, so that both as to the property and the use, all things are Thine only.

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Footnotes:

[46] Such results follow because God dwells in her. As iron touched by a magnet will attract other pieces of iron, so the soul which is the temple of God attracts other souls by a hidden virtue. They are often let into a state of prayer and recollection by simply entering her presence, and feel more inclination to remain silent than to speak. God then uses this means to communicate Himself to souls, a mark of the purity of these unions and affections--Justifications, i. 83.

[47] Liquors easily receive whatever figure or boundaries we desire to make them assume, because they have no consistence or solidity in themselves to restrict or interfere with their yielding character. Pour a fluid into a vessel and you will see it rest, quietly bounded by the lines that limit the vase and assuming perfectly its exact shape. It has no form or figure of its own, but only that of the vessel in which it is contained. Such, however, is not the natural pliancy of the soul. It has its own set form and sharp outline, the former due to its habits and inclinations, and the latter to its will in self, and when it refuses to come forth from these we say that it is hard, that is obstinate and wilful. I will take the stony heart out of their flesh saith the Lord God (Ezekiel 11:19), that is, I will take away their stiffneckedness. Wood, iron and stone must feel the wedge, the hammer and the fire before they will change their form, and so must it be with a heart that resembles them in its hardness and insusceptibility to divine impressions and remains entrenched in its own will and fortified by the inclinations which follow in the train of our corrupted nature. A heart on the other hand that is plastic, soft and yielding, is called a melted or liquefied heart.--St. Francis of Sales, on the Love of God. Book vi., ch. 12.

[48] It would have been a serious defect in the soul, if, when she should have remained entirely passive she had chosen to act, for in this way she would have hindered the operations of God; she would have been acting from her own activity, when God required her to be perfectly passive, that she might die to all self-originated influences. Now, through her continued passivity, she has become like soft wax, or a perfectly manageable instrument in the hands of God, with which He does as He will. She has then reached the only true passivity in its perfection, an active passive state, in which her actions are no longer self-originated, but are wholly due to the gentle and loving influences of the Holy Spirit within.--Justifications, i. 114.