She begins to understand the mystery, and, repenting of the foreign support she had sought, she says, His left hand is under my head; He bears me up with singular care, since He has honored me with union with Himself in the powers of my soul. What business, then, have I with flowers and fruits, that is, with things sensible and human, since He favors me with those which are divine? He is even going on to do more for me, uniting me to Himself in essence, and I shall then be fruitful and produce for my Bridegroom fruits incomparably more beautiful than those I desired, for He will embrace me with His right hand, which is His omnipotence accompanied by His love, the chaste embraces of which produce in the soul the perfect enjoyment of Him, which is only another name for essential union.

It is true that at first, this embrace of the right hand is the affiancing of the soul, but not its marriage. He will embrace me, she says; He will first bind me to Himself by the tie of betrothal, by which I have the hope of a future marriage, when He will so embrace me and so bind me to Himself that I shall fear no subsequent defection. For the peculiarity of essential union is to strengthen the soul so fully, that it no longer suffers those faintings which beset souls in their beginnings, who, grace being as yet feeble in them, experience eclipses and falls. In this state, the soul is confirmed in love, since it then dwells in God; and he who dwells in God, dwells in love; for God is love. -- (1 John iv.16.)