“As air becomes the medium for light when the sun rises,And as wax melts from the heat of fire,So the soul drawn to that light is resplendent,Feels self melt away,Its will and actions no longer its own.So clear is the imprint of GodThat the soul, conquered, is conqueror;Annihilated, it lives in triumph. What happens to the drop of wineThat you pour into the sea?Does it remain itself, unchanged?It is as if it never existed.So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in,It is united with Truth,Its old nature fades away,It is no longer master of itself.”Jacopone da Todi The Lauds
“The soul wills and yet does not will:Its will belongs to Another.It has eyes only for this beauty;It no longer seeks to possess, as was its wont --It lacks the strength to possess such sweetness.The base of this highest of peaksIs founded on nichil [nothing],Shaped nothingness, made one with the Lord.”Jacopone da Todi The Lauds
“In God the spiritual facultiesCome to their desired end,Lose all sense of self and self-consciousness,And are swept into infinity.The soul, made new again,Marveling to find itselfIn that immensity, drowns.How this comes about it does not know.”Jacopone da Todi The Lauds
“There is no other action at those heights;What the questing soul once was it has ceased to be.Neither heat nor fiery loveNor suffering has place here.This is not light as the soul has imagined it.All it had sought it must now forget,And pass on to a new world,Beyond its powers of perception.”Jacopone da Todi The Lauds
“On achieving their desired endHuman powers cease to function,And the soul sees that what it thought was rightWas wrong. A new exchange occursAt that point where all light disappears;A new and unsought state is needed:The soul haswhat it did not love,And is stripped of all it possessed, no matter how dear.”Jacopone da Todi The Lauds
“In losing all, the soul has risenTo the pinnacle of the measureless;Because it has renounced allThat is not divine,It now holds in its graspThe unimaginable GoodIn all its abundance,A loss and a gain impossible to describe.”Jacopone da Todi The Lauds