A Small Treatise on the Peace of the Soul

Fray Juan de Bonilla

1-On the nature of the heart and how it should be managed.

You should know that God gave you a very noble heart, created soley to love Him and melt yourself therein. And since you will do anything for love of Him difficult things become simple. On the contrary, if you try to do something by force you will never accomplish it. Order the intentions of you heart so that what is inside you shows on the outside. So even though penance and penitential rites are praiseworthy- practised with discretion as is proper for those who do so- you will never achieve virtue through them but only vanity and an arrogant air on which you’ll waste all your efforts if they do not agree with what is within your own soul. “Man’s life on earth is war” as saintly Job says. For this battle it is best to be prepared. Your preparation should be to calm and tranquilize your spirit. So when some disturbance or whirlpool of uneasiness arises in your soul be prepared to calm and pacify it, not letting it get out of control. Do this everytime you are uneasy, in or outside of prayer. Following this advise you will know how to pray well. And whenever you do this let it be done smoothly and without effort. For the whole purpose of this exercize is to pacify your heart and not let it run wild so you may always be at peace.

2-On the care the soul should take in coming to be at peace

Above all else you should apply this peaceful advice to your senses. This will raise you to great heights without much effort but with great peace and security. In this peace and security, being desirious of God, you will keep vigil, pray, and suffer insults without sorrow. Since until you are at peace you will come to suffer many troubles for lack of experience. Your soul will be consoled whatever contradictions that befall you and every day you will be taught how to better calm your spirit. And if you should find that you are so troubled that you cannot find any peace go straight to prayer and persevere in the example of Christ Our Redeemer who prayed three times in the garden as an example for us.

May all your memory and consolation lie in prayer and do not cease until your will is calm and at peace, conformed to God’s will. And if you are occupied in corporal or manual labor do not try to finish your work early, nor measure out the time you have to accomplish it. But labor peacefully for your main intent is to have God always present in your mind. Thus you will be at great peace without worrying about pleasing any one but God. And if you do this with any another intention in mind you will see how whirlwinds and uneasiness rise up in your soul once again. As you fall and rise you will be aware and clearly see that all the evil we possess comes from our own self-love since we wish everything to bend to our will. For the opposite troubles and disquiets us.

3-On how this peaceful dwelling is to be built.

Be on guard and never let your heart be troubled or sad. Nor get involved in matters that upset you. But make an effort to keep calm, since the Lord says: Blessed are the peaceful ones. Doing this the Lord will build a peaceful city in your soul and make it a house of delights. He only desires that whenever you are afflicted you sit down and calm yourself in all your doings, thoughts and movements. Yet since a city is not built in a day do not presume that in a single day you will achieve interior peace and calm which means building a house for the Lord and making yourself His temple. This same Lord is the one who should do the building, otherwise it would be by your own efforts. Behold, the most prinicipal foundation of this endeavor is humility.

4-The soul should leave all consolations behind to gain this peace.

To enter through this door of humility you must try and embrace tribulations like sisters, desiring to be ridiculed by all so you have no one console you but God. And you must set it within your breast that only God is your aide and everyone else are as thorns to you. So you will instruct your soul to be alone with God, imagining as if others were putting you to shame or insulting you. Thus you would have to go along content, and suffer with joy, being certain that God is with you. And you should not desire or pursue any other prize but to suffer for His love, honor and glory. You must persevere and smile if someone tells you insulting words, despises or scolds you. A great treasure lies beneath the surface, because a soap that cleanses all faults is a tribulation well suffered indeed. Lastly, you are not to desire honors – even though no one loves you or notices you in this life- but rather that you be allowed to suffer for Jesus Christ crucified.

Guard against yourself like an enemy. Do not follow your will, understanding, or desires if you do not wish to lose yourself. For this alone you should be equipped to defend against yourself. And when your will wants something even though it be holy place it openly and alone with profound humility before the Lord, praying that His will be done on the matter. And do this with a pure desire and without a hint of self-love, knowing that nothing is your own. Nor can you keep yourself from your opinions which bring with them a type of holiness and peace along with indiscrete jealousy of which Christ Our Lord says: Beware of prophets that come dressed as sheep and are ravenous wolves, by their fruits you will know them. Their fruits are leaving your soul troubled and uneasy. Everything that strays from humility- this interior peace and calm- is like anything else, a false prophet and a devouring wolf. Who comes under the appearance of a sheep to rob and deprive you of humility and the necessary calm you hoped to take advantage of. It so happens that what has been gained after many days with much effort is lost in a short while, and it is the theft of these same wolves. The greater signs of holiness a thing possesses the more it should be examined. And this should be done with great calm and interior peace as has been said. Do not be troubled if you should fail in some of this but humble yourself before the Lord and recognize your weakness. And take head for a later time should the Lord humble some hidden pride that you are as yet unaware of. Do not be troubled if the embers of vice touch your soul but take care and softly remove your spirit from them. Place yourself in a calm peace and do not be troubled, disturbed, happy, or sad, but keep your soul peaceful and pure for God. Which you will find in your insides assuring you that the Divine Will is always to our benefit.

5. How the soul should remain in solitude so God can work on it.

You should hold your soul in high esteem for it is a temple where God stays and dwells. Value it so highly that you do not mix it with anything else. Put your hope solely in the Lord’s return. That it desires to be alone without thoughts, desires, and without will. Never look indiscretely for travails to endure for God but along with the advise of your spiritual father. But let Him dispose your will to suffer for His love what He requires. Never do what you desire instead let God do what He wills through you.

May your will be free in everything as well as your desires. That you desire nothing. But when you do, if something is done which you do not want, but just the opposite, do not be pained but let your spirit be as calm as if you had not desired anything at all. This is true freedom, not being attached to anything. God desires your soul alone so that He can work great marvels within you. Oh solitude where the high city of Jerusalem will be built! Oh happy exile! Oh desert in which we can enjoy God so easily! Do not stop on this road, take off your shoes and enter, for this is sacred ground. Do not stop and wave to anyone on the way, let the dead bury the dead. You are going to the land of the living; death has no stake in you.

6. On the prudence that one should have with the love of neighbour so that this peace is not disturbed.

Experience will show you that this path clearly leads to eternal life for the love of God and neighbor will infuse your soul. The Lord said he came to set the earth on fire and he wants nothing else than for it burn. Even though God’s love has no limit, love of neighbour does. And if you do not handle it with moderation and temperance this other love can destroy you. For edifying others you would be destroyed. You should love your neighbour so that your soul does not suffer any detriment. Never do anything just to give an example to another person or win other people over since you will only end up at a loss for yourself.

Do everything sweetly and smoothly without caring for anything but to please God. Humble yourself in all your works and you will know that you can get little out of things done just for yourself or others. Be sure not to have such a fervour in your soul that you lose your peace and calm. Also be desirious and thirsty that everyone know this truth that you understand so that they can get drunk on this wine that God promises to everyone for free. Your neighbor’s thirst should accompany you, having received it from the hand of the Lord. But not aquired through overzealousness. So if God has planted this thirst in the solitude of your own soul, He will reap it in due time.

Do not pursue or sow anything; rather leave your soul alone so that God can plant His seed there. God desires your soul alone unattached to anything so that He can tie and bind you to Himself. Let Him bind you. Allow yourself to relax in the calm of your spirit and wait for Him to inhabit you. Lose all your worries, walk alone and unattached to any place so that God can put you on and supply you with what you ought to think. Be forgetful of yourself so that only love lives in your soul. So that without any diligence that disturbs or removes this peace you should pacify you favors with temperance. God will thus preserve all peace and tranquility within you. Since the silence in your soul is like a kind of shouting, this need for peace is what determines everything.

It is nothing other than handing your soul over to God. Your soul unoccupied, this is to be done without thinking you are doing anything at all for you should understand that God does it. And for this silence on your part the Lord wants only that you humble yourself before Him. So that you may offer Him an unburdened soul not tied down to the earth. But with a burning desire that the Divine Will accomplish itself perfectly in you.