Lift up your
heart
with humble love; and mean God and not what you can get out of him. [3]
Hate to think
of anything but God himself so that nothing occupies your mind or will but
God himself. [3]
Try
to forget all created things. Let
them go and pay no attention to them. Do
not give up but work away. [3]
When
you begin you find only darkness and a
cloud of unknowing. Reconcile
yourself to wait in the darkness as long as necessary after him who you love.
[3]
Strike
that thick cloud of unknowing with the sharp
dart of longing love, and on no account think of giving up. [6]
He
may well be loved but not thought. By
love he may be caught and held, but by thought never. [6]
You
are to reach out with a naked intention
directed towards God and him alone.
Mean God who created you, and bought you, and graciously called you to
this state of life. [7]
Let
some such word as ‘God’ or ‘love’ or
some other word given to you, be fixed to your heart so that it is always
there, come what may. It will be your shield and spear in peace and war
alike. [7]
If
God leads you to certain words my
advice is not to let them go, that is, if you are using words at all in your
prayer. [7]
If
any thought should intrude itself in the
darkness, asking what you are seeking, and what you are wanting, answer
that it is God that you want: ‘Him I covet, him I seek, and him alone.’ [7]
________________________________
Just
as this cloud of unknowing is, as it were, above you and between you and God,
so you must put a cloud of forgetting
between you and all creation. Everything must be hidden beneath this cloud of
forgetting. Indeed, if wed may say so
reverently, when we are engaged in this work it profits little or nothing to
think of even God’s kindness or worth, or of our Lady, or pf the saints and
angels, or of the joys of heaven. It may
be good sometimes to think particularly of God’s kindness and worth, yet in the
work before us it must be put down and covered with the cloud of forgetting.
[5]
______________________________
When
you have done all, you can to make
the proper amendments laid down by Holy Church, then get to work quick sharp!
[31]
If memories of
your past actions keep coming between you and God, or any new
thought or sinful impulse, you are resolutely to step over them because of your
deep love for God. Try to cover then
with the thick cloud of forgetting. And
if it is really hard work you can use every dodge, scheme and spiritual
stratagem you can find to put them away.
Do everything you can to act as if you did not know that these thoughts
were strongly pushing in between you and God.
Try to look over their shoulders, seeking something else – which is God,
shrouded in the cloud of unknowing. [31]
(freely translated by Fr. Robert Llewellyn form the Clifton Wolters translation)
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