radually to die. Lastly in drawing with it
the other powers, by means of the charity with which it is filled. It
causes them gradually to be reunited in the Center, and lost there as
to their own nature and operations.

This loss is called the annihilation of the powers. Although in
themselves they still subsist, yet they seem annihilated to us, in
proportion as charity fills and inflames; it becomes so strong, as by
degrees to surmount all the activities of the will of man, subjecting
it to that of God. When the soul is docile, and leaves itself to be
purified, and emptied of all that which it has of its own, opposite to
the will of God, it finds itself by little and little, detached from
every emotion of its own, and placed in a holy indifference, wishing
nothing but what God does and wills. This never can be effected by the
activity of our own will, even though it were employed in continual
acts or resignation. These though very virtuous, are so far one's own
actions, and cause the will to subsist in a multiplicity, in a kind of
separate distinction or dissimilitude from God.

When the will of the creature entirely submits to that of the Creator,
suffering freely and voluntarily and yielding only a concurrence to the
divine will (which is its absolute submission) suffering itself to be
totally surmounted and destroyed, by the operations of love; this
absorbs the will into self, consummates it in that of God, and purifies
it from all narrowness, dissimilitude, and selfishness.

The case is the same with the other two powers. By means of charity,
the two other theological virtues, faith and hope, are introduced.
Faith so strongly seizes on the understanding, as to make it decline
all reasonings, all particular illuminations and illustrations, however
sublime. This sufficiently demonstrates how far visions, revelations
and ecstasies, differ from this, and hinder the soul from being lost in
God. Although by them it appears lost in Him for some transient
moments, yet it is not a true loss, since the soul which is entirely
lost in God no more finds itself again. Faith then makes the soul lose
every distinct light, in order to place it in its own pure light.

The memory, too, finds all its little activities surmounted by degrees,
and absorbed in hope. Finally the powers are all concentrated and lost
in pure love. It engulfs them into itself by means of their sovereign,
the WILL. The will is the sovereign of the powers an