You see then clearly, Theotimus, that the outflowing of a soul into her God is a true ecstasy, by which the soul quite transcends the limits of her natural form of existence (maintien) being wholly mingled with, absorbed and engulfed in, her God. Hence it happens that such as attain to these holy excesses of heavenly love, afterwards, being come to themselves, find nothing on the earth that can content them, and living in an extreme annihilation of themselves, remain much weakened in all that belongs to the senses, and have perpetually in their hearts the maxim of the Blessed Mother (S.) Teresa: "What is not God is to me nothing." And it seems that such was the loving passion of that great friend of the well-beloved, who said: I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me, [302] and: Our life is hid with Christ in God. [303] For tell me, I pray you, Theotimus, if a drop of common water, thrown into an ocean of some priceless essence, were alive, and could speak and declare its condition, would it not cry out with great joy: O mortals! I live indeed, but I live not myself, but this ocean lives in me, and my life is hidden in this abyss?

 The soul that has flowed out into God dies not, for how can she die by being swallowed up in life? But she lives without living in herself, because, as the stars without losing their light still do not shine in the presence of the sun, but the sun shines in them and they are hidden in the light of the sun, so the soul, without losing her life, lives not herself when mingled with God, but God lives in her. Such, I think, were the feelings of the great Blessed (SS.) Philip Neri and Francis Xavier, when, overwhelmed with heavenly consolations, they petitioned God to withdraw himself for a space from them, since his will was that their life should a little longer appear unto the world; which could not be while it was wholly hidden and absorbed in God.