Fifth Mansion — Prayer of Union

The Quinta Morada brings the oración de unión — a brief but unmistakable suspension of the soul's faculties (potencias) in which understanding, memory, and will are wholly absorbed in God. Teresa of Ávila employs her famous image of the silkworm dying in the cocoon and emerging as a white butterfly (mariposa blanca) to describe the soul's transformation. The certitude of this union is absolute yet incommunicable — a foretaste of the unio mystica that transcends all discursive knowing, confirmed not by vision but by its lasting fruits of humility and desire for the Cross.