Chapter XX
"For every man's sin that shall be saved He suffered, and every man's sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Kinship and Love"
AND thus I saw our Lord Jesus languoring long time. For the joining with the Godhead gave strength to the manhood for love to suffer more than all men might suffer: I mean not only more pain than all men might suffer, but also that He suffered more pain than all men of salvation that ever were from the first beginning to the last day might tell or fully think, having regard to the worthiness of the highest worshipful King and the shameful, despised, painful death. For He that is highest and worthiest was most fully made-nothing and most utterly despised.
For the highest point that may be seen in the Passion is to think and know what He is that suffered. And in this Shewing He brought in part to mind the height and nobleness of the glorious Godhead, and with it the preciousness and the tenderness of the blessed Body, which be together united; and also the reluctance that is in our Kind to suffer pain. For as much as He was most tender and pure, right so He was most strong and mighty to suffer.
And for every man's sin that shall be saved He suffered: and every man's sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Kindness and
love. (For in as much as our Lady sorrowed for His pains, in so much He suffered sorrow for her sorrow; - and more, in as greatly as the sweet manhood of Him was worthier in Kind.) For as long as He was able to suffer, He suffered for us and sorrowed for us; and now He is risen and no more able to suffer, yet He suffers with us.
And I, seeing all this by His grace, saw that the Love of Him was so strong which He has to our soul that willingly He chose it with great desire, and mildly He suffered it with well-pleasing.
For the soul that beholds it thus, when it is touched by grace, it shall truly see that the pains of Christ's Passion pass all pains: all pains that is to say, which shall be turned into everlasting, overpassing joys by the virtue of Christ's Passion.
CHAPTER XXI
"We be now with Him in His Pains and His Passion, dying. We shall be with Him in Heaven. Through learning in this little pain that we suffer here, we shall have a high endless knowledge of God which we could never have without that"
IT is God's will, as to my understanding, that we have Three Manners of seeing His blessed Passion. The First is: the hard Pain that He suffered, - seeing it with contrition and compassion. And that shewed our Lord in this time, and gave me strength and grace to see it.
And I looked for the departing with all my might, and thought to have seen the body all dead; but I saw Him not so. And right in the same time that I thought, by the seeming, the life might no longer last and the Shewing of the end behoved needs to be, - suddenly (I seeing in the same Cross), He changed the look of His blessed Face. The changing of His blessed Face changed my, and I was as glad and merry as it was possible. Then brought our Lord merrily to my mind: Where is now any point of the pain, or of your grief? And I was merry.
I understood that we be now, in our Lord's meaning, in His Cross with Him in His pains and His Passion, dying; and we, willingly abiding in the same Cross with His help and His grace to the last point, suddenly He shall change His Cheer to us, and we shall be with Him in Heaven. Betwixt that one and that other shall be no time, and then shall all be brought to joy. And thus said He in this Shewing: Where is now any point of your pain, or your grief? And we shall be blessed.
And here saw I truly that if He shewed now to us His Blissful Cheer, there is no pain in earth or in other place that should grieve us; but all things should be to us joy and bliss. But because He shews to us time of His Passion, as He bare it in this life, and His Cross, for that we are in distress and travail, with Him, as our frailty asks. And the cause why He suffers it to be so, is for that He will of His goodness make us the higher with Him in His bliss; and for this little pain that we suffer here, we shall have a high endless knowing in God which we could never have without that. And the harder our pains have been with Him in His Cross, the more shall our worship be with Him in His Kingdom.
THE NINTH REVELATION