Chapter XLI
"I am the Ground of your beseeching."
AFTER this our Lord shewed concerning Prayer. In which Shewing I see two conditions in our Lord's signifying: one is rightfulness, another is sure trust.
But yet often our trust is not : for we are not sure that God heareth us, as we think because of our unworthiness, and because we feel right nothing, (for we are as barren and dry often after our prayers as we were before); and this, in our feeling our folly, is cause of our weakness. For thus have I felt in myself.
And all this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind, and shewed these words, and said: I am Ground of your beseeching: first it is my will that you have it; and after, I make you to will it; and after, I make you to beseech it and you beseech it. How should it then be that you shouldst not have your beseeching?
And thus in the first reason, with the three that follow, our good Lord shews a mighty comfort, as it may be seen in the same words. And in the first reason, - where He says: And you beseech it, there He shews His great pleasure, and endless reward that He will give us for our beseeching. And in the second reason, where He says: How should it then be? etc., this was said for an impossible thing. For it is most impossible that we should beseech mercy and grace, and not have it. For everything that our good Lord makes us to beseech, Himself has ordained it to us from without beginning. Here may we see that our beseeching is not cause of God's goodness; and that shewed He truly in all these sweet words when He says: I am the Ground. - And our good Lord wills that this be known of His lovers in earth; and the more that we know it the more should we beseech, if it be wisely taken; and so is our Lord's meaning.
Beseeching is a true, gracious, lasting will of the soul, joined and fastened into the will of our Lord by the sweet inward work of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Himself, He is the first receiver of our prayer, as to my sight, and taketh it thankfully and highly enjoying; and He sends it up above and sets it in the Treasure, where it shall never perish. It is there before God with all His Holy continually received, ever speeding the help of our needs; and when we shall receive our bliss it shall be given us for a degree of joy, with endless worshipful thanking from Him. Glad and merry is our Lord of our prayer; and He looks thereafter and He wills to have it because with His grace He makes us like to Himself in condition as we are in kind: and so is His blissful will. for that He says thus: Pray inwardly, though you thinks it savour you not: for it is profitable, though you feel not, though you see nothing; yea, though you think you canst not. For in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in feebleness, then is your prayer wellpleasant to me, though you thinks it savour you nothing but little. And so is all your believing prayer in my sight. For the reward and the endless thanks that He will give us, He is covetous to have us pray continually in His sight. God accepts the goodwill and the travail of His servant, howsoever we feel: wherefore it pleases Him that we work both in our prayers and in good living, by His help and His grace, reasonably with discretion keeping our powers turned to Him, till when that we have Him that we seek, in fulness of joy: that is, Jesus. And that shewed He in the Fifteenth Revelation, farther on, in this word: You shall have me to your reward. And also to prayer belongs thanking. Thanking is a true inward knowing, with great reverence and lovely fear turning ourselves with all our mights to the working that our good Lord stirs us to, enjoying and thanking inwardly. And sometimes, for plenteousness it breaks out with voice, and says: Good Lord, I thank You! Blessed may You be! And sometime when the heart is dry and feels not, or else by temptation of our enemy, - then it is driven by reason and by grace to cry on our Lord with voice, rehearing His blessed Passion and His great Goodness; and the virtue of our Lord's word turns into the soul and quickens the heart and enters it by His grace into true working, and makes it pray right blissfully. And truly to enjoy our Lord, it is a blissful thanking in His sight.