Chapter LXXXIII
"Life, Love, and Light"
I HAD, in part, touching, sight, and feeling in three properties of God, in which the strength and effect of all the Revelation stands: and they were seen in every Shewing, and most properly in the Twelfth, where it says often: It is I. The properties are these: Life, Love, and Light. In life is marvellous homeliness, and in love is gentle courtesy, and in light is endless Nature-hood. These properties were in one Goodness: to which Goodness my Reason would be joined, and cleave to it with all its might. I saw with reverent fear, and highly marvelling in the sight and in the feeling of the sweet accord, that our Reason is in God; understanding that it is the highest gift that we have received; and it is grounded in nature. Our faith is a light by nature coming of our endless Day, that is our Father, God. In which light our Mother, Christ, and our good Lord, the Holy Spirit, leads us in this passing life. This light is measured discreetly, needfully standing to us in the night. The light is cause of our life; the night is cause of our pain and of all our
woe: in which we earn reward and thanks of God. For we, with mercy and grace, steadfastly know and believe our light, going in it wisely and mightily. And at the end of woe, suddenly our eyes shall be opened, and in clearness of light our sight shall be : which light is God, our Maker and Holy Spirit, in Christ Jesus our Saviour. Thus I saw and understood that our faith is our light in our night: which light is God, our endless Day.
CHAPTER LXXXIV
"Charity"
THE light is Charity, and the measuring of this light is done to us profitably by the wisdom of God. For neither is the light so large that we may see our blissful Day, nor is it shut from us; but it is such a light in which we may live carefully, with travail deserved by the endless worship of God. And this was seen in the Sixth Shewing where He said: I thank you of your service and of your travail. Thus Charity keeps us in Faith and Hope, and Hope leads us in Charity. And in the end all shall be Charity. I had three manners of understanding of this light, Charity. The first is Charity unformed; the second is Charity formed; the third is Charity given. Charity unformed is God; Charity formed is our soul in God; Charity given is virtue. And that is a precious gift of working in which we love God, for Himself; and ourselves, in God; and that which God loves, for God.