Chapter 18
THE EIGHTH SHOWING
was that His bodily nature asked for something to drink, and there was no kind of comfort ministered to Him in all His woe and discomfort. As hard and grievous was His pain, it was much harder and more grievous when the moisture failed and all began to dry and cling this way.
There were two pains that were shown in the blessed head.
The first accomplished the drying while it was moist. The second was slow, with the drying and clinging of the flesh, and worked with the blowing of the wind from without that dried
Him more, and more pained Him with cold than my heart can take in. I saw that anything I might say about all His other pains would be too little, for they cannot be expressed.
This showing of Christ's sufferings filled me full of pain. I knew well that He had suffered only once, but that He willed to show His suffering to me, and to fill me with the experience of it, as I had previously desired. During all the time I was experiencing Christ's pain, I felt no pain except His.
Then it occurred to me that I little knew what pain it was I had asked, and like a coward, repented of my request, thinking that if I had known how bad it would be, I'd have been loath to ask for it. For it seemed to me my pain went beyond bodily death. I thought, "Is any pain in hell like this?" And I was answered in my reason, "Hell has another pain, for despair is there. But of all the pains that lead to salvation, the greatest is to see your love suffer." How could any pain be greater to me than to see Him, who is all my life, all my bliss and my joy, suffer?
Here I felt truthfully that I loved Christ Himself so much more than myself that there was no pain that could be suffered like the sorrow I had to see Him in pain.
Chapter 18 Of the spiritual martyrdom of our Lady and other lovers of Christ, and how all things suffered with Him, good and all.
Here I saw a part of the compassion of our Lady Saint Mary for Christ. She was so much one with Him in love that
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
the greatness of her loving was the cause of the intensity of her pain. For in this I saw the substance of the natural love
His creatures have for Him extended by grace. This natural love was most fully showed in His sweet mother, and it passed the usual limits, for to the degree that she loved Him more than all others, her pain exceeded theirs. Always, the higher, the mightier, the sweeter the love is, the more sorrow it is for the lover to see the body He loves in pain.
And all His disciples and all His true lovers suffered pain greater than their own bodily dying. For I am sure, judging by my own feeling, that the least of them loved God so much more than himself that it [the love causing pain] goes beyond anything I can say.
Here I saw in my understanding a great joining together between Christ and us, for when He was in pain, we were in pain, and all creatures that could suffer pain suffered with Him — that is to say, all creatures God has made for our service.
The firmament and the earth failed for sorrow, according to their nature, at the time of Christ's dying, for it belonged naturally to them as a property to know Him for their lord and the One in Whom all their strengths were grounded. When
He failed, then it was suitable and necessary to them by their nature to fail with Him, as far as they could, for sorrow at His pain.
And those who were His friends suffered pain for love, and all in general suffered as well — that is to say, those who did not know Him suffered because all kinds of comfort failed except for that which God's hidden power preserved. By "those who knew Him not" I mean the two kinds of people who can be seen in two persons. The one was Pilate; the other was
St. Dionysius of Frarice, who was a pagan at that time. For when he saw the strange and terrible sorrows and dreads that happened at that time, he said, "Either the world is now at an end, or else He who is the Maker of nature suffers." That is why he wrote on an altar, "This is the altar of an unknown god."
God, Who of His goodness made the planets and the elements work naturally both for the blessed man and for the
THE EIGHTH SHOWING
cursed, at this time withdrew from both. It was for this reason that they who knew Him not were in sorrow at that time. Thus did our Lord Jesus suffer and become nothing for us, and in the same manner we suffer and are made nothing with Him and shall do until we come into His bliss, as I shall tell you later.
Chapter 19 Of the comforting beholding or the crucifix; how the desire of the flesh, without consent of the soul, is no sin; and that the flesh must be in pain, suffering until both soul and body are joined to Christ.
At this time I wanted to look away from the cross, and I dared not do so, for well I knew that while I gazed upon the cross I was secure and safe. Therefore I would not agree to put my soul in peril, for outside of the cross there was no security against the temptations of fiends.
Then, as if it had been a friend, my reason made me a suggestion, saying, "Look up to heaven, to His Father." I saw clearly, with the faith I felt, that there was nothing between the cross and heaven that could have disturbed me. I had either to look up, or to answer.
I answered inwardly with all the strength of my soul, and said, "No! I may not, for You are my heaven." I said this, for I would not look away from the cross. I would rather have been in that pain until Judgment Day, than have come to heaven by any means other than Him, for I knew well that He Who had bound me so painfully would Himself unbind me when He willed to do so.
Thus was I taught to choose for my heaven Jesus, whom I saw only in pain at that time. No other heaven pleased me but Jesus, Who shall be my bliss when I come there. It has been a comfort to me ever since that, by His grace, I chose Jesus for my heaven in all this time of passion and sorrow. It has also been a lesson to me that I should always, in well-being and woe, choose only Jesus for my heaven, in the same way.
And though, like a coward, I had repented of my request (as I said before, if I had realized what intense pain it would
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
be, I'd have been loath to ask it), here I saw in truth that that was the grumbling and judgment of the flesh, without the soul's assent. To this God assigns no blame.
Regret and deliberate choice were two contraries which I felt simultaneously at that time. They are the two parts of a whole, the one outward and the other inward.
The outward part is our mortal flesh, which is now in pain and misery and shall continue so in this life. Most of what I felt at this time was from this part, and it was in this part that I regretted my request.
The inward part is a noble, blissful life, which is entirely settled in peace and love and is felt more secretly. It was in this part that, powerfully, wisely and deliberately, I chose
Jesus for my heaven and in this part that I saw in truth that the inward part is master and sovereign of the outward. The inward part neither commands nor takes heed of the will of the outward. Its whole intent and will is endlessly fixed upon being made one with our Lord Jesus.
That the outward part should draw the inward part to assent was not shown to me; it was only shown that the inward part draws the outward part by grace, and that both shall be made one in bliss without end, by the virtue of Christ.
Chapter 20 Of Christ's passion beyond words; and of three things always to be remembered about the passion.
And thus I saw our Lord Jesus lingering in pain for a long time, for the oneness with the godhead gave strength to the manhood to suffer for love more than any man could suffer.
I mean not only more pain than any man could suffer but also that He suffered more pain than all saved men who ever existed, from the very beginning to the last day, could say or even fully imagine, considering the worthiness of the noblest, most glorious King, and His shameful, cruel, painful death.
For He Who is noblest and worthiest was most completely reduced to nothingness, most foully condemned and utterly