Chapter 39
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
With this showing God made mention that Saint John of Beverley, in his youth and tender years, was a most valuable servant to God, extremely good, loving and reverencing
Him. Nevertheless, God allowed him to fall, mercifully preserving him from perishing or losing time. Afterward God raised him to grace many times greater, and by the contrition and humility he practiced in his living, God has given him joys in heaven many times surprising what he would have had, had he not fallen. And God shows on earth that this is the truth by means of abundant miracles, performed continually around the body of Saint John of Beverley. All this was shown and done to make us glad and merry in love.
Chapter 39 Of the sharpness of sin and the goodness of contrition; how our compassionate Lord wills that we do not despair because we fall frequently.
Sin is the sharpest scourge that any chosen soul can be struck with. This scourge beats a man or woman completely to a pulp, makes him so entirely noxious in his own sight that after a while he judges of himself that he is worthy only to sink into hell. He feels this way until contrition takes hold of him, by the touch of the Holy Spirit, and transforms the bitterness into hope of God's mercy.
Then his wounds begin to heal, and his soul, turned to the life of holy Church, quickens. The Holy Spirit leads him to confession of his own free will, to confess his sins nakedly and honestly, with great sorrow and great shame, because he has befouled the fair image of God. Then, for each sin, he undertakes the penance given him by his confessor, who is grounded in holy Church by the teaching of the Holy
Spirit.
This is an act of meekness that greatly pleases God. So is accepting the bodily sickness God sends, the sorrow and shame that come from without, the reproof and contempt of this world, and all the kinds of grievance, and the tempta-
THE THIRTEENTH SHOWING
tions that are cast upon body and soul. Our Lord preserves us most carefully when it seems to us that we are nearly forsaken and cast away for our sins, and that because we have deserved it. But because of the meekness we get through these trials, we are wholly raised in God's sight by His grace. We are moved with such great contrition, compassion and true longing for God that we are suddenly delivered from sin and pain, are taken up to bliss, and are made fellows with the noble saints.
By contrition we are made clean; by compassion we are made ready, and by true longing for God we are made worthy. These are the three means, as I understand it, by which all souls — that is to say, all souls that have been sinners on earth and shall be saved — come to heaven, for by these medicines it would profit every sinful soul to be healed.
Though the sinner be healed, his wounds are seen before God — not as wounds but as honors. And likewise, as we are punished here with sorrow and penance, we shall be rewarded in heaven by the courteous love of our Lord God
Almighty, Who wills that no one who comes there shall suffer any loss at all for his bitter labor. For He sees sin as sorrow and pain to His lovers, to whom, for love, He assigns no blame.
The reward that we shall receive will not be little; it will be high, glorious and full of honor. In the same way, shame shall also be transformed into honor and more joy. Our courteous
Lord does not will that His servants despair, either for frequent or for serious failures, for our failures do not prevent
Him from loving us.
Peace and love are ever in us — being and working — but we are not always in peace and love. He wills, however, that we take heed that He is the ground of our whole life in love, and furthermore that He is our everlasting preserver.
He defends us powerfully against our enemies, who are most deadly and fierce in their attacks upon us, and our need is all the greater in that we give them the advantage by our failures.