Chapter 40
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
Chapter 40 We need to long in love with Jesus, renouncing sin for love; that the vileness of sin exceeds all pains; that God loves us most tenderly while we are in sin; and that we need to do the same thing for our neighbor.
It is an act of sovereign friendship on the part of our courteous Lord that He tenderly preserves us while we are in sin, and that, furthermore, He touches us most secretly, showing us our sin by the sweet light of mercy and grace. But when we have seen how foul we are, we imagine that God must be angry with us for our sin. Then we are stirred by the Holy
Spirit, by means of contrition, to pray and desire to amend our lives, and with all our powers, to lessen God's wrath until such time as we can find rest of soul and relief in conscience.
Then we hope that God has forgiven us our sins, and that it is the truth.
Then our courteous Lord shows Himself to the soul most merrily and with a glad expression. With a friendly welcome, as if the soul had been in pain and imprisoned, He says sweetly, "My darling, I am glad you have come to Me. In all this misery I have ever been with you. Now you see My loving, and we are made one in bliss."
Thus are sins forgiven by mercy and grace, and thus our soul is received with honor, in joy, just as it shall be when it comes to heaven — and this as many times as it comes to be forgiven, by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit and the virtue of Christ's passion.
By this I understood in truth that every kind of thing is made ready for us by the great goodness of God, to the extent that when we ourselves are in peace and love we are, in reality, saved. But because we may not possess this reality in its fulness while we are here, it happens that we must ever live in sweet prayer and love-longing with our Lord
Jesus. For He longs always to bring us to the fulness of joy, as was described previously, where He showed His spiritual thirst.
But now, if any man or woman, because of all this spiritual
THE THIRTEENTH SHOWING
T21 comfort that I have described, should be stirred by folly to say or think, "If this is true, then it would be a good thing to sin so one could have a greater reward," or to judge sin less evil, let Him beware of this stirring. For, in truth, if it comes, it is untrue, and emanates from the enemy of the same true
Love that teaches us all this blessed comfort. For the same true love that touches us all by His blessed comfort teaches us that we should hate sin for the sake of love alone. I am sure, from my own feelings, that the more often any soul following its proper nature sees this truth in the courteous love of our
Lord God, the more loath it is to sin and the more ashamed it is. For if all the pains in hell, in purgatory, and on earth — death and all the rest — were laid before us next to sin, we should rather choose all that pain than sin. Sin is so vile, and so greatly to be hated that it can't be compared to any pain that is not itself sin. No harder hell than sin was showed to me, for a soul following its proper nature has no hell but sin, because all is good except sin, and nothing except sin is evil.
When, by the working of mercy and grace, we fix our will in love and humility, we are made entirely fair and clean. And God is as anxious to save man as He is powerful and wise to accomplish it [man's salvation].
Christ Himself is the ground of all the laws of Christian men, and He taught us to return good for evil. Here we can see that He Himself is this charity and does to us as He teaches us to do to others, He does not will that our love towards ourselves and our fellow Christians be broken, any more than His love for us is broken because of our sin, for He wills that we be like Him in the wholeness of endless love for our fellow Christians. No more than His love for us is broken because of our sin does He will that our love toward ourselves and our fellow Christians be broken. Rather, He wills that we nakedly hate the sin and endlessly love the soul as God loves it. Then we will hate sin as God hates it and love the soul as God loves it, for this word the Lord said is an endless comfort: "I keep you most securely."
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
~ Chapter 41 THE FOURTEENTH SHOWING is what was said before: it is impossible that we should pray for mercy and lack it; how God wills that we continue to pray even though we are dry and barren, because that prayer is acceptable and pleasing to Him.
After this our Lord gave me a showing about prayer, in which I saw the two conditions our Lord intends for it. The first is rightfulness. The second is sure trust.
But still many times our trust is not full, because we are not sure that God hears us as we think He does, both because of our unworthiness and because we feel absolutely nothing, for we are frequently as barren and dry after our prayers as we were before them. And this folly in our feelings is the cause of our weakness. I have felt this way myself.
Our Lord brought all this suddenly to my mind, and showed these words, saying, "I am the ground of your beseeching. First, it is My will that you have what you ask, and then, I make you will it. Since I make you ask it, and you do ask it, how should it, then, be that you should not have what you ask?"
Thus, our good Lord showed a powerful comfort (as its words make clear), along with the three that follow. And in the first reason, where He said, "...and you do ask it," He showed the very great pleasure and the endless reward that He wills to give us because of our beseeching. In the sixth phrase, where He says, "how should it then be...?" the question is intended as an impossibility. For it is most impossible that we should ask for mercy and grace and not receive them.
Everything our good Lord makes us ask Him for, He Himself has ordained for us from eternity.
Here we can see that our asking is not the cause of the good things God does for us and the grace He gives us. This He showed in truth when He said all these sweet words: "I am the ground...."
Our good Lord wills that this be known by His lovers on earth, and the more clearly we know it, the more we should ask, if we take it wisely, for so our Lord intends. This "be-
THE FOURTEENTH SHOWING
seeching" is a true, gracious, lasting disposition of the soul which is united and fastened into the will of our Lord by the sweet, secret work, of the Holy Spirit.
Our Lord Himself is the first receiver of our prayer, as I see it, and takes it most thankfully. Rejoicing greatly in it, He sends it up above and sets it in among His treasure, where it shall never perish. It is there, before God with all His holy ones, continually being received and continually assisting our needs. And when we shall enter into our bliss, it shall be given to us as a degree of joy, with his endless thanks so full of honor.
Our Lord is most glad and delighted with our prayer. He looks for it, and He wills to have it, for with His grace He makes us as like Himself in condition as we are in nature. This is His blessed will, for He says, "Pray inwardly, though you think it gives you no satisfaction. For the prayer is profitable though you feel nothing, yes, even though you see nothing, though you think you can do nothing. In dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in feebleness — then is your prayer most pleasing to Me, though you think it gives you but little satisfaction. And so it is with all your believing prayers, in my sight."
Because of the reward and the endless thanks He will give us for it, He covets our continual prayer in His sight.
God accepts the good will and the bitter labor of His servant, however we may feel. Therefore, it pleases Him that we work reasonably, with discretion, both in our prayers and in our good living by His help and His grace, concentrating our powers on Him until we have, in fulness of joy, Him whom we seek; that is, Jesus. This He shows in the fifteenth showing, in this word: "You will have me for your reward."
Thanking also belongs to prayer. Thanking is a new, inward knowing, with great reverence and loving awe. It is a turning of our self with all our might to the working that our good Lord stirs us to, rejoicing and thanking Him inwardly.
Sometimes, because of its abundance, it [thanking] breaks out audibly and says, "Good Lord, many thanks! Blessed may you be!" Sometimes, when the heart feels nothing because it