Chapter 45
THE FOURTEENTH SHOWING
in God, Who is Love. Where truth and wisdom are, in truth, there is love, coming in reality from both of them, and all are of God's making. For He is endless sovereign Truth, endless sovereign Wisdom and endless sovereign Love, all of them uncreated.
And man's soul is a creature of God that has the same properties in created form. It does forever what it was made for: it sees God, it contemplates God, and it loves God. Because of this, God rejoices in the creature and the creature rejoices in God, marveling endlessly. In this marveling, it sees its God, its Lord, its Maker — so noble, so great, and so good in comparison to one who is created, that it is with difficulty that the creature seems like anything to itself. But the brightness and clearness of truth and wisdom make it see and recognize that it is made for the love in which God endlessly preserves it.
Chapter 45 Of the firm and deep judgment of God, and the variable judgment of man.
God judges us on our natural substance, which is forever kept one in Him, whole and safe without end. And this judgment is made out of His rightfulness. We humans make judgments on our changeable sensuality, which seems now one thing, now another, according as it draws from one part or the other, and on what shows outwardly. And this judgment is muddled. Sometimes it is good and easy, and sometimes it is hard and grievous. But inasmuch as it is good and easy, it belongs to rightfulness. And inasmuch as it is hard and grievous, our good Lord Jesus reforms it by mercy and grace through the virtue of His blissful passion, to bring it into rightfulness. And though these two judgments are thus brought into agreement and made one, still both shall be known in heaven without end.
The first judgment, which is from God's rightfulness, is [the judgment] of His noble, endless love. This is the fair
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
sweet judgment that was shown in all the fair revelations in which I saw Him assign to us no kind of blame. And though it was sweet and delectable, I could not be fully set at ease in beholding only this, because of the judgment of holy Church, which I had understood before and which was always in my sight. It was by this judgment that it seemed to me that I ought, and had, to know myself as a sinner. By the same judgment, I understood that sinners are sometimes worthy of blame and wrath. These two things [blame and wrath] I could not see in God, and my desire to do so was greater than I can or may tell. For the higher judgment, God Himself showed at the same time, and therefore I ought and had to accept it. But the lower judgment had been taught me previously by holy
Church, and therefore I could in no way abandon the lower judgment.
Then it was my desire that I might see in God in what way the judgment holy Church teaches in this matter is true in His sight, and how I ought to understand it in truth, so that both might be preserved in a way that would give honor to God and be righteous for me.
And to all this I had no other answer than a marvelous example of a lord and a servant, as I shall tell you later, which was shown most powerfully. Even now I remain fixed in desire and will, until the end of my life, to know by grace how to reconcile these two judgments as I ought. For all heavenly things, and all earthly things that belong to heaven, are encompassed in these two judgments. And the more understanding and knowledge we have of these two judgments by the gracious leading of the Holy Spirit, the more we shall see and know our failings. And always, the more that we see them, the more naturally by grace we shall long to be completely filled with endless joy and bliss. For we are made for endless joy and bliss, and our natural substance is now blissful in God, has been so since it was made, and shall be so without end.
THE FOURTEENTH SHOWING
13) Chapter 46 We cannot know ourselves in this life except by faith and grace; but we must know ourselves as sinners; and how God is never angry, being most near the soul, preserving it.
But the passing life that we have here in our sensuality does not know what our self is, except in faith. And when we know and see clearly what our self is in truth, then we shall in truth, see and know our Lord God clearly, in fulness of joy. For this reason, the nearer we are to bliss, the more we ought and have, to long [to know and see our true self] and that both by nature and by grace. We can have knowledge of ourselves in this life by the continuing help and virtue of our noble, proper nature. In this knowledge, we may increase and grow by the furtherance and assistance of mercy and grace, but we may never know ourselves fully, to the ultimate point.
In that point, this passing life and every kind of pain and woe shall have an end. Therefore it properly belongs to us, both by nature and grace, both to long for and to desire with all our powers to know ourselves in the fulness of endless joy. In this complete knowledge we shall in truth know our God clearly in the fulness of endless joy.
And yet, during all this time from the beginning to the end, I had two kinds of showing. The first was of endless, continuing love, with a security in preservation and blissful salvation. For that's what all the showings revealed. The second was of the common teaching of holy Church, of which I had previously been informed; I had been grounded in these teachings, and deliberately kept them in use and in my understanding. The seeing of all this did not come from me, for I was not stirred or led in the smallest point from the common teaching of holy Church by the showing, but was taught in it that I should love and delight in it [that teaching] and that, by doing so, I could, with the help of our Lord and His grace, increase in and rise to more heavenly knowledge and more noble love. And thus, in seeing all of this it seemed to me that I ought and had to see and recognize that we are sinners, that we do many evils that we ought to stop doing, and leave