Chapter 47
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
undone many good deeds that we ought to do. For this we deserve pain, blame and wrath.
And notwithstanding all this, I saw in truth that our Lord was never angry, and never will be. For He is God: He is goodness, life, truth, love and peace. His power, His wisdom,
His charity and His unity do not allow Him to be angry.
For I saw truly that to be angry is contrary to the property of His power, the property of His wisdom and the property of His goodness. God is the goodness that cannot be angry, for He is nothing but goodness. Our soul is made one with Him, Who is unchangeable goodness, and between God and our soul there is neither anger nor forgiveness, in His sight.
For our soul is most completely made one with God by His own goodness, so that between God and the soul absolutely nothing else can exist.
The soul was led to this understanding by love and drawn to it by power in every showing: that this is what our good
Lord showed; that this is how it is truly done by His great goodness; and that He wills that we desire to comprehend it, that is to say as far as His creatures can comprehend it. For God willed that everything that the simple soul understood should be shown to it and known by it. The things that He wills, mightily and wisely, to keep secret, He Himself hides for love. I saw in the same showing that many secret things are hidden which shall not be made known until the time that God of His goodness has made us worthy to see them.
I am quite satisfied with this state of affairs, awaiting our Lord's will in this lofty marvel. And now I yield myself to my mother, holy Church, as a simple child ought.
Chapter 47 We must reverently marvel and humbly suffer, ever rejoicing in God; and how our blindness, in that we do not see God, is the cause of sin.
Our soul must pay its debt in two respects. One is that we marvel reverently. The second is that we suffer meekly, ever
THE FOURTEENTH SHOWING
rejoicing in God. For He wills that we realize that in a short time we shall see clearly in Himself all that we desire.
And notwithstanding all of this, I stared and wondered greatly what the mercy and forgiveness of God might be.
For by the teaching I had previously had, I understood that the mercy of God was supposed to be the cessation of His wrath after we had sinned. For it seemed to me that to a soul whose intention and desire is to love, the wrath of God would be harsher than any other pain. That's why I took it that the cessation of His wrath must be one of the principal parts of His mercy. But in nothing that I could see and desire in all the showings could I see this point.
But I shall say something of what I understood and saw about the works of mercy, as God wills to give me grace.
I understood this. Man is changeable in this life, and by frailty and being overcome by simplicity and lack of cunning, he falls into sin. In himself he is powerless and unwise, and his will is overborne. During this time he is in tempests and in sorrow and woe. The cause is blindness, for he does not see God. If he saw God continuously, he would have no mischief-making feelings and no kind of stirring or yearning that would urge him to sin.
I saw and felt this at this same time, and it seemed to me that the feeling was noble and abundant and gracious compared to our usual feelings in this life. But I also thought it was small and low compared to the great desire the soul has to see God.
I felt within myself five kinds of working of the spirit, which are these: rejoicing, mourning, desire, dread, and sure, true hope. I felt "rejoicing" because God gave me the understanding and realization that it was He Himself whom I saw.
I felt "mourning" for my failures. I felt "desire" in that I wished I could see Him ever more and more, understanding and realizing that we shall never have complete rest until we see Him clearly and in truth in heaven. I felt "dread" because it seemed to me all during that time that the sight would fail and I would be left by myself. I felt "sure, true hope" in the endless love by which I saw I would be [protected] by His