Chapter 53
THE FOURTEENTH SHOWING
This is the lower part of man's life, and it was showed in the outward expression. In this showing I saw two parts. The one is the pitiable falling of man. The second is the glorious satisfaction that our Lord has made for man.
The Lord's other expression was showed inwardly, and that was more noble, and all one thing. For this life and the virtue that we have in the lower part is from the higher part and comes down to us by grace from the natural love of the self. Between the higher and lower parts nothing can exist, for it is all the same love, which has now a double working in us in blessed love. For in the lower part are pains and passions, compassions and pities, mercies and forgiveness, and such other such things as are profitable for us. But in the higher part are none of these; all is a single, noble love and marvelous joy. In this marvelous joy all pains are wholly destroyed and nobly repaid.
In this [double expression] our good Lord showed not only God's excusing of us but also the nobility, full of honor, to which He shall bring us, turning all our blame into endless glory.
Chapter 53 The kindness of God assigns no blame to His chosen ones, for in them is a godly will that never consents to sin; for it is becoming to the compassion of God to be so knitted to them that a substance in them is kept which can never be separated from Him.
And I saw that He wills that we understand that He judges the fall of no creature that will be saved any more harshly than He judged the fall of Adam, who, as we know, was endlessly loved and securely preserved in all his time of need and is now blissfully restored in lofty, surpassing joys. For our Lord God is so good, so gentle and so courteous that He can never assign blame to those by whom He shall forever be blessed and praised.
In what I have just said, my desire was answered, in part, and my great difficulty was somewhat eased by a lovely, gra-
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
cious showing from our Lord God. In this showing I saw and understood most surely that in each soul that shall be saved, there is a godly will that has never assented to sin and never shall do so. This will is so good that it can never will evil, but forever continually wills good and performs it in the sight of God. Therefore, our Lord wills that we know this both in the faith and in our belief, and that we realize, specifically and in truth, that we have all of this blessed will, whole and safe, in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is so because each nature with which heaven shall be made completely full must and ought, on account of God's rightfulness, be so knitted to and made one with Him that in each nature there is preserved a substance that never can nor will be parted from Him. This is accomplished through His own good will in His endless foreseeing purpose, which I have spoken of before.
Notwithstanding this rightful knitting and this endless joining together, still the redemption and buying back of mankind is necessary and profitable in every way as it has been accomplished, for the same purpose and to the same end that holy Church teaches us in our faith.
I saw that God never started loving mankind. For the condition man shall have in endless bliss, completely filling up the joy of God as far as His works are concerned, shall be exactly the same as that which He has had in the foresight of God — [being] known and loved from without beginning in God's rightful intent. By the endless assent of complete accord of the whole Trinity, Jesus, its mid-person, willed to be the ground and the head of this fair nature. Out of Him we all come; in Him we are all enclosed; into Him we shall all go, finding in Him our complete heaven in everlasting joy by the foreseeing purpose of the whole blessed Trinity from eternity.
Before He made us He loved us, and when we were made we loved Him. This love is made of the natural substantial goodness of the Holy Spirit. It is powerful by reason of the might of the Father, and wise in mind of the wisdom of the Son. And thus is man's soul made by God and at the same point knitted to God.
Thus I understood that man's soul is made from nothing.