Chapter 77
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
~ For this I understood in the showing about compassion.
From this blissful showing of our Lord, I had the understanding of two opposites. The one is the wisest thing any creature can do in this life, and the other is its greatest folly.
The wisest thing a creature can do is to act according to the will and the advice of his noblest sovereign Friend. This
Friend is Jesus, and it is His will and counsel that we hold ourselves with Him and fasten ourselves in homely fashion to Him evermore, whatever the state we happen to be in. For whether we are dirty or clean, we are always the same in His loving. He wills that we never flee from Him whether because of well-being or of woe.
But because of the changeability we dwell in, we often fall into sin of ourselves. Then we have this difficulty from the stirring of our enemy and from our own folly and blindness.
For they say thus: "You know well that you are a wretch and a sinner, and are also untrue, because you don't keep your promise. You have frequently promised our Lord that you will do better, and immediately afterward, you fall again into the same sins, specifically into sloth and the wasting of time." For that is the beginning of sin as I see it, especially for creatures who have given themselves to serve our Lord, with inward contemplation of His blessed goodness. And this makes us afraid to appear before our courteous Lord.
Then it is that our enemy will take us aback because of the pain with which he threatens us, by means of the false dread he gives us of our wretchedness. For it is his intention to make us so depressed and so sorry about this that we will allow the fair, blissful sight of our everlasting Friend to slip out of our minds.
Chapter 77 Of the enmity of the devil, who loses more in our rising up than he wins by our falling, and therefore he is scorned; how the scourge of God should be endured with the spirit of His passion, because that is especially rewarded, more than penances we choose ourselves;
THE SIXTEENTH SHOWING
and that it is necessary that we have woe, but courteous God is our Leader, our Preserver and our bliss.
; Our good Lord showed that enmity of the devil. By this I understood that all that is opposed to love and to peace is from the devil and from his party. Because of our feebleness and our folly, it is ours to fall. Because of mercy and grace from the Holy Spirit, it is ours to rise to greater joy. If our enemy wins anything from us by our falling (for that is his delight), he loses very much more in our rising through charity and meekness. Because of the hatred he has for our souls, our glorious rising gives him such great sorrow and pain that he burns continuously with envy.
In addition, the sorrow he would bring on us shall be turned on himself, and it was for this that our Lord scorned him and showed that he shall be scorned. And this is what made me laugh loud and long.
This, then, is the remedy: that we be aware of our wretchedness and flee to our Lord. For always, the more in need we are, the more profitable it is for us to draw near and touch Him. And this is what we say in our intentions: "I know well I have a shrewd, desired pain, but our Lord is Almighty and may punish me mightily, and He is All-wisdom and may punish me skillfully. And He is All-goodness and loves me most tenderly."
And it is profitable and necessary for us to rest in contemplating this, for it is the most lovely meekness of a sinful soul, wrought by the mercy and grace of the Holy Spirit, when we choose deliberately and gladly to accept the scourging and chastisement that our Lord Himself wills to give us. It will be very tender and very easy, if we will only hold ourselves satisfied with Him and with all His works.
For the penance that a man takes upon himself was not showed me (that is to say, it was not showed me specifically). But it was showed specifically, intensely and with a completely lovely expression, that we should meekly and patiently bear and suffer the penance that God Himself gives us with the spirit of His blessed passion. For when we have
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
the spirit of His blessed passion, with pity and love, then we suffer with Him just as His friends who saw it did.
And this was shown in the thirteenth revelation almost at the beginning, where it speaks of pity. For He says, "Do not accuse yourself too much, judging that your tribulation and your woe are all your own fault. For I do not will that you be imprudently depressed or sorrowful. For I tell you, whatever you do, you will have woe. And therefore I will that you wisely recognize it as your penance, which you are in continually, and that you meekly accept it for your penance. Then you will truly see that all your living is profitable penance."
This place is a prison, this life is a penance, and He wills that we rejoice in the remedy. The remedy is that our Lord is with us, preserving us and leading us into the fulness of joy.
For this, as our Lord intends it, is an endless joy for us: that He Who will be our bliss when we are there is our preserver while we are here. Our way, and our heaven, are true love and secure trust. And of this He gave understanding in the whole revelation, specifically in the showing of His passion where
He made me strongly choose Him for my heaven.
If we flee to our Lord, we shall be comforted; if we touch Him, we shall be made clean; it we cling to Him, we shall be secure and safe from all kinds of perils. For our courteous
Lord wills that we be as homely with Him as heart can think or soul can desire.
But we must be careful that we do not take this homeliness so recklessly that we abandon courtesy. For our Lord Himself is sovereign homeliness — and as homely as He is, so courteous is He, for He is Courtesy itself. And the blessed creatures who shall be in heaven with Him without end, He wills to be like Himself in everything. To be perfectly like our Lord is our true salvation and our complete bliss. If we do not know how we shall do so, let us desire all of it from our Lord, and He will teach us, for it is His own delight and His glory, blessed may He be!
THE SIXTEENTH SHOWING
Chapter 78 Our Lord wills that we know four kinds of goodness that He does for us; how we need the light of grace to know our sin and feebleness, for we are nothing of ourselves but wretchedness; that we cannot know the horribleness of sin as it is; how our enemy wishes we would never recognize our sins until our last day; that, therefore, we are much bound to God, Who shows them to us now.
Because of His mercy, our Lord shows us our sin and our feebleness, by the sweet, gracious light of Himself. For our sin is so foul, so vile, and so horrible that He, because of His courtesy, does not will to show it to us except by the light of His grace and mercy.
He wills that we have knowledge of four things. The first is that He is the ground from Whom we have our entire life and our whole being. The second is that He preserves us powerfully and mercifully while we are in our sins, among all our enemies, who are most deadly against us. And we are so much the more in peril because we give them occasion to attack and do not recognize our own need.
The third is how courteously He preserves us and causes us to know that we go astray. The fourth is how steadfastly
He waits for us, and does not change His expression. For He wills that we should be turned and joined to Him in love as He is to us.
And thus, by this grace-giving knowledge, we can profitably see our sin without despairing. For, in truth, it is necessary for us to see it. By the sight, we should be made ashamed of ourselves, and our pride and presumption should be broken down by it.
It is profitable for us to see, in truth, that, of ourselves, we are absolutely nothing except sin and wretchedness. And thus it is by the sight of this lesser loss, that our Lord shows us the greater [good] that is wasted, which we do not see. He, because of his courtesy, measures the sight to our weakness, for it is so foul and so horrible that we could not stand to see it as it is.