Chapter 10
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
Chapter 10 THE SECOND SHOWING: it is of the discoloring of His face and of our redemption; of the discoloring of Veronica's veil; and of how it pleases God that we seek Him diligently, abiding in Him steadfastly and trusting Him greatly.
And after this I saw with my own eyes on the face of the crucifix that hung before me part of His passion continually depicted: men's contempt, spitting, sullying and buffeting,
His many exhausting pains — more than I can tell — and frequent changes of color. Once I saw half the face, beginning at the ear, redden over with dried blood until it was covered up to the middle of the face; then the other half was covered in the same manner, while in the first half the color vanished as it had come.
I saw this with my own eyes, dimly and unclearly, and I desired more bodily light so that I could see it more clearly. I was answered in my reason, "If God will show you more, He will be your light; you need none but Him."
For Isaw Him as He is sought. We are now so blind and so unwise that we never seek God until He, of His goodness, shows Himself to us. And when we see anything of Him, through His graciousness, we are stirred by the same grace to seek with great desire to see Him more blissfully. Thus I saw Him and sought Him, I had Him and I wanted Him — and this is, and should be, the way we commonly operate in this matter, as I see it.
Once, my understanding was led down to the seashore.
There I saw hills and valleys, green as if they were mossovergrown, with wrack and gravel. Then I understood thus:
If a person were there under the broad water and could have sight of God as God is continuously with a man, he should be safe in soul and body and take no harm. And beyond this, he should have more solace and comfort than all this world may or can tell.
For God wills that we believe that we see Him continuously, though it seems to us that we see Him only a little, and in this belief He causes us evermore to receive grace. For He
THE SECOND SHOWING
will be seen, and He will be sought; He will be waited for, and He will be trusted.
This second showing was so humble and so small and so simple that my spirits were in great distress as I beheld mourning, full of dread and longing — for I was, for some time, in doubt whether it was a showing or not. And then, at different times, our Lord gave me more light, by which I understood that it really was a showing.
It was a symbol and an image of the shame of our foul deeds, which our fair, bright, blessed Lord bore for our sins.
With its frequent changes of color, it reminded me of the holy veil of Veronica at Rome, on which He imprinted His own holy face when He suffered His hard passion, going by free choice to His death. Many wonder at the brownness, the blackness, the ruefulness and the leanness of this image, questioning how it can be that the image is so discolored and so far from fair, since He imprinted it with His blessed face, which is the fairness of heaven, the flower of earth, and the fruit of the maiden's womb.
I want to explain it as I have understood it by the grace of God. We know in our faith, and believe by the teaching and preaching of holy Church, that the blessed Trinity made mankind to His image and likeness. In the same manner we know that when man fell so deeply and so wretchedly by sin, there was no other help to restore man but through Him Who made man. He Who made man for love wills, by the same love, to restore him to his former bliss, and give him even more. And just as we were created like the Trinity in our first making, our maker wills that we should be like Jesus Christ our Savior in heaven forever, by virtue of our remaking. Then, between these two makings, He wills, for the love and honor of man, to make Himself as like man in this mortal life, in our foulness and our wretchedness, as a man might be if he were without guilt. That's what I meant when I said before that the showing was the image and likeness of our foul black deeds' shame in which our fair, bright, blessed Lord God hid His godhead.
But with full certainty I dare to say (and we ought to be-
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
lieve) that there was never so fair a man as He, up to the time His fair color was changed with hard suffering and sorrow,
His passion and dying. This is further discussed in the eighth showing, which also speaks of this likeness. And where it speaks here of the veil of Veronica at Rome, the eighth showing explains what is meant by the different changes of color and expression — sometimes more comforting and lifelike, sometimes more rueful and marked by death.
This vision was a lesson to my understanding that the continual seeking of the soul for God pleases Him greatly. For the soul may do no more than seek, suffer and trust, and this disposition is wrought in the soul that has it by the Holy
Spirit.
Finding God in clarity is a gift of His special grace, and comes when He wills. The seeking of Him with faith, hope and charity pleases our Lord; the finding of Him pleases the soul and completely fills it with joy. Thus was my understanding taught that seeking is as good as seeing, during the time God allows the soul to labor in distress.
It is God's will that we seek Him until we behold Him, for it is by this means that God, of His special grace, will show
Himself to us when He wills. God Himself shall teach the soul how it shall have Him in beholding Him, and that is the greatest honor to Him and the greatest profit to the soul. This gift is most often received through meekness and virtue with the grace and leading of the Holy Spirit. For a soul that simply fastens itself to God with absolute trust, either in seeking or in seeing, does the greatest honor to God it can do, as I see it.
Two kinds of work can be seen in this vision. The first is seeking. The second is seeing.
The seeking is a common work which every soul can do with God's grace; it ought to be done with discretion and the teaching of holy Church. It is God's will that we have three things in our seeking of Him. The first is that we seek
Him determinedly and diligently without sloth, as well as we can, through His grace, and that we do so gladly and merrily, without unreasonable depression and vain sorrow.
The second is that for love of Him we wait for Him stead-