Afterwards, our Lord reminded me of the longing I had had for him;15 and I saw that nothing kept me from him but sin, and I saw that this is so with all of us. And I thought that if sin had never existed, we should all have been pure and like himself, as God made us; and so I had often wondered before now in my folly why, in his great foreseeing wisdom, God had not prevented sin; for then, I thought, all would have been well. I ought certainly to have abandoned these thoughts, and I grieved and sorrowed over the question in great pride, with no reason or judgement. Nevertheless, Jesus, in this vision, informed me of all that I needed to know. I am not saying that I do not need any more teaching, for our Lord, in this revelation, has left me to Holy Church; and I am hungry and thirsty and needy and sinful and frail, and willingly submit myself to the teaching of Holy Church, with all my fellow Christians, until the end of my life.
He answered with this assurance: ‘Sin is befitting.’ With this word ‘sin’ our Lord brought to my mind the whole extent of all that is not good: the shameful scorn and the utter humiliation that he bore for us in this life and in his dying, and all the pains and sufferings of all his creatures, both in body and spirit – for we are all to some extent brought to nothing and should be brought to nothing as our master Jesus was, until we are fully purged: that is to say until our own mortal flesh is brought completely to nothing, and all those of our inward feelings which are not good. He gave me insight into these things, along with all pains that ever were and ever shall be; all this was shown in a flash, and quickly changed into comfort; for our good Lord did not want the soul to be afraid of this ugly sight.
But I did not see sin; for I believe it has no sort of substance nor portion of being, nor could it be recognized were it not for the suffering which it causes. And this suffering seems to me to be something transient, for it purges us and makes us know ourselves and pray for mercy; for the Passion of our Lord supports us against all this, and that is his blessed will for all who shall be saved. He supports us willingly and sweetly, by his words, and says, ‘But all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’ These words were shown very tenderly, with no suggestion that I or anyone who will be saved was being blamed. It would therefore be very strange to blame or wonder at God because of my sins, since he does not blame me for sinning.
Thus I saw how Christ feels compassion for us because of sin. And just as I was earlier filled with suffering and compassion at the Passion of Christ, so was I now also partly filled with compassion for all my fellow Christians; and then I saw that whenever a man feels kind compassion with love for his fellow Christian, it is Christ within him.
14
But you must apply yourself to this: contemplating these things in general, sad and grieving, in my mind I said to our Lord with great reverence, ‘Ah, my good Lord, how could all be well, given the great harm that has been done to humankind by sin?’ And here I prayed, as much as I dared, for some clearer explanation to ease my mind over this. And our blessed Lord answered most compassionately and in a very friendly way, and showed me that Adam’s sin was the greatest harm that ever was done, or ever shall be, until the end of the world; and he also showed me that this is publicly acknowledged through all Holy Church on earth. Furthermore he taught me that I should consider the glorious atonement; for this atonement is incomparably more pleasing to God and more glorious in saving mankind than Adam’s sin was ever harmful.
So what our blessed Lord’s teaching means is that we should take heed of the following: ‘Since I have turned the greatest possible harm into good, it is my will that you should know from this that I shall turn all lesser evil into good.’
He made me understand two aspects of this. One of them is our Saviour and our salvation; this aspect is blessed and is clear and bright, light and beautiful and abundant, for all men who are or shall be of good will are included in it; we are bidden to it by God, and drawn to it, admonished and taught inwardly by the Holy Ghost and outwardly by Holy Church by the same grace; our Lord wishes our minds to be filled with this, rejoicing in him because he rejoices in us; and the more abundantly we are filled with this, reverently and humbly, the more we deserve his thanks and the more we benefit ourselves, and thus we may say, rejoicing, our Lord is our portion.16
The second aspect is closed to us and hidden (that is to say, everything which is not necessary for our salvation); for it is our Lord’s privy counsel and it is proper to the royal lordship of God that his privy counsel should be undisturbed,17 and it is proper for his servants, out of obedience and reverence, not to know his counsel too well. Our Lord feels pity and compassion for us because some people are so anxious to know about it; and I am sure that if we knew how much we would please him and set our own minds at rest by leaving the matter alone, then we would do so. The saints in heaven do not want to know anything except what our Lord wants to reveal to them, and their love and their desires are directed by our Lord’s will. We should desire to be like them: then, like the saints, we should wish and desire nothing that is not the will of our Lord; for God’s purpose for us all is the same.
And here I was taught that we must rejoice only in our blessed Saviour Jesu and trust in him for everything.
15
And thus our good Lord answered all the questions and doubts I could put forward, saying most comfortingly as follows: ‘I will make all things well, I shall make all things well, I may make all things well and I can make all things well; and you shall see for yourself that all things shall be well.’ I take ‘I may’ for the words of the Father, I take ‘I can’ for the words of the Son and I take ‘I will’ for the words of the Holy Ghost; and where he says ‘I shall’, I take it for the unity of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one truth; and where he says, ‘You shall see for yourself’, I understand it as referring to the union with the Holy Trinity of all mankind who shall be saved. And with these five sayings God wishes to be surrounded by rest and peace; and thus Christ’s spiritual thirst comes to an end; for this is the spiritual thirst, the love-longing that lasts and ever shall do until we see that revelation on Judgement Day.
For we that shall be saved, and shall be Christ’s joy and his bliss, are still here on earth, and shall be until that last day. Therefore this is the thirst, the incompleteness of his bliss, that he does not have us in himself as wholly as he will have then. All this was shown me as a revelation of compassion, and his thirst will cease on Judgement Day. Thus he has pity and compassion for us, and he has longing to have us, but his wisdom and love do not permit the end to come until the best time.
And thus I understand the five sayings mentioned above – ‘I may make all things well’, etc. – as a powerful and comforting pledge for all the works of our Lord which are to come; for just as the Holy Trinity made all things from nothing, so the Holy Trinity shall make all well that is not well. It is God’s will that we should pay attention to all the deeds he has done, for he wants us to know from them all he will do; and he showed me that when he said, ‘And you shall see yourself that all manner of things shall be well.’ I understand this in two ways: first, I am well pleased that I do not know it; second, I am glad and happy because I shall know it. It is God’s wish that we should know in general terms that all shall be well; but it is not God’s wish that we should understand it now, except as much as is suitable for us at the present time, and that is the teaching of Holy Church.
16
God showed me the very great pleasure he takes in men and women who strongly and humbly and eagerly receive the preaching and teaching of Holy Church; for he is Holy Church; he is the foundation, he is the substance, he is the teaching, he is the teacher, he is the goal, he is the prize which every true soul works hard to win; and he is known and shall be known to every soul to whom the Holy Ghost reveals it. And I am sure that all those who are seeking this will succeed, for they are seeking God. All that I have now said, and more that I shall say afterwards, gives strength against sin; for first, when I saw that God does all which is
done, I did not see sin, and then I saw that all is well. But when God gave me a revelation about sin, then he said, ‘All shall be well.’
And when almighty God had shown his great goodness so fully and abundantly, I requested to know how it would be with a certain person whom I loved. And in this request I stood in my own way, for I was not answered immediately. And then I was answered in my reason as though by a friendly man, ‘Take these showings generally, and consider the kindness of your Lord God as he gives them to you; for it honours God more to consider him in all things than in any particular thing.’ I assented, and with this I learned that it honours God more to have knowledge of everything in general than to take pleasure in any one thing in particular. And if I were to follow this teaching faithfully I should not rejoice over any one special thing, nor be distressed over anything of any kind, for ‘All shall be well.’
God reminded me that I would sin; and because of my pleasure in contemplating him, I was slow to pay attention to that showing. And our Lord very courteously waited till I paid attention; and then our Lord, along with my own sins, reminded me of the sins of all my fellow Christians, in general and not in particular.
17
Although our Lord showed me that I would sin, by me alone I understood everyone. At this I began to feel a quiet fear, and to this our Lord answered me as follows: ‘I am keeping you very safe.’ This promise was made to me with more love and assurance and spiritual sustenance than I can possibly say, for just as it was previously shown that I would sin, the help was also shown to me: safety and protection for all my fellow Christians. What could make me love my fellow Christians more than to see in God that he loves all who shall be saved as though they were one soul? For just as there is an animal will in our lower nature which can have no good impulses, there is a godly will in our higher nature which, no less than the persons of the Holy Trinity, can will no evil, but only good. And this is what our Lord showed in the completeness of love in which he holds us: yes, that he loves us as much now while we are here as he will do when we are there in his blessed presence.
God also showed me that sin is not shameful to man, but his glory; for in this revelation my understanding was lifted up into heaven; and then there came truly into my mind David, Peter and Paul, Thomas of India and the Magdalene18 – how they are famous in the Church on earth with their sins as their glory. And it is no shame to them that they have sinned, any more than it is in the bliss of heaven, for there the badge of their sin is changed into glory. In this way our Lord God showed them to me as an example of all others who shall come there.
Sin is the sharpest scourge that any chosen soul can be struck with; it is a scourge which lashes men and women so hard, and batters them and destroys them so completely in their own eyes, that they think they only deserve to sink down into hell. But when the touch of the Holy Ghost brings contrition, it turns the bitterness into hope of God’s mercy; and then their wounds begin to heal and the soul begins to revive into the life of Holy Church. The Holy Ghost leads a man on to confession, and he earnestly shows his sins, nakedly and truly, with great sorrow and great shame that he has so befouled the fair image of God. Then, in accordance with the basic teaching which the Church has received from the Holy Ghost, his confessor imposes a penance on him for each sin. By this medicine every sinful soul needs to be healed, especially of sins that are in themselves mortal. Although a man has the scars of healed wounds, when he appears before God they do not deface but ennoble him. And as on the one hand sin is punished here with sorrow and suffering, on the other it shall be rewarded in heaven by the generous love of our Lord God almighty, who does not want the toils and troubles of any who come there to be wasted. The reward we are going to receive there will not be a small one, but great, splendid and glorious. And so all shame will be turned into glory and into greater joy. And I am sure, by what I feel myself, that the more every well-natured soul sees this in the kind and generous love of God, the more loath he is to sin.
18
But if you are moved to say or think, ‘Since this is true, then it would be a good idea to sin in order to have the greater reward’, beware of this impulse, for it comes from the Enemy, for any soul that chooses to follow this impulse can never be saved until he has been healed of this as if it were a mortal sin. For if there were laid out before me all the sufferings of hell and of purgatory and of earth – death and everything else – and sin, I would choose all those sufferings rather than sin, for sin is so vile and so very hateful that it cannot be compared to any suffering other than the suffering of sin itself. For all things are good but sin, and nothing is wicked but sin. Sin is neither a deed nor a pleasure, but when a soul deliberately chooses to sin (which is punishment in God’s eyes), in the end he has nothing at all. That punishment seems to me the hardest hell, for he does not have his God. A soul can have God in all sufferings19 except sin.
And God is as eager to save man as he is strong and wise; for Christ himself is the foundation of the whole law of Christian men, and he taught us to return good for evil. Here we can see that he himself is love, and he treats us as he wishes us to treat others, for he wants us to be like him in completeness of unending love for ourselves and our fellow Christians. Just as his love for us does not fail because of our sin, he does not want our love for ourselves and our fellow Christians to fail; we must feel naked hatred for sin and unending love for the soul, as God loves it. This assertion of God’s is an endless help and comfort, which keeps us very safe.
19
After this our Lord gave a revelation about prayer. I saw two qualities in those who pray, like those I have felt in myself. One is that they do not wish to pray for anything that may be, but only for things which are God’s will and his glory. The second thing is that they set themselves strongly and continually to pray for things which are his will and his glory. And that is what I have understood from the teaching of Holy Church. And in this our Lord gave me the same teaching, to have as God’s gift faith, hope and love, and hold to them until our lives’ end. And so we say ‘Pater noster’, ‘Ave’ and the Creed,20 with devotion, as God may grant. And so we pray for all our fellow Christians, and for all manner of men, according to God’s will, for we wish that all manner of men and women were in the same state of virtue and grace that we ought to desire for ourselves. But yet, for all this, often we do not trust God almighty fully for it seems to us that, because of our unworthiness, and because we are feeling absolutely nothing, we cannot be certain that he is hearing our prayers. For often we are as barren and as dry after our prayers as we were before, and so we feel our folly is the cause of our weakness; I have felt like this myself.
And our Lord brought all this suddenly into my mind, strongly and vividly, and, as a comfort to me against this kind of weakness in prayers, he said, ‘I am the foundation of your prayers: first it is my will that you should have something, and then I make you desire it, and then I make you pray for it; and if you pray, then how could it be that you should not have what you pray for?’ And thus in his first statement, along with the three which follow, our good Lord shows us something immensely helpful. Where he begins by saying, ‘If you pray for it’, there he reveals the very great joy and unending reward that our prayer will receive from him. And where he says next, ‘Then how could it be that you should not have what you pray for?’, there he gives a serious rebuke, because we do not trust as strongly as we should.
Thus our Lord wants us both to pray and to trust, for the purpose of the preceding statements is to strengthen us against weakness in our prayers. For it is God’s will that we should pray, and he moves us to do so in these preceding words. He wants us to pray with sure trust, for prayer pleases him. Prayer gives man pleasure in himself, and makes him calm and humble, where before he was contentious and troubled. Prayer unites the soul to God; for though the soul is always like God in nature and substance, yet because of sin on man’s part, it is often in a state which is unlike God. Prayer makes the soul like God
; when the soul wills what God wills, it is then in a state like God, as it is like God in nature. And so God teaches us to pray, and to trust firmly that we shall obtain what we pray for, though everything which is done would be done, even if we never prayed for it. But the love of God is so great that he considers us sharers in his good deed, and therefore he moves us to pray for what it pleases him to do; and for these prayers and for the good will which he grants us, he will reward us and give us an everlasting recompense. And this was shown in these words, ‘If you pray for it’. In this statement God revealed to me such great pleasure and so much delight that it seemed as if he was deeply grateful to us for every good deed that we do – and yet it is he who does them – and because we entreat him earnestly to do everything that pleases him; as if he said, ‘Then what could please me more than to be entreated earnestly, truly and eagerly to do what I wish to do?’ And thus prayer makes accord between God and man’s soul, though while man’s soul is near to God, there is no need for him to pray, but reverently to contemplate what he says. For during all the time of my showing, I was not moved to pray, but always to have this good in mind for my comfort, that when we see God, we have what we desire, and then we do not need to pray. But when we do not see God, then we need to pray because we lack something, and to make ourselves open to Jesus; for when a soul is tempted, troubled and isolated by distress, then it is time to pray and to make oneself pliable and submissive to God. Unless we are submissive, no kind of prayer can make God bend to us, though his love is always alike; but while man is in a state of sin, he is so enfeebled, so unwise and so unloving, that he can love neither God nor himself.
Revelations of Divine Love Page 7
