Thus was our Lord Jesus brought low for us, and we are all brought low like him; and so we shall remain until we come to his bliss, as I shall explain later.
19
Of the comforting contemplation of the crucifix; and how desire of the flesh without consent of the soul is no sin; and man’s flesh must be in pain and suffer until both flesh and spirit are united in Christ.
At this point I wanted to look up from the cross, but I dared not, for I well knew that while I contemplated the cross I was safe and sound; therefore I was unwilling to imperil my soul, for beside the cross there was no safety but the horror of fiends. Then a suggestion came from my reason, as though a friendly voice had spoken, ‘Look up to his Father in heaven.’ And then I saw clearly with the faith that I felt, that there was nothing between the cross and heaven which could have distressed me. Either I must look up, or I must answer. I answered inwardly with all the strength of my soul and said, ‘No, I cannot, for you are my heaven.’ I said this because I did not wish to look up, for I would rather have suffered until Judgement Day than come to heaven otherwise than by him; for I well knew that he who bound me so painfully would unbind me when he wished. Thus was I taught to choose Jesus as my heaven, though at that time I saw him only in pain.20 I was satisfied by no heaven but Jesus, who will be my bliss when I go there. And it has always been a comfort to me that I chose Jesus for my heaven, through his grace, in all this time of suffering and sorrow. And that has been a lesson to me, that I should do so for evermore, choosing Jesus alone for my heaven in good and bad times.
And though like a wretch I had repented – I said before that if I had known what suffering it would cause me, I would not have prayed to share Christ’s Passion – I now saw that really this was the grumbling and cursing of the flesh, without the agreement of the spirit, and to this God attaches no blame. Regret and conscious choice are opposites, which I then felt both at the same time. And these two are divided, one part outward and the other inward. The outward part is our mortal flesh, which now suffers pain and grief, and shall while this life lasts; I felt it greatly at this time, and it was this part of me that regretted the prayer. The inward part is a high, blessed state of being, full of peace and love, and this was a more mysterious experience; and it was in this part that I strongly, surely and eagerly chose Jesus for my heaven. And here I saw truly that the inward part is master and ruler of the outward one, and does not consider or heed the desire of the flesh, but all the intention and desire of the spirit is set for ever upon being united with our Lord Jesus. It was not revealed to me that the outward part would draw the inward into agreement, but that the inward should draw the outward, through grace, and both shall be united in everlasting bliss through the power of Christ: this is what was shown.
20
Of the indescribable Passion of Christ, and of three things about his Passion which must always be remembered.
And so I saw our Lord Jesus Christ lingering for a long time; for union with the Godhead gave his Manhood the strength to suffer for love more than anyone who was completely and only a man could suffer. I do not mean only more pain than any man could suffer, but also that he suffered more pain than could be reckoned or fully imagined by any of those who are saved, who have ever lived from the very beginning until the last day, considering the majesty of the highest, most worshipful king and the shameful, insulting, painful death; for he who is highest and most majestic was brought lowest and most utterly despised; for the very summit of what we can see in the Passion is to think and know what he is who suffered.
And God now brought to my mind some part of the height and nobility of the glorious Godhead, and with it the excellence and tenderness of the blessed body, these two being united in Christ, along with our natural reluctance to suffer pain; for he was as tender and pure as he was strong and indomitable in suffering; and he suffered for the sins of every man who shall be saved; and he saw every man’s sorrow and desolation and sorrowed for kindness and love. And just as our Lady sorrowed for his suffering, he suffered as much for her sorrow, and more, because his dear humanity was by nature more worthy. For as long as he was capable of suffering, he felt pain and sorrow for us; and now that he has ascended into heaven and is beyond human pain, he is still suffering with us.
And I, contemplating all this through his grace, saw that his love for our souls is so strong that he chose the pain willingly and eagerly, and suffered it meekly and was well-pleased to do so; for the soul who contemplates it in this way, when touched by grace, shall truly see that the pain of Christ’s Passion surpasses all pain: that is to say, it surpasses the pains which will be turned into supreme and everlasting joys by virtue of Christ’s Passion.
21
Of three ways of regarding the Passion of Christ; and how we are now dying on the cross with Christ; but his face banishes all pain.
It is God’s will, as I understand it, that we should contemplate his blessed Passion in three different ways. The first is the cruel pain that he suffered, which weshould consider with contrition and compassion; at this time our Lord revealed that to me, and gave me the power and grace to see it. And I watched for the last breath with all my might and expected to see the body completely dead, but I did not see him like that. And just at the very moment when it seemed to me that to all appearances his life could last no longer and the end must be revealed, suddenly I saw, while looking at the same cross, that his blessed expression changed. The changing of his blessed expression changed mine, and I was as glad and happy as it was possible to be. Then our Lord made me think happily, ‘Where is there now one jot of your pain or your sorrow?’ And I was very happy. I understood that we are now, as our Lord intends it, dying with him on his cross in our pain and our passion; and if we willingly remain on the same cross with his help and his grace until the final moment, the countenance he turns on us will suddenly change, and we shall be with him in heaven. There will be no time between one moment and the next, and everything will be turned to joy; and this is what he meant in this showing: ‘Where is there now one jot of your pain or your sorrow?’ And we shall be entirely blessed.
And here I truly saw that if he showed us his blessed countenance now, there is no pain on earth, nor in any other place, that could hurt us, but everything would cause us joy and bliss. But because he shows us a time of suffering, like the suffering he bore in this life and on his cross, we are in distress and suffer with him the hardships which belong to our frailty. And the reason why he suffers is that of his goodness he wants to raise us higher with him in his bliss, and in return for the little pain we suffer here on earth we shall have an exalted, endless knowledge of God, which we could never have without that. And the worse the pain we have suffered with him on his cross, the greater the glory we shall enjoy with him in his kingdom.
22
The ninth revelation is of Christ’s happiness in suffering; of three heavens; and of the infinite love of Christ who is eager to die for us every day if he could, although it is not necessary.
Then our good Lord Jesus Christ spoke, asking, ‘Are you well pleased that I suffered for you?’ I said, ‘Yes, my good Lord, thank you. Yes, my good Lord, blessed may you be!’ Then Jesus, our kind Lord, said, ‘If you are pleased, I am pleased. It is a joy, a delight and an endless happiness to me that I ever endured suffering for you, and if I could suffer more, I would suffer more.’ As I became conscious of these words my understanding was lifted up into heaven, and there I saw three heavens, a sight which caused me great amazement. And though I saw three heavens, and all of them in the blessed Manhood of Christ,21 none is greater, none is lesser, none is higher, none is lower, but they are all equally full of supreme joy.
For the first heaven Christ showed me his Father, in no bodily likeness, but in his nature and his action: that is to say, I saw in Christ what the Father is. This is how the Father acts: he rewards his son, Jesus Christ. This gift and this reward give Jesus such great joy that his father could have given him no r
eward that could have pleased him better. The first heaven, that is the pleasing of the Father, appeared to me like a heaven, and it was full of great joy, for he is greatly pleased with all the deeds Jesus has done to promote our salvation; because of these we do not just belong to Jesus by his buying22 of us, but also by his Father’s generous gift. We are his joy, we are his reward, we are his glory, we are his crown – and this was a special marvel and a thrilling vision, that we should be his crown.
What I am describing causes Jesus such great pleasure that he thinks nothing of all his hardship and his bitter suffering and his cruel and shameful death. And in these words, ‘If I could suffer more, I would suffer more’, I truly saw that he was willing to die as often as he was able to die, and love would never let him rest until he had done it. And I watched very carefully to see how often he would die if he could, and truly the number of times passed my understanding and my senses by so much that my reason neither would nor could comprehend it. And if he had died, or was going to die, so often, he would still think nothing of it out of love. For his love is so great that everything seems a trifle to him in comparison. For although the dear humanity of Christ could only suffer once, his goodness makes him always ready to do so again; he would do it every day if it were possible; and if he said that for love of me he would make new heavens and a new earth, it would be but little in comparison, for he could do this every day if he so wished, without any hardship; but to offer to die for love of me so often that the number of times passes human comprehension, that is the most glorious present that our Lord God could make to man’s soul, it seems to me.
Then his meaning is this: ‘How should I not do all that I can for love of you? – for doing so does not grieve me, since I would die for love of you so often with no concern for my bitter pain.’ And here I saw the second insight into this blessed Passion: the love that made him suffer is as much greater than his pain as heaven is above the earth; for the Passion was a noble, glorious deed performed at one particular time through the action of love, love which has always existed and will never end; because of this love, he very affectionately said these words, ‘If I could suffer more, I would suffer more.’ He did not say, ‘If it were necessary to suffer more’, for if he could suffer more, he would, even if it were not necessary. This deed and this action for our salvation was ordered as well as God could order it. And here I saw complete joy in Christ; for if God could have ordered it any better, his joy could not have been complete.
23
How Christ wishes us to rejoice greatly with him in our redemption and to pray that by his grace we may do so.
And in these three sayings, ‘It is a joy, a delight and an endless happiness to me’, three heavens were shown, as follows: by the joy I understood the pleasure of the Father; and by the delight, the glory of the Son; and by the endless happiness, the Holy Ghost. The Father is pleased, the Son is glorified, the Holy Ghost rejoices. And here what I saw was the third insight into his blessed Passion; namely, the joy and the delight which cause him to take pleasure in it; for our kind Lord showed me five aspects of his Passion: the first of these is the bleeding of the head, the second is the discolouring of his face, the third is the abundant bleeding of the body in weals from the scourging, the fourth is the solemn dying. These four have already been mentioned as the pains of the Passion – and the fifth is what was shown as the joy and delight of the Passion; for God wishes us to take true pleasure with him in our salvation, and in this he wishes us to be greatly comforted and strengthened, and so he wants our souls to be happily filled with this, through his grace; for we are his delight; he takes pleasure in us eternally, and so shall we in him, through his grace. And all that he has done for us, and all that he does, and ever will do, was never a loss or a burden to him, nor ever could be; except what he did in our human form, beginning at the precious incarnation and lasting until the blessed resurrection on Easter morning; that was the only loss and burden that he bore to accomplish our redemption, a redemption in which he rejoices eternally, as I have already said.
Jesus wishes us to consider the delight which the Holy Trinity feels in our salvation and wishes us to long for as much spiritual pleasure, through his grace, as has already been described; that is to say, that our pleasure in salvation should be, as far as is possible here on earth, like the joy Christ has in our salvation. The whole Trinity took part in the Passion of Christ, dispensing an abundance of virtues and fullness of grace to us through him, but only the son of the Virgin suffered; and because of this the whole blessed Trinity is eternally joyful. And this was shown in these words, ‘Are you well pleased?’ and by Christ’s other words, ‘If you are pleased, I am pleased’, as if he said, ‘It is joy and delight enough to me, and I ask nothing more of you for my hardship but that I give you pleasure.’
And with these words he brought to mind the nature of a glad giver: a glad giver pays little attention to the thing he is giving, but his whole desire and intention is to please and comfort the one to whom he gives it; and if the receiver values the gift highly and takes it gratefully, then the generous giver thinks nothing of all his hardship and the price he had to pay, because of the joy and delight that he feels at having pleased and comforted the one he loves. This was shown abundantly and fully.
Think hard too about the deep significance of this word ‘ever’;23 for it was a great sign of the love he shows in our salvation, with the numerous joys that follow from the Passion of Christ; one is that he rejoices that he has indeed done it, and he will suffer no more; another, that he has brought us up to heaven and made us his crown and his endless delight; another is that he has by this means bought us from the endless torments of hell.
24
The tenth revelation is that our Lord Jesus, rejoicing, lovingly shows his sacred heart riven in two.
Then, with a glad face, our Lord looked into his side, and gazed, rejoicing; and with his dear gaze he led his creature’s understanding through the same wound24 into his side. And then he revealed a beautiful and delightful place which was large enough for all mankind who shall be saved to rest there in peace and love. And with this he brought to mind the precious blood and water which he allowed to pour out completely for love. And in this dear vision he showed his sacred heart quite riven in two. And with this sweet rejoicing he revealed to my understanding some part of the blessed Godhead, arousing the poor soul to understand, so far as it may be expressed, the meaning of the endless love that has always existed and is and ever shall be. And with this our good Lord said most blessedly, ‘Look how much I loved you’; as if he had said, ‘My darling, look and see your Lord, your God, who is your maker and your eternal joy. See what pleasure and delight I take in your salvation, and for my love rejoice with me now.’ And also, to make it plainer, these blessed words were said: ‘Look how I loved you. Look and see that I loved you so much before I died for you that I was willing to die for you; and now I have died for you, and willingly suffered as much as I can for you. And now all my bitter torment and painful hardship has changed into endless joy and bliss for me and for you. How could it now be that you could make any request that pleased me that I would not very gladly grant you? For my pleasure is your holiness and your endless joy and bliss with me.’ This is the meaning, as simply as I can explain it, of these blessed words, ‘Look how much I loved you.’ Our good Lord revealed this to make us glad and joyful.
25
The eleventh revelation is a special spiritual showing of his Mother.
And with the same expression of mirth and joy our good Lord looked down to his right and brought to my mind the place where our Lady was standing during the time of his Passion; and he said, ‘Would you like to see her?’ And with these sweet words it was as if he had said, ‘I know very well that you long to see my blessed Mother, for after myself she is the most supreme joy that I could reveal to you, and that which most delights and honours me; and it is she that my blessed creatures most long to see.’
And becau
se of the supreme, marvellous, singular love that he feels for this sweet Virgin, his blessed Mother, our Lady Saint Mary, he showed her very joyful, and that is what these sweet words mean, as if he said, ‘Do you want to see how I love her, so that you can rejoice with me in the love that I have for her and she for me?’ And also, to explain these sweet words more clearly, our Lord God is speaking to all mankind who will be saved as though to one person, as if he said, ‘Would you like to see in her how you are loved? For love of you I made her so high, so noble and so excellent; and this makes me glad, and I want it to gladden you.’ For after himself, she is the most blessed sight. But concerning this I am not taught to long to see her bodily presence while I am here on earth, but the virtues of her blessed soul: her truth, her wisdom, her love, so that through these I may learn to know myself and reverently fear my God. And when our good Lord had shown this and said these words, ‘Would you like to see her?’, I answered and said, ‘Yes, my good Lord, thank you. Yes, my good Lord, if it is your will.’ I prayed for this repeatedly and I thought I would see her bodily presence, but I did not do so. And with these words Jesus showed me a spiritual vision of her; just as I had seen her low and humble before, he now showed her to me high, noble and glorious, and more pleasing to him than any other creature. And he wants it to be known that all those who rejoice in him should rejoice in her and in the joy that he has in her and she in him. And to make it clearer he gave this example: if a man loves someone uniquely, more than all other creatures, he wants to make all creatures love and rejoice in that person he loves so much. And these words that Jesus said, ‘Would you like to see her?’, seemed to me the most pleasing words about her that he could have given me with the spiritual vision of her; for our Lord gave me no special revelation except of our Lady Saint Mary, and he showed her three times: the first when she conceived, the second in her sorrow under the cross, the third as she is now, in delight, honour and joy.
Revelations of Divine Love Page 12
