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The twelfth revelation is that the Lord our God is supreme Being.
And after this our Lord showed himself in even greater glory, it seemed to me, than when I saw him before, and from this revelation I learned that our soul will never rest until it comes to him knowing that he is the fullness of joy, of everyday and princely blessedness and the only true life. Our Lord Jesus said repeatedly, ‘It is I, it is I; it is I who am highest; it is I you love; it is I who delight you; it is I you serve; it is I you long for; it is I you desire; it is I who am your purpose; it is I who am all; it is I that Holy Church preaches and teaches you; it is I who showed myself to you here.’ The number of these utterances went beyond my wit and all my understanding and all my powers, and it is supreme, it seems to me, for there is included within it – I cannot tell how much; but the joy that I perceived as they were revealed surpasses all that the heart may wish and the soul may desire; and therefore the utterances are not fully explained here, but, according to the powers of understanding and loving which are given by the grace of God, may everyone receive them as our Lord intended.
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The thirteenth revelation is that our Lord God wishes us to hold in high account all that he has done in making all things with such nobility; and of other things; and how sin can only be recognized by suffering.
After this, our Lord reminded me of the longing I had had for him;25 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 the beginning of sin; for then, I thought, all would have been well. I ought certainly to have abandoned these thoughts, but nevertheless I grieved and sorrowed over the question with no reason or judgement. But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that I needed to know, answered with this assurance: ‘Sin is befitting, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’
With this bare word ‘sin’ our Lord brought to my mind the whole extent of all that is not good, and the shameful scorn and the utter humiliation that he bore for us in this life, and 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 shall be brought to nothing as our master Jesus was, until we are fully purged: that is to say until our mortal flesh is brought completely to nothing, and all those of our inward feelings which are not truly good. He gave me insight into these things, along with all pains that ever were and ever shall be; and compared with these I realize that Christ’s Passion was the greatest pain and went beyond them all. And 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. And because of the tender love which our good Lord feels for all who shall be saved, he supports us willingly and sweetly, meaning this: ‘It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’ These words were said 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 sin, since he does not blame me for sinning.
And in these same words I saw a marvellous great mystery hidden in God, a mystery which he will make openly known to us in heaven; in which knowledge we shall truly see the reason why he allowed sin to exist; and seeing this we shall rejoice eternally in our Lord God.
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How the children of salvation shall be shaken by sorrows, but Christ rejoices in compassion; and a remedy for tribulation.
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, for those well-beloved people who shall be saved; that is to say, God’s servants, Holy Church, will be shaken in sorrows and anguish and tribulation in this world, as men shake a cloth in the wind. And to this God answered as follows: ‘I shall make some great thing out of this in heaven, something eternally worthy and everlastingly joyful.’
Yes, I saw as far as this – that our Lord rejoices in the tribulations of his servants with pity and compassion; in order to bring to bliss each person that he loves he lays on each of them something which in his sight is no cause of blame, something for which they are blamed and despised in this world, scorned, violently treated and cast out; and this he does to prevent the damage that would be done to them by the pomp and vainglory of this wretched life, and to prepare their path to heaven, and to raise them to his bliss which lasts without end; for he says, ‘I shall shatter you for your vain passions and your vicious pride; and after that I shall gather you together and make you humble and meek, pure and holy, by uniting you with me.’ And then I saw that whenever a man feels kind compassion with love for his fellow Christian, it is Christ within him.
That same humiliation which was revealed in his Passion was revealed again here in this compassion, in which there were two ways of understanding our Lord’s meaning: one was the bliss to which we are bought and in which he will rejoice, the other is for strength in our suffering; for he wants us to know that it will all be turned into glory and profit by virtue of his Passion, and to know we do not suffer alone, but with him, recognizing that we are grounded in him, and he wants us to see that his pain and his humiliation go so far beyond all that we may suffer that it cannot be fully conceived. And consideration of this will save us from grumbling and despair as we experience suffering; and if we truly see that our sin deserves it, his love will nevertheless excuse us, and in his great kindness he takes away all our blame and watches over us with compassion and pity, like children, not hateful but innocent.
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Adam’s sin was the greatest of all, but the atonement for it is more pleasing to God than the sin was ever harmful.
But I paused at this, contemplating these things in general, sad and grieving, and in my thought 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 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 that this is publicly acknowledged through all Holy Church on earth. Furthermore he taught 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.’
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How we should rejoice and trust in our Saviour Jesus, and not presumptuously seek to know his privy counsel.
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 and shall be of good will are included in it; we are bound to it by God, and drawn to it, admonished and taught inwardly by the Holy Ghost and outwardly by Holy Church through 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, th
e more we deserve his thanks and the more we benefit ourselves, and thus we may say, rejoicing, our Lord is our portion.26
The second aspect is hidden and closed to us (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,27 and it is proper for his servant, 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; our desires should be like theirs: 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 Jesus and trust in him for everything.
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Of the longing and the spiritual thirst of Christ, which lasts and shall last till Judgement Day; and how, because of his body, he is not yet in full glory nor quite beyond suffering.
And thus our good Lord answered all the questions and doubts I could put forward, saying most comfortingly, ‘I may make all things well, I can make all things well and I will make all things well and I shall make all things well; and you shall see for yourself that all manner of 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 and 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 will come to an end; for this is the spiritual thirst of Christ, the love-longing that lasts and ever shall do until we see that revelation on Judgement Day.
For some of us that shall be saved, and shall be Christ’s joy and his bliss, are still here on earth, and some are yet to come, and it shall be so until that last day. Therefore it seems to me that this is his thirst: a love-longing to have us all together, wholly in himself for his delight; for we are not now as wholly in him as we shall be then.
For we know through our faith, and it was also revealed in all the showings, that Jesus Christ is both God and man. And as far as the Godhead is concerned, he is himself the highest bliss, and was from eternity and shall be so to eternity; and this endless bliss may never in itself be heightened or diminished; this was abundantly seen in every showing, and especially in the twelfth, where he says, ‘It is I who am highest.’ And as far as Christ’s Manhood is concerned, it is known through our faith and also from the showings that through the power of his Godhead, and to bring us to his bliss for love, he endured pains and suffering and died; and these are the works of Christ’s Manhood in which he rejoices, and he showed this in the ninth revelation where he said, ‘It is a joy, a delight and an endless happiness to me that I ever endured suffering for you.’ And this is the bliss of Christ’s works and this is what he means where he says in the same showing that we are his joy, we are his reward, we are his honour, we are his crown. For regarding Christ as our head, he is in glory and beyond suffering, but as regards his body, in which all his members are joined, he is not yet in full glory or beyond suffering; for that same longing and thirst which he had on the cross – a longing and thirst which it seems to me had been in him from eternity – those he still has, and shall have until the time when the last soul which is to be saved has come up into his bliss.
For as truly as there is a property of compassion and pity in God, so there is as truly a property of thirst and longing in God. And because of the strength of this longing in Christ it is for us in turn to long for him, and without this no soul comes to heaven. And this property of longing and thirst comes from his endless goodness, just as the property of pity comes from his endless goodness, yet, as I see it, the longing and the pity are two separate properties; and this is what distinguishes the spiritual thirst which lasts in him as long as we are in need, drawing us up to his bliss; and all this was shown 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 till the best time.
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How everything shall be well, and Scripture fulfilled; and we must remain steadfast in the faith of Holy Church, as Christ desires.
At one time our good Lord said, ‘All manner of things shall be well’; and at another time he said, ‘You shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well’; and the soul understood these two sayings differently. On the one hand he wants us to know that he does not only concern himself with great and noble things, but also with small, humble and simple things, with both one and the other; and this is what he means when he says, ‘All manner of things shall be well’; for he wants us to know that the smallest thing shall not be forgotten. But another thing understood is this: deeds are done which appear so evil to us and people suffer such terrible evils that it does not seem as though any good will ever come of them; and we consider this, sorrowing and grieving over it so that we cannot find peace in the blessed contemplation of God as we should do; and this is why: our reasoning powers are so blind now, so humble and so simple, that we cannot know the high, marvellous wisdom, the might and the goodness of the Holy Trinity. And this is what he means where he says, ‘You shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well’, as if he said, ‘Pay attention to this now, faithfully and confidently, and at the end of time you will truly see it in the fullness of joy.’ 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 God which are to come.
It appears to me that there is a deed which the Holy Trinity shall do on the last day, and when that deed shall be done and how it shall be done is unknown to all creatures under Christ, and shall be until it has been done. And he wants us to know this because he wants us to feel more ease in our souls and more at peace in love, rejoicing in him and no longer considering all the tumults which might keep us from the truth. This is the great deed ordained by our Lord God from eternity, treasured up and hidden in his blessed breast, only known to himself, and by this deed he shall make all things well; for just as the Holy Trinity made all things from nothing, so the Holy Trinity shall make all well that is not well.
And I wondered greatly at this revelation, and considered our faith, wondering as follows: our faith is grounded in God’s word, and it is part of our faith that we should believe that God’s word will be kept in all things; and one point of our faith is that many shall be damned – like the angels who fell out of heaven from pride, who are now fiends, and men on earth who die outside the faith of Holy Church, that is, those who are heathens, and also any man who has received Christianity and lives an unChristian life and so dies excluded from the love of God. Holy Church teaches me to believe that all these shall be condemned everlastingly to hell. And given all this, I thought it impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord revealed at this time. And I received no other answer in showing from our Lord God but this: ‘What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall keep my word in all things and I shall make all things well.’
Thus I was taught by the grace of God that I should steadfastly remain in the faith, as I had previously understood, and at the same time that I should firmly believe that all things should be well as our Lord God revealed on the same occasion. For this is the great deed that our Lord shall do, the deed by which he will keep his word in all things and shal
l make all well that is not well. And how the deed shall be done there is no creature under Christ that knows or shall know until it is done, so far as I understood our Lord’s meaning at this time.
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All damned souls are condemned like the Devil in the sight of God; and these revelations do not cancel out the faith of Holy Church, but strengthen it; and the more anxious we are to know God’s mysteries, the less we know.
And yet in all this I desired, as far as I dared, to have a complete vision of hell and purgatory. But it was not my intention to put to the test anything which belongs to our faith – for I firmly believed that hell and purgatory have the purpose taught by Holy Church – but my idea was that I might have seen them so that I could learn everything belonging to my faith that could help me to live to the greater glory of God and to my greater spiritual profit. But as for this desire, I could learn nothing about it, except what I have previously said in the fifth showing, where I saw that the Devil is scorned by God and endlessly damned; and, seeing this, I understood that all beings who live their lives in a state of sin, like the Devil, and who die in this state, are never again mentioned before God and all his holy ones any more than the Devil is mentioned, even though they are human beings, whether or not they have been christened.
Revelations of Divine Love Page 13
