52
God rejoices that he is our father, mother and spouse; and how the chosen have here a mixture of weal and woe, but God is with us in three ways; and how we may avoid sin, but never perfectly as in heaven.
And so I saw that God rejoices that he is our father, and God rejoices that he is our mother, and God rejoices that he is our true spouse, and our soul is his much-loved bride. And Christ rejoices that he is our brother, and Jesus rejoices that he is our saviour. These are five great joys, as I understand it, in which he wishes us to rejoice, praising him, thanking him, loving him, endlessly blessing him.
All people who shall be saved, while we are in this world, have in us a marvellous mixture of both weal and woe. We have in us our risen Lord Jesus; we have in us the misery of the harm of Adam’s falling and dying. We are steadfastly protected by Christ, and by the touch of his grace we are raised into sure trust of salvation. And by Adam’s fall our perceptions are so shattered in various ways, by sins and by different sufferings, that we are so darkened and blinded that we can hardly find any comfort. But inwardly we wait for God and trust faithfully that we shall receive mercy and grace; and this is God’s own operation within us. And in his goodness he opens the eye of our understanding and by this we gain sight, sometimes more and sometimes less, according to the ability that God gives us to receive it. And at one moment we are raised into weal, and at another we are allowed to fall into woe. And so there is such a wonderful mixture within us that we hardly know how we ourselves or our fellow Christians stand because of the wonder of these varied feelings; but that same holy accord which we accord to God when we feel him, truly wishing to be with him with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength, leads us to hate and despise our evil impulses and everything which might be the occasion of bodily or spiritual sin. And yet nevertheless when this sweetness is hidden, we fall back into our blindness, and so into woe and tribulation in various ways. But then this is our comfort: that through our faith we know that by the power of Jesus Christ, our protector, we never consent to it, but we are discontented with it, and endure pain and woe, praying until the time when he shows himself to us again.
And so we remain in this mixed state all the days of our life. But he wants us to have faith that he is unfailingly with us, and in three ways. He is with us in heaven, true man in his own person drawing us upwards, and that was shown in the holy thirst;45 and he is with us on earth, leading us, and that was shown in the third revelation, where I saw God in an instant; and he is with us in our souls, dwelling there for ever, guiding and caring for us, and that was shown in the sixteenth revelation, as I shall describe.
And so in the servant was shown the trouble and blindness of Adam’s fall, and in the servant was shown the wisdom and goodness of God’s son. And in the lord was shown the sorrow and pity of Adam’s woe; and in the lord was shown the exalted magnificence and endless glory to which mankind attains through the power of the Passion and the death of God’s much-loved son. For this reason he rejoices greatly in his fall, because of the great exaltation and fullness of bliss that mankind attains, surpassing what we should have if he had not fallen; and so it was to see this surpassing magnificence that my understanding was led into God at the same time that I saw the servant fall. And so now we have reason for grief, because our sin is the cause of Christ’s suffering; and we have reason for lasting joy, because endless love made him suffer. And therefore the person who sees and feels the working of love through grace hates nothing but sin; for it seems to me that, of all things, love and hate are the hardest and most immeasurable contraries. And in spite of all this, I saw and understood that our Lord’s meaning was that in this life we may not keep from sin in such full and complete purity as we shall in heaven. But through grace we may well keep ourselves from the sins which, as Holy Church teaches us, will lead us to eternal suffering, and avoid venial sin, as far as our strength allows;46 and if through our blindness and our wretchedness we ever fall, we are taught to rise again quickly, recognizing the sweet touch of grace, and earnestly amend our life on the basis of Holy Church’s teaching according to the grievousness of the sin, and go at once to God in love. We should not on the one hand fall too low, inclining to despair, nor on the other hand be too reckless, as if we did not care, but should recognize our own weakness without concealment, knowing that we cannot stand even for the twinkling of an eye unless we are protected by grace. We should cling reverently to God, trusting in him alone; for man and God regard things in two quite different ways; it is proper for man humbly to accuse himself, and it is proper for God in his natural goodness kindly to excuse man.
These are the two aspects of the double expression with which the lord watched the fall of his loved servant. The first was shown outwardly, very gentle and kind, with great sorrow and pity, and that was the aspect of eternal love. And the way our Lord wants us to accuse ourselves is this: earnestly and truly seeing and recognizing our fall and all the troubles that come from it, seeing and knowing that we can never make it good, but at the same time we should earnestly and truly see and know the everlasting love which he has for us, and his abundant mercy. And seeing and knowing both together in this way is the humble self-accusation which our Lord asks of us, and where it exists, he himself has brought it about. And this is the lower level of man’s life and it was shown in the lord’s outward appearance; and I saw two aspects of the showing: one is man’s pitiable fall, the other is the glorious atonement that our Lord has made for man.
The second expression was shown inwardly; it was more elevated but it was all one with the first; for the life and the virtue which we have on the lower level comes from the higher, and it comes down to us from our natural self-love through grace. Nothing comes between the first and the second, for all is one love, and this one blessed love now works doubly in us; for on the lower level there are pains and passions, sorrows and pities, mercies and forgiveness, and many similar benefits; but on the higher level there are none of these, but all one great love and wonderful joy, and in the wonderful joy there is great compensation for all suffering. And in this our good Lord showed not only our forgiveness, but also the glorious height to which he will bring us, turning all our guilt into endless glory.
53
The kindness of God assigns no blame to those he has chosen, for in them is a godly will which can never consent to sin; for it befits God’s pity to be so bound to them that a higher nature is preserved which can never be separated from him.
And I saw that God wants us to recognize that he does not take the fall of any human being that shall be saved more harshly than he took the fall of Adam, who we know was eternally loved and securely protected in the time of his need, and is now blissfully compensated with great surpassing joys; for our Lord God is so good, so noble, so generous that he can never blame anyone who will be blessed and praised in the end.
And what I have just said was part of the answer to my entreaty, and my great concern was somewhat eased by the kind, gracious showing of our good Lord; a showing in which I saw and understood very clearly that in every soul that will be saved there is a godly will which never agreed to sin, nor ever shall; this will is so good that it can never intend evil, but always and constantly it intends good and does good in the sight of God. Therefore our Lord wants us to know this as a matter of faith and belief, and most especially to know that we all have this blessed will kept safe and whole in our Lord Jesus Christ; for beings of the kind that will people heaven must needs, by God’s justice, be so bound and united to him that there would always remain a higher nature in them which never could nor should be separated from God; and this is through his own good will in his eternal foreseeing purpose. And in spite of this just binding and this everlasting union, the redemption and the buying back of humankind is necessary and useful in all things, as it is done with the same intention and for the same purpose that Holy Church teaches us in our faith.
I saw that God never began to love humankin
d, for just as humankind shall be in eternal bliss, completing the joy of God in his own works, so has that same humankind been, in God’s foresight, known and loved according to God’s righteous purpose since before time began. And by the eternal consent and agreement of the whole Trinity, Christ would be the ground and the head of these fair beings, he from whom we all come, in whom we are all enclosed, into whom we shall all return; finding in him our full heaven of everlasting joy through the foreseeing purpose of the whole blessed Trinity since before time began. Before he made us he loved us, and when we were made we loved him; and this is a love made of the essential goodness natural to the Holy Ghost, mighty by reason of the might of the Father, and wise in accordance with the wisdom of the Son. Thus man’s soul is made of God and bound to God by the same ties.
And thus I understood that man’s soul is made of nothing, that is to say, it is made, but of nothing that is made, and in this way: when God was going to make man’s body, he took the slime of the earth, which is a substance mixed and gathered from all bodily things, and from this he made man’s body; but for the making of man’s soul he did not wish to take anything at all, he simply made it. And so created nature is justly united to the Creator, who is essential uncreated nature, that is, God. And that is why there neither can nor shall be anything at all between God and man’s soul. And in this eternal love man’s soul is kept whole, as the contents of the revelations mean and show; and in this eternal love we are guided and protected by God and shall never be lost; for he wants us to know that our soul is a living creature, which, through his goodness and grace, will last in heaven for ever, loving him, thanking him, praising him. And just as we shall be eternally, so we were treasured and hidden in God, known and loved since before time began.
Therefore he wants us to know that the noblest thing he ever made is humankind, and its supreme essence and highest virtue is the blessed soul of Christ. And furthermore he wants us to know that his precious soul was beautifully bound to him in the making47 with a knot which is so subtle and so strong that it is joined into God; and in this joining it is made eternally holy. Furthermore, he wants us to know that all the souls which will be eternally saved in heaven are bound and united in this union and made holy in this holiness.
54
We ought to rejoice that God dwells in our soul and our soul in God, so that between God and our soul there is nothing, but as though it were all God; and how faith is the ground of all virtue in our soul, through the Holy Ghost.
And in the great and endless love which God has for all mankind, he makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ and the least soul that will be saved; for it is very easy to believe that the dwelling of the blessed soul of Christ is most high in the glorious Godhead, and truly, as I understand in what our Lord conveyed, where the blessed soul of Christ is, there is the essential being of all the souls that will be saved in Christ. We ought to rejoice greatly that God dwells in our soul, and we ought to rejoice much more greatly that our soul dwells in God. Our soul is made to be God’s dwelling place, and the dwelling place of the soul is God, who is not made. It shows deep understanding to see and know inwardly that God, who is our maker, dwells in our soul; and deeper understanding to see and know that our soul, which is made, dwells in God’s being; through this essential being – God – we are what we are.
And I saw no difference between God and our essential being, it seemed to be all God, and yet my understanding took it that our essential being is in God: that is to say that God is God, and our essential being is a creation within God; for the almighty truth of the Trinity is our father, he who made us and keeps us within him; and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, in whom we are all enclosed; and the great goodness of the Trinity is our lord and in him we are enclosed and he in us. We are enclosed in the Father, and we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed in the Holy Ghost; and the Father is enclosed in us, and the Son is enclosed in us, and the Holy Ghost is enclosed in us: almighty, all wisdom, all goodness, one God, one Lord.
And our faith is a virtue which comes from the essence of our nature into our sensory being through the Holy Ghost, and in this virtue all virtues come to us, for without it no man may receive virtue: it is no less than a right understanding with true belief and sure trust of what we cannot see, that in our essence we are in God, and God in us. And this virtue, and all the others within it which God has ordained for us, works great things in us; for Christ works mercifully within us and we are in accord with him by divine grace through the gifts and virtues of the Holy Ghost; it is this working which makes us Christ’s children and makes us lead Christian lives.
55
Christ is our way, leading and presenting us to the Father; and as soon as the soul is infused into the body, mercy and grace begin to work; and how the second person of the Trinity took on our sensory being to deliver us from double death.
And so Christ is our way, leading us surely in his laws, and Christ in his own body bears us powerfully up to heaven; for I saw that, having within him all of us that shall be saved by him, he presents us with due honour to his Father in heaven; a present which his Father receives gratefully, and kindly gives to his son Jesus Christ; and this gift and action is joy to the Father, bliss to the Son and delight to the Holy Ghost. And out of everything about us, what pleases our Lord most is that we rejoice in this joy at our salvation which is in the Holy Trinity. And this was seen in the ninth showing where more is said of this matter. And in spite of all our feelings, weal and woe, God wants us to understand and believe that we are more truly in heaven than on earth.
Our faith comes from the natural love of our soul and from the bright light of our reason and from the steadfast perception of God which we have when we are first made. And when our soul is breathed into our body, at the moment when we become sensory beings, mercy and grace immediately begin to work, taking care of us and protecting us with pity and love; and as they do so the Holy Ghost shapes in our faith the hope that we shall rise up again to our essential being, into the virtue of Christ, increased and accomplished through the Holy Ghost. Thus I understand that the sensory being is grounded in nature, in mercy and in grace, and this ground enables us to receive gifts which lead us to eternal life; for I saw quite certainly that our essential being is in God, and I also saw that God is in our sensory being; for at the very point that our soul is made sensory, at that point is the city of God, ordained for him since before time began; a dwelling place to which he comes and which he will never leave, for God never leaves the soul in which he dwells blissfully for ever. And this was seen in the sixteenth showing where it says, ‘Jesus will never leave the position which he takes in our soul.’
And all the gifts which God can give to those he creates he has given to his son Jesus for us; and he, dwelling in us, has enclosed these gifts within himself until such time as we have grown and matured, our soul with our body and our body with our soul, neither of them receiving help from the other, until by the operation of nature we achieve our full stature; and then, on the basis of nature and with the operation of mercy, the Holy Ghost graciously breathes into our body gifts leading to eternal life.
And so my understanding was led by God to see into him and to understand, to recognize and to know, that our soul is a created trinity, like the uncreated Holy Trinity, known and loved since before time began, and in the making united to the Maker as has been explained previously. This insight was very sweet and wonderful to contemplate, peaceful and restful, sure and delectable. And because of the glorious union which was thus made by God between the soul and the body, it must needs be that mankind shall be redeemed from double death – a redemption which could never have taken place before the time when the second Person of the Trinity had taken on the lower part of humanity, the higher part having been united to him at the time of humanity’s first creation. These two parts were in Christ, the higher and the lower, one soul. The higher part was at one with God in peace, in full jo
y and bliss; the lower part, which is sensory being, suffered for the salvation of mankind. And these two parts were seen and felt in the eighth showing, in which my body was filled with perception and awareness of Christ’s Passion and his death. And yet there came with this a subtle feeling and mysterious inward sight of the higher part which I was shown at the same time, although I could not follow the suggestion made to me that I should look up to heaven;48 and that was because of the power of my contemplation of the inner life – by which I mean that exalted essential being, that precious soul of Christ, which rejoices eternally in the Godhead.
Revelations of Divine Love Page 18
