Revelations of Divine Love quotes

"From that time that the Revelation was shewed I desired oftentimes to learn what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years afterwards and more, I was answered in ghostly understanding, saying thus: Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing?

Learn it well: Love was His meaning.

Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn other thing without end."

or beholding, with the self forgotten, yet offered-up; it is a thanking and a praising in the heart that sometimes breaks forth into voice; or a silent joy in the sight of God as all-sufficient. And in all these ways "

Prayer oneth the soul to God.

"

And in the same Shewing suddenly the Trinity fulfilled my heart most of joy. And so I understood it shall be in heaven without end to all that shall come there.

For the Trinity is God: God is the Trinity; the Trinity is our Maker and Keeper, the Trinity is our everlasting love and everlasting joy and bliss, by our Lord Jesus Christ.

And this was shewed in the First [Shewing] and in all: for where Jesus appeareth, the blessed Trinity is understood, as to my sight.

In this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual[1] sight of His homely loving.

I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth[2] us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to us all-thing that is good, as to mine understanding.

Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be?

it is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little[ness]. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall [last] for that God loveth it.

And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.

In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover,—I cannot tell;

In this Little Thing I saw three properties.

The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it.

But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover,—I cannot tell; for till I am Substantially oned[3] to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss:

For this is the cause why we be not all in ease of heart and soul: that we seek here rest in those things that are so little, wherein is no rest, and know not our God that is All-mighty, All-wise, All-good.

For He is the Very Rest.

God willeth to be known, and it pleaseth Him that we rest in Him; for all that is beneath Him sufficeth not us.

Wherefore it pleaseth Him that we seek Him and worship through means, understanding that He is the Goodness of all.

For the Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need.

It quickeneth our soul and bringeth it on life, and maketh it for to waxen in grace and virtue. It is nearest in nature; and readiest in grace:

It is nearest in nature; and readiest in grace: for it is the same grace that the soul seeketh, and ever shall seek till we know verily that He hath us all in Himself enclosed.

For He hath no despite of that He hath made, nor hath He any disdain to serve us at the simplest office that to our body belongeth in nature, for love of the soul that He hath made to His own likeness.

For as the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the whole,[4] so are we, soul and body, clad in the Goodness of God, and enclosed. Yea, and more homely:

For He hath no despite of that He hath made, nor hath He any disdain to serve us at the simplest office that to our body belongeth in nature, for love of the soul that He hath made to His own likeness.

For as the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the whole,[4] so are we, soul and body, clad in the Goodness of God, and enclosed.

Yea, and more homely: for all these may waste and wear away, but the Goodness of God is ever whole; and more near to us, without any likeness;

And therefore we may with grace and His help stand in spiritual beholding, with everlasting marvel of this high, overpassing, inestimable[6] Love that Almighty God hath to us of His Goodness. And therefore we may ask of our Lover with reverence all that we will.

For our natural[7] Will is to have God, and the Good Will of God is to have us; and we may never cease from willing nor from longing till we have Him in fullness of joy: and then may we no more desire.

For He willeth that we be occupied in knowing and loving till the time that we shall be fulfilled in Heaven; and therefore was this lesson of Love shewed, with all that followeth, as ye shall see.

and he that loveth generally all his even-Christians for God, he loveth all that is. For in mankind that shall be saved is comprehended all: that is to say, all that is made and the Maker of all.

For in man is God, and God is in all.

And I hope by the grace of God he that beholdeth it thus shall be truly taught and mightily comforted, if he needeth comfort.

And when we aught see of Him graciously, then are we stirred by the same grace to seek with great desire to see Him more blissfully.

And thus I saw Him, and sought Him; and I had Him, I wanted Him.

And this is, and should be, our common working in this [life], as to my sight.

For He willeth we should believe that we see Him continually though that to us it seemeth but little [of sight]; and in this belief He maketh us evermore to gain grace.

For He will be seen and He will be sought: He will be abided and he will be trusted.

This Second Shewing was so low and so little and so simple, that my spirits were in great travail in the beholding,—mourning, full of dread, and longing: for I was some time in doubt whether it was a Shewing.

and the clearness of finding, it is of His special grace, when it is His will. The seeking, with faith, hope, and charity, pleaseth our Lord, and the finding pleaseth the soul and fulfilleth it with joy.

And thus was I learned, to mine understanding, that seeking is as good as beholding, for the time that He will suffer the soul to be in travail.

It is God's will that we seek Him, to the beholding of Him, for by that[5] He shall shew us Himself of His special grace when He will. And how a soul shall have Him in its beholding, He shall teach Himself:

"All thing that is done, it is well done: for our Lord God doeth all." "Sin is no deed"

And after this I saw God in a Point,[1] that is to say, in mine understanding,—by which sight I saw that He is in all things.

I beheld and considered, seeing and knowing in sight, with a soft dread, and thought: What is sin?

For there was no thing unknown to Him in His rightful ordinance from without beginning. And therefore all-thing was set in order ere anything was made, as it should stand without end; and no manner of thing shall fail of that point.

For He made all things in fulness of goodness, and therefore the blessed Trinity is ever full pleased in all His works.[2]

And all this shewed He full blissfully, signifying thus: See! I am God: see! I am in all thing: see! I do all thing: see! I lift never mine hands off my works, nor ever shall, without end: see!

After this our good Lord said:

I thank thee for thy travail, and especially for thy youth.

And in this [Shewing] mine understanding was lifted up into Heaven where I saw our Lord as a lord in his own house, which hath called all his dear worthy servants and friends to a stately[1] feast.

This Vision was shewed me, according to mine understanding, [for] that it is speedful to some souls to feel on this wise: sometime to be in comfort, and sometime to fail and to be left to themselves.

God willeth that we know that He keepeth us even alike secure in woe and in weal.

And for profit of man's soul, a man is sometime left to himself; although sin is not always the cause: for in this time I sinned not wherefore I should be left to myself—for it was so sudden.

I thought: Is any pain like this? And I was answered in my reason: Hell is another pain: for there is despair.

But of all pains that lead to salvation this is the most pain, to see thy Love suffer.

How might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is all my life, all my bliss, and all my joy, suffer?

which Kind Love was most fully shewed in His sweet Mother, and overpassing; for so much as she loved Him more than all other, her pains passed all other.

For ever the higher, the mightier, the sweeter that the love be, the more sorrow it is to the lover to see that body in pain that is loved.

And all His disciples and all His true lovers suffered pains more than their own bodily dying. For I am sure by mine own feeling that the least of them loved Him so far above himself that it passeth all that I can say.

Either me behoved to look up or else to answer. I answered inwardly with all the might of my soul, and said:

Nay; I may not: for Thou art my Heaven.

This I said for that I would not. For I would liever have been in that pain till Doomsday than to come to Heaven otherwise than by Him.

Then said our good Lord Jesus Christ: Art thou well pleased that I suffered for thee? I said: Yea, good Lord, I thank Thee; Yea, good Lord, blessed mayst Thou be. Then said Jesus, our kind Lord:

If thou art pleased, I am pleased: it is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me that ever suffered I Passion for thee; and if I might suffer more, I would suffer more.

In this feeling my understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and there I saw three heavens: of which sight I marvelled greatly.

And here saw I, for the Second[4] Beholding in this blessed Passion the love that made Him to suffer passeth as far all His pains as Heaven is above Earth.

For the pains was a noble, worshipful deed done in a time by the working of love: but[5] Love was without beginning, is, and shall be without ending.

For which love He said full sweetly these words: If I might suffer more, I would suffer more. He said not, If it were needful to suffer more: for though it were not needful, if He might suffer more, He would.

For it is God's will that we have true enjoying with Him in our salvation, and therein He willeth [that] we be mightily comforted and strengthened; and thus willeth He that merrily with His grace our soul be occupied.

For we are His bliss: for in us He enjoyeth without end; and so shall we in Him, with His grace.

And all that He hath done for us, and doeth, and ever shall, was never cost nor charge to Him, nor might be, but only that [which] He did in our manhood, beginning at the sweet Incarnation and lasting to the Blessed Uprise on Easter-morrow:[3] …

And in this He brought to mind the property of a glad giver.

A glad giver taketh but little heed of the thing that he giveth, but all his desire and all his intent is to please him and solace him to whom he giveth it.

And if the receiver take the gift highly and thankfully, then the courteous giver setteth at nought all his cost and all his travail, for joy and delight that he hath pleased and solaced him that he loveth. Plenteously and fully was this shewed.

Our Lord Jesus oftentimes said: I it am, I it am:

I it am that is highest, I it am that thou lovest, I it am that thou enjoyest, I it am that thou servest, I it am that thou longest for, I it am that thou desirest, I it am that thou meanest, I it am that is all.

I it am that Holy Church preacheth and teacheth thee, I it am that shewed me here to thee. The number of the words passeth my wit and all my understanding and all my powers. And they are the highest, as to my sight:

But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said:

It behoved that there should be sin;[1] but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

In this naked word sin, our Lord brought to my mind, generally, all that is not good, and the shameful despite and the utter noughting[2] that He bare for us in this life, and His dying;

And right as I was afore in the [Shewing of the] Passion of Christ fulfilled with pain and compassion, like so in this [sight] I was fulfilled, in part, with compassion of all mine even-Christians—for that well, well beloved people that shall be saved.

For God's servants, Holy Church, shall be shaken in sorrow and anguish, tribulation in this world, as men shake a cloth in the wind.

And as to this our Lord answered in this manner: A great thing shall I make hereof in Heaven of endless worship and everlasting joys.

For He saith: I shall wholly break you of your vain affections and your vicious pride; and after that I shall together gather you, and make you mild and meek, clean and holy, by oneing to me.

And then I saw that each kind compassion that man hath on his even-Christians with charity, it is Christ in him.

That same noughting that was shewed in His Passion, it was shewed again here in this Compassion. Wherein were two manner of understandings in our Lord's meaning. The one was the bliss that we are brought to, wherein He willeth that we rejoice.

And thus our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts that I might make, saying full comfortably:

I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.

In that He saith, I may, I understand [it] for the Father; and in that He saith, I can, I understand [it] for the Son; and where He saith, I will, I understand [it] for the Holy Ghost;

which is desire in Him as long as we be in need, drawing us up to His bliss. And all this was seen in the Shewing of Compassion: for that shall cease on Doomsday.

Thus He hath ruth and compassion on us, and He hath longing to have us; but His wisdom and His love suffereth not the end to come till the best time.

"There be deeds evil done in our sight, and so great harms taken, that it seemeth to us that it were impossible that ever it should come to good end." "That Great Deed ordained ... by which our Lord God shall make all things well"

And so meaneth He in that He saith: All manner of things shall be well.

For He willeth we know that the least thing shall not be forgotten.

Another understanding is this, that there be deeds evil done in our sight, and so great harms taken, that it seemeth to us that it were impossible that ever it should come to good end.

And when sin hath no longer leave to pursue, then shall the working of mercy cease, and then shall all be brought to rightfulness and therein stand without end.

And by His sufferance we fall; and in His blissful Love with His Might and His Wisdom we are kept; and by mercy and grace we are raised to manifold more joys.

Thus in Rightfulness and Mercy He willeth to be known and loved, now and without end. And the soul that wisely beholdeth it in grace, it is well pleased with both, and endlessly enjoyeth.

I keep thee full surely. This word was said with more love and secureness and spiritual keeping than I can or may tell. For as it was shewed that [I][1] should sin, right so was the comfort shewed: secureness and keeping for all mine even-Christians.

What may make me more to love mine even-Christians than to see in God that He loveth all that shall be saved as it were all one soul?

For in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall.

This shewed our Lord in [shewing] the wholeness of love that we stand in, in His sight: yea, that He loveth us now as well while we are here, as He shall do while we are there afore His blessed face.

But for failing of love on our part, therefore is all our travail.

[1] Perhaps the omitted word is "all"; but de Cressy has "I" as above: "that I should sin."

And this is one meekness that greatly pleaseth God; and also bodily sickness of God's sending, and also sorrow and shame from without, and reproof, and despite of this world, with all manner of grievance and temptations that we be cast in,[4] bodily and ghostly.

Full preciously our Lord keepeth us when it seemeth to us that we are near forsaken and cast away for our sin and because we have deserved it.

And because of meekness that we get hereby, we are raised well-high in God's sight by His grace, with so great contrition, and also compassion, and true longing to God.

Then they be suddenly delivered from sin and from pain, and taken up to bliss, and made even high saints.

By contrition we are made clean, by compassion we are made ready, and by true longing toward God we are made worthy.

These are three means, as I understand, whereby that all souls come to heaven: that is to say, that have been sinners in earth and shall be saved: for by these three medicines it behoveth that every soul be healed.

But our courteous Lord willeth not that His servants despair, for often nor for grievous falling: for our falling hindereth[5] not Him to love us.

Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love.

But He willeth that we take heed thus that He is Ground of all our whole life in love;

For sin is so vile and so greatly to be hated that it may be likened to no pain which is not sin.

And to me was shewed no harder hell than sin.

For a kind[3] soul hath no hell but sin.

no more than His love is broken to us for our sin, no more willeth He that our love be broken to ourself and to our even-Christians: but [that we] endlessly hate the sin and endlessly love the soul, as God loveth it.

Then shall we hate sin like as God hateth it, and love the soul as God loveth it.

And this word that He said is an endless comfort: I keep thee securely.

And all this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind, and shewed these words, and said:

I am Ground of thy beseeching: first it is my will that thou have it; and after, I make thee to will it; and after, I make thee to beseech it and thou beseechest it. How should it then be that thou shouldst not have thy beseeching?

And thus in the first reason, with the three that follow, our good Lord sheweth a mighty comfort, as it may be seen in the same words. And in the first reason,—where He saith:

And thou beseechest it, there He sheweth [His] full great pleasance, and endless meed that He will give us for our beseeching. And in the second reason, where He saith: How should it then be? etc., this was said for an impossible [thing].

For it is most impossible that we should beseech mercy and grace, and not have it.

For everything that our good Lord maketh us to beseech, Himself hath ordained it to us from without beginning. Here may we see that our beseeching is not cause of God's goodness; and that shewed He soothfastly in all these sweet words when He saith:

and so is His blissful will. Therefore He saith thus: Pray inwardly,[3] though thee thinketh it savour thee not: for it is profitable, though thou feel not, though thou see nought; yea, though thou think thou canst not.

For in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in feebleness, then is thy prayer well-pleasant to me, though thee thinketh it savour thee nought but little.

And so is all thy believing prayer in my sight. For the meed and the endless thanks that He will give us, therefor He is covetous to have us pray continually in His sight.

But sometimes it cometh to our mind that we have prayed long time, and yet we think to ourselves that we have not our asking. But herefor should we not be in heaviness.

For I am sure, by our Lord's signifying, that either we abide a better time, or more grace, or a better gift.

He willeth that we have true knowing in Himself that He is Being; and in this knowing He willeth that our understanding be grounded, with all our mights and all our intent and all our meaning;

marvellously enjoying with reverent dread, and with so great sweetness and delight in Him that we can pray right nought but as He stirreth us, for the time.

And well I wot, the more the soul seeth of God, the more it desireth Him by His grace.

But when we see Him not so, then feel we need and cause to pray, because of failing, for enabling of our self, to Jesus.

"We fail oftentimes of the sight of Him, and anon we fall into our self, and then find we no feeling of right,—nought but contrariness that is in our self"

Two things belong to our soul as duty: the one is that we reverently marvel, the other that we meekly suffer, ever enjoying in God.

For He would have us understand that we shall in short time see clearly in Himself all that we desire.

which failing is not in God, but is on our part. For we by sin and wretchedness have in us a wretched and continuant contrariness to peace and to love. And that shewed He full often in His lovely Regard of Ruth and Pity.[2]

For the ground of mercy is love, and the working of mercy is our keeping in love.

And this was shewed in such manner that I could[3] not have perceived of the part of mercy but as it were alone in love; that is to say, as to my sight.

and in as much as we fall, in so much we die: for it needs must be that we die in so much as we fail of the sight and feeling of God that is our life.

Our failing is dreadful, our falling is shameful, and our dying is sorrowful: but in all this the sweet eye of pity and love is lifted never off us, nor the working of mercy ceaseth.[4]

For I beheld the property of mercy, and I beheld the property of grace: which have two manners of working in one love. Mercy is a pitiful property which belongeth to the Motherhood in tender love;

For wrath and friendship be two contraries. For He that wasteth and destroyeth our wrath and maketh us meek and mild,—it behoveth needs to be that He [Himself] be ever one in love, meek and mild: which is contrary to wrath.

For I saw full surely that where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken and wrath hath no place.

For I saw no manner of wrath in God, neither for short time nor for long;—for in sooth, as to my sight, if God might be wroth for an instant,[1] we should never have life nor place nor being.

that is to say, full pleased with God and with all His works, and with all His judgments, and loving and peaceable with our self and with our even-Christians and with all that God loveth, as love beseemeth.[3] And this doeth God's Goodness in us.

Thus saw I that God is our very Peace, and He is our sure Keeper when we are ourselves in unpeace, and He continually worketh to bring us into endless peace.

And thus when we, by the working of mercy and grace, be made meek and mild, we are fully safe; suddenly is the soul oned to God when it is truly peaced in itself: for in Him is found no wrath.

The Servant that stood afore the Lord, I understood that it was shewed for Adam: that is to say, one man was shewed, that time, and his falling, to make it thereby understood how God beholdeth All-Man and his falling.

For in the sight of God all man is one man, and one man is all man.

This man was hurt in his might and made full feeble; and he was stunned in his understanding so that he [was] turned from the beholding of his Lord.

out of Whom we be all come, in Whom we be all enclosed, into Whom we shall all wend,[4] in Him finding our full Heaven in everlasting joy, by the foreseeing purpose of all the blessed Trinity from without beginning.

For ere that He made us He loved us, and when we were made we loved Him.

And this is a Love that is made, [to our Kindly Substance], [by virtue] of the Kindly Substantial Goodness of the Holy Ghost; Mighty, in Reason, [by virtue] of the Might of the Father;

Highly ought we to rejoice that God dwelleth in our soul, and much more highly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwelleth in God.

Our soul is made to be God's dwelling-place; and the dwelling-place of the soul is God, Which is unmade.

And high understanding it is, inwardly to see and know that God, which is our Maker, dwelleth in our soul; and an higher understanding it is, inwardly to see and to know that our soul, that is made, dwelleth in God's Substance:

and our lower part the Second Person hath taken: which nature first to Him was made-ready.[2] For I saw full surely that all the works that God hath done, or ever shall, were fully known to Him and aforeseen from without beginning.

And for Love He made Mankind, and for the same Love would be Man.

The next[3] Good that we receive is our Faith, in which our profiting beginneth.

I it am, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I it am, the Light and the Grace that is all blessed Love: I it am, the Trinity, I it am, the Unity: I am the sovereign Goodness of all manner of things.

I am that maketh thee to love: I am that maketh thee to long: I it am, the endless fulfilling of all true desires.

For there the soul is highest, noblest, and worthiest, where it is lowest, meekest, and mildest: and [out] of this Substantial Ground we have all our virtues in our Sense-part by gift of Nature, by helping and speeding of Mercy and Grace:

the second is taking of our nature,—and there beginneth the Motherhood of Grace; the third is Motherhood of working,—and therein is a forthspreading by the same Grace, of length and breadth and height and of deepness without end.

And all is one Love.

[4] MS. "of."

for thereby we shall highly be raised in heaven; to which raising we might[3] never have come without that meekness. And therefore it needeth us to see it; and if we see it not, though we fell it should not profit us.

And commonly, first we fall and later we see it: and both of the Mercy of God.

The mother may suffer the child to fall sometimes, and to be hurt in diverse manners for its own profit, but she may never suffer that any manner of peril come to the child, for love.

And by the assay of this falling we shall have an high, marvellous knowing of love in God, without end.

For strong and marvellous is that love which may not, nor will not, be broken for trespass.

And this is one understanding of [our] profit. Another is the lowness and meekness that we shall get by the sight of our falling: for thereby we shall highly be raised in heaven; to which raising we might[3] never have come without that meekness.

And thereto He raiseth us spiritually and highly in heaven, and turneth it all to His worship and to our joy, without end.

For His love suffereth us never to lose time.

And all this is of the Nature-Goodness of God, by the working of Grace. God is Nature[2] in His being: that is to say, that Goodness that is Nature, it is God.

And when it cometh above all creatures into the Self, yet may it not abide in the beholding of its Self, but all the beholding is blissfully set in God that is the Maker dwelling therein.

For in Man's Soul is His very dwelling; and the highest light and the brightest shining of the City is the glorious love of our Lord, as to my sight.

And what may make us more to enjoy in God than to see in Him that He enjoyeth in the highest of all His works?

and when it had seen all the nobleness beneath, then, marvelling, it was moved to seek above to the high place where the lord dwelleth, knowing, by reason, that his dwelling is in the worthiest place.

And thus I understood in verity that our Soul may never have rest in things that are beneath itself.

And when it cometh above all creatures into the Self, yet may it not abide in the beholding of its Self, but all the beholding is blissfully set in God that is the Maker dwelling therein. For in Man's Soul is His very dwelling;

And this word: Thou shalt not be overcome, was said full clearly[2] and full mightily, for assuredness and comfort against all tribulations that may come.

He said not: Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shall not be travailed, thou shah not be afflicted; but He said: Thou shalt not be overcome.

God willeth that we take heed to these words, and that we be ever strong in sure trust, in weal and woe. For He loveth and enjoyeth us, and so willeth He that we love and enjoy Him and mightily trust in Him;

The fourth is reverent dread: for there is no dread that fully pleaseth God in us but reverent dread. And that is full soft, for the more it is had, the less it is felt for sweetness of love.

Love and Dread are brethren, and they are rooted in us by the Goodness of our Maker, and they shall never be taken from us without end.

We have of nature to love and we have of grace to love: and we have of nature to dread and we have of grace to dread.

for I will not that thou be heavy or sorrowful indiscreetly. For I tell thee, howsoever thou do, thou shalt have woe. And therefore I will that thou wisely know thy penance; and [thou] shalt see in truth that all thy living is penance profitable.

This place is prison and this life is penance, and in the remedy He willeth that we rejoice.

The remedy is that our Lord is with us, keeping and leading into the fulness of joy.

And all such that is speedful, it is Christ in us. And though some of us feel it seldom, it passeth never from Christ till what time He hath brought us out of all our woe.

For love suffereth never to be without pity.

And what time that we fall into sin and leave the mind of Him and the keeping of our own soul, then keepeth Christ alone all the charge; and thus standeth He sorrowfully and moaning.

Marvellous and stately[2] is the place where the Lord dwelleth, and therefore He willeth that we readily answer to[3] His gracious touching, more rejoicing in His whole love than sorrowing in our often fallings.

For it is the most worship to Him of anything that we may do, that we live gladly and merrily, for His love, in our penance.

For He beholdeth us so tenderly that He seeth all our living [here] a penance: for nature's longing in us is to Him aye-lasting penance in us[4]: which penance He worketh in us and mercifully He helpeth us to bear it.

and He willeth that we know it by the sweet gracious light of His kind love. If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me.

But this was shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love.

For in the Beholding of God we fall not, and in the beholding of self we stand not; and both these [manners of beholding] be sooth as to my sight.

If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love.

For in the Beholding of God we fall not, and in the beholding of self we stand not; and both these [manners of beholding] be sooth as to my sight.

But the Beholding of our Lord God is the highest soothness.[4] Then are we greatly bound to God[5] [for] that He willeth in this living to shew us this high soothness.

I beheld with reverent dread, and highly marvelling in the sight and in the feeling of the sweet accord, that our Reason is in God; understanding that it is the highest gift that we have received; and it is grounded in nature.

Our faith is a light by nature coming of our endless Day, that is our Father, God.

In which light our Mother, Christ, and our good Lord, the Holy Ghost, leadeth us in this passing life. This light is measured discreetly, needfully standing to us in the night. The light is cause of our life;

And at the end of woe, suddenly our eyes shall be opened, and in clearness of light our sight shall be full: which light is God, our Maker and Holy Ghost, in Christ Jesus our Saviour.

Thus I saw and understood that our faith is our light in our night: which light is God, our endless Day.

[1] Cf. chs. lxxxv. and lxxxvi. These words might be (as Life, Light, and Love) for the Trinity of Might ("the Father willeth"), Wisdom ("the Son worketh"), Love ("the Holy Ghost confirmeth"): one Goodness:

And this was seen in the Sixth Shewing where He said: I thank thee of thy service and of thy travail. Thus Charity keepeth us in Faith and Hope, and Hope leadeth us in Charity.

And in the end all shall be Charity.

I had three manners of understanding of this light, Charity. The first is Charity unmade; the second is Charity made; the third is Charity given. Charity unmade is God; Charity made is our soul in God; Charity given is virtue.