Chapter 22
The ninth Revelation is of the lekyng etc., of three Hevyns, and the infinite love of Criste, desiring every day to suffre for us, if He myght, althow it is not nedeful. Twenty-second chapter.
Then our good Lord Jesus Christ asked,
Are you well pleased that I suffered for you?
I said, “Yes, good Lord, thank you, yes;
good Lord, may you be blessed.”
Than Jesus, our kind Lord, said
If you are pleased, I am pleased ;
it is a joy, a bliss, an endless delight to me
that I ever suffered passion for you,
and if I might suffer more, I would suffer more.
In this feeling my understanding
was lifted into Heaven,
where I saw three Heavens,
at which sight I marvelled greatly .
And though I saw three Heavens,
and all in the blessed manhood of Christ,
none is more, none is less,
none is higher, none is lower,
but evenly alike in bliss.
For the first Heaven,
Christ showed me His Father,
in no bodily likeness,
but in His property and in His working;
that is to say,
I saw that the Father is in Christ.
The working of the Father is this,
that He honours His son Jesus Christ.
This gift and this honour is so blissful to Jesus,
that His Father could have given Him
no reward that would have delighted Him more.
The first Heaven –
the Father’s pleasure shown me as a Heaven –
was fully blissful. For He is wholly pleased
with all Jesus has done for our salvation,
in which we are His, not only by Christ’s being,
but by the courteous gift of His Father.
We are His bliss, we are His reward,
we are His worship, we are His crown;
and this was a unique marvel
and a full, delectable vision,
that we are His crown.
This is such great bliss to Jesus
that He sets at nothing all His travail,
His hard passion, His cruel and shameful death.
And in these words,
If I might suffer more, I would suffer more,
I saw truly that as often as He might die,
so often He would,
and love would never let Him rest
until He had done it.
And I beheld with great diligence to know
how often He would die if He could,
and truly the number passed my understanding
and my wits so far,
that my reason may not, could not, comprehend it;
and when He had died that often,
yet He would count it as nothing for love,
it seemed to Him little compared to His love.
For though Christ’s sweet manhood might suffer once,
His goodness may never cease flowing;
each day He is ready to do the same.
If He would make the Heavens new
for love of me, and a new earth,
it were but little in reward,
for He could do this with no effort
every day if He would.
But to die for my love so often
that the number passes creatures’ reason,
is the highest offer our Lord God might make
to man’s soul.
And this is as I saw it.
Then He means this:
How could I not do for your love
all I might, a deed which grieves me not,
since I would die for your love so often
with no regard to my hard pains?
And here saw I for the second time
in this blessed passion,
the love that made Him suffer
passes as far above all His pains
as Heaven is above earth,
for those pains were a noble, worshipful deed
done in a time by the working of love.
And love was without beginning,
is, and shall be without end;
for which love He said full sweetly these words,
If I might suffer more, I would suffer more.
He did not say, “If it were necessary “;
for though it were not necessary,
if He might suffer more, He would.
This deed and this work for our salvation
was ordained as well as God might ordain it.
Here I saw a full bliss in Christ,
for His bliss would not have been full
if it could have been done any better.
Chapter 23
How Criste wil we joyen with Hym gretly in our redemption and to desire grace of Hym that we may so doe. Twenty-third chapter.
And in these three words,
It is a joy, a bliss, an endless delight to me,
were shown three Heavens, thus:
for the joy I understood the pleasure of the Father,
for the bliss, the worship of the Son,
and for the endless delight, the Holy Spirit.
The Father is pleased, the Son is worshiped,
the Holy Spirit delights.
Thus in the third vision of His blissful passion,
I saw the joy and bliss that delight Him in it.
Our courteous Lord showed His passion five ways,
first, the bleeding of the head,
second, the discolouring of His face,
third, the body’s plenteous bleeding
in the scourging’s score-marks,
fourth, the deep dying.
These four are the passion pains shown before.
And the fifth is that shown for the passion’s joy and bliss .
God’s wishes us truly, with Him,
to delight in our salvation,
strongly comforted and strengthened,
and so in His grace He wills
our soul merrily occupied.
For we are His bliss;
in us He delights without end,
and so, with His grace, shall we in Him.
And all that He has done for us,
does now, and ever shall,
was at no cost nor heaviness to Him,
nor could be,
except what He did in our manhood,
beginning at that sweet incarnation
lasting to the blessed uprising
on Easter morn.
In that deed’s cost and weight,
so long endured for our redemption,
in that deed, He rejoices endlessly,
as is aforesaid.
Jesus wishes us to heed the bliss
in the blissful Trinity at our salvation,
desiring as much spiritual delight,
by His grace, as is written above.
That is, our delight in our salvation
is like Christ’s joy in our salvation,
as it may be while we are here.
The whole Trinity wrought in Christ’s passion,
ministering abundance of virtues
and plenteous grace to us by Him;
but only the Maiden’s Son suffered;
whereof the whole blessed Trinity endlessly delights.
This was shown in these words,
Art thou well pleased?
and by that other word Christ said,
If you are pleased, then am I pleased;
as if He said, “It is joy and delight enough for me
and I ask nought else for my travail,
but that I might well please you.”
In this He brought to mind a glad giver.
A glad giver takes little heed of the gift,
but all his desire and all his intent
is to please and solace him to whom he gives.
If the receiver takes it highly thankful,
the courteous giver sets all his cost at nought,
and all his travail, for joy and delight,
for he has pleased and solaced him he loves.
Plenteously, fully was this shown.
Think also wisely of the greatness
of this word ever,
for in that was shown a high understanding
of the love He has in our salvation,
with manifold joys following Christ’s passion.
One, He enjoys having done it indeed,
and He shall no more suffer;
another, He brought us up into Heaven
and made us His crown and endless bliss.
Another, that He has thus bought us
from endless pains of Hell.
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