Revelations of Divine Love · 3 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack

Chapter II

"A simple creature unlettered.—Which creature afore desired three gifts of God" These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature unlettered, the year of our Lord 1373, the Thirteenth day of May. Which creature [had] afore desired three gifts of God. The First was mind of His Passion; the Second was bodily sickness in youth, at thirty years of age; the Third was to have of God's gift three wounds. As to the First, methought I had some feeling in the Passion of Christ, but yet I desired more by the grace of God. Methought I would have been that time with Mary Magdalene, and with other that were Christ's lovers, and therefore I desired a bodily sight wherein I might have more knowledge of the bodily pains of our Saviour and of the compassion of our Lady and of all His true lovers that saw, that time, His pains. For I would be one of them and suffer with Him. Other sight nor shewing of God desired I never none, till the soul were disparted from the body. The cause of this petition was that after the shewing I should have the more true mind in the Passion of Christ. The Second came to my mind with contrition; [I] freely desiring that sickness [to be] so hard as to death, that I might in that sickness receive all my rites of Holy Church, myself thinking that I should die, and that all creatures might suppose the same that saw me: for I would have no manner of comfort of earthly life. In this sickness I desired to have all manner of pains bodily and ghostly that I should have if I should die, (with all the dreads and tempests of the fiends) except the outpassing of the soul. And this I meant for [that] I would be purged, by the mercy of God, and afterward live more to the worship of God because of that sickness. And that for the more furthering in my death: for I desired to be soon with my God. These two desires of the Passion and the sickness I desired with a condition, saying thus: Lord, Thou knowest what I would,—if it be Thy will that I have it—; and if it be not Thy will, good Lord, be not displeased: for I will nought but as Thou wilt. For the Third [petition], by the grace of God and teaching of Holy Church I conceived a mighty desire to receive three wounds in my life: that is to say, the wound of very contrition, the wound of kind compassion, and the wound of steadfast longing toward God. And all this last petition I asked without any condition. These two desires aforesaid passed from my mind, but the third dwelled with me continually.

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Themes

◆Active Contemplationpraxis

A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.

The narrator engages in imaginative visualization of being present at the Passion with Mary Magdalene to deepen her knowledge.

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◆Bhakti

The path of loving devotion and self-surrender to a personal deity as itself sufficient means of liberation — the Gita's 'to those constantly devoted, I come forward as their deliverer,' Kabir's and the Sant poets' love-religion, the devotional stream that parallels Sufi love-mysticism. Distinct from mystical_union (the resulting state), fana_annihilation (the ego's unmaking at the path's end), ladder_of_love (eros staged toward Beauty), and prayer (the practice of address): bhakti names devotion as the soteriological road itself.

The narrator expresses a 'mighty desire' for union with God through suffering and longing, framing this devotional love as the central path to spiritual fulfillment.

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◆Detachment Gelassenheitpraxis

Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.

The narrator explicitly renounces 'earthly life' and comforts, desiring only what God wills, demonstrating a radical letting-go of personal desire.

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◆Emotional Epistemologysoteriology

The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition.

The passage explicitly grounds the desire for knowledge of Christ's Passion in 'feeling' and 'compassion,' positing emotional participation as the primary means to true understanding.

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◆Fasting And Prayerpraxis

Ascetic disciplines that prepare the body and mind for spiritual receptivity or purification.

The request for 'bodily sickness' and the desire to suffer pains are framed as ascetic disciplines intended for purification and spiritual advancement.

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◆Living Godtheology

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

God is addressed as a responsive personal entity who knows the narrator's desires and whose will is the ultimate object of submission.

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◆Prayerpraxis

Direct address to the divine, whether petitionary, contemplative, or liturgical; speech and silence offered upward.

The entire text is structured around the narrator's petitions to God for three specific gifts, detailing the content and conditions of these prayers.

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