Revelations of Divine Love · 4 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack

Chapter IIIa

"I desired to suffer with Him" And when I was thirty years old and a half, God sent me a bodily sickness, in which I lay three days and three nights; and on the fourth night I took all my rites of Holy Church, and weened not to have lived till day.

And after this I languored forth two days and two nights, and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have passed; and so weened they that were with me.

And being in youth as yet, I thought it great sorrow to die;—but for nothing that was in earth that meliked to live for, nor for no pain that I had fear of: for I trusted in God of His mercy.

But it was to have lived that I might have loved God better, and longer time, that I might have the more knowing and loving of God in bliss of Heaven.

For methought all the time that I had lived here so little and so short in regard of that endless bliss,—I thought [it was as] nothing.

Wherefore I thought: Good Lord, may my living no longer be to Thy worship!

And I understood by my reason and by my feeling of my pains that I should die; and I assented fully with all the will of my heart to be at God's will.

Thus I dured till day, and by then my body was dead from the middle downwards, as to my feeling.

Then was I minded to be set upright, backward leaning, with help,—for to have more freedom of my heart to be at God's will, and thinking on God while my life would last.

My Curate was sent for to be at my ending, and by that time when he came I had set my eyes, and might not speak.

He set the Cross before my face and said: I have brought thee the Image of thy Maker and Saviour: look thereupon and comfort thee therewith .

Methought I was well [as it was], for my eyes were set uprightward unto Heaven, where I trusted to come by the mercy of God; but nevertheless I assented to set my eyes on the face of the Crucifix, if I might; and so I did.

For methought I might longer dure to look even-forth than right up.

After this my sight began to fail, and it was all dark about me in the chamber, as if it had been night, save in the Image of the Cross whereon I beheld a common light; and I wist not how.

All that was away from the Cross was of horror to me, as if it had been greatly occupied by the fiends.

After this the upper part of my body began to die, so far forth that scarcely I had any feeling;—with shortness of breath.

And then I weened in sooth to have passed.

And in this [moment] suddenly all my pain was taken from me, and I was as whole (and specially in the upper part of my body) as ever I was afore.

I marvelled at this sudden change; for methought it was a privy working of God, and not of nature.

And yet by the feeling of this ease I trusted never the more to live; nor was the feeling of this ease any full ease unto me: for methought I had liefer have been delivered from this world.

Then came suddenly to my mind that I should desire the second wound of our Lord's gracious gift: that my body might be fulfilled with mind and feeling of His blessed Passion.

For I would that His pains were my pains, with compassion and afterward longing to God.

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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 deliberately focuses her gaze on the Crucifix and uses the image to sustain her spiritual focus during her dying moments.

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◆Anthropomorphismtheology

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

The text relies heavily on human imagery for the divine, including God's 'mercy,' Christ's 'wounds,' and the physical 'Image' of the Savior.

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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 central theme is the narrator's intense loving devotion and desire to suffer with Christ as the primary means of 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 demonstrates radical letting-go of the will to live for earthly reasons, assenting fully to God's will even in the face of death.

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◆Divine Lighttheology

The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.

The narrator experiences a miraculous vision where the entire room is dark except for a 'common light' shining from the Image of the Cross.

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◆Divine Providencetheology

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The narrator explicitly interprets her illness and miraculous recovery as God's specific ordering of events to deepen her love and knowledge of Him.

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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 text explicitly states that the narrator understands divine truths 'by my reason and by my feeling of my pains,' validating emotion as a mode of knowing.

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◆Living Godtheology

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

The passage depicts a dynamic, personal God who actively sends sickness, grants mercy, and intervenes miraculously to heal the narrator.

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◆Prayerpraxis

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

The passage contains direct internal address to God ('Good Lord') and the external liturgical rites of the Church.

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◆Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The narrator views her life and potential death as a journey toward the 'bliss of Heaven' and a deeper knowing of God.

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Related passages · 1 parallel

◆western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter XXII (part 22)

“I seemed to be directly under the foot of God, and I thought he was grinding his own life up out of my pain. Then I saw that what he had been trying with all his might to do was to change his course, to bend the line of lightning to which…”

Both passages describe a near-death experience where the individual gains profound spiritual insight and a deeper understanding of divine will. The experiences involve intense physical suffering leading to a transformative spiritual revelation, highlighting a conceptual parallel in mystical traditions.