Revelations of Divine Love · 14 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter X-a
"God willeth to be seen and to be sought: to be abided and to be trusted" And after this I saw with bodily sight in the face of the crucifix that hung before me, on the which I gazed continually, a part of His Passion: despite, spitting and sullying, and buffetting, and many languoring pains, more than I can tell, and often changing of colour.
And one time I saw half the face, beginning at the ear, over-gone with dry blood till it covered to the mid-face.
And after that the other half [was] covered on the same wise, the whiles in this [first] part [it vanished] even as it came.
This saw I bodily, troublously and darkly; and I desired more bodily sight, to have seen more clearly.
And I was answered in my reason: If God will shew thee more, He shall be thy light: thee needeth none but Him.
For I saw Him sought.
For we are now so blind and unwise that we never seek God till He of His goodness shew Himself to us.
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.
One time mine understanding was led down into the sea-ground, and there I saw hills and dales green, seeming as it were moss-be-grown, with wrack and gravel.
Then I understood thus: that if a man or woman were under the broad water, if he might have sight of God so as God is with a man continually, he should be safe in body and soul, and take no harm: and overpassing, he should have more solace and comfort than all this world can tell.
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 then diverse times our good Lord gave me more sight, whereby I understood truly that it was a Shewing.
It was a figure and likeness of our foul deeds' shame that our fair, bright, blessed Lord bare for our sins: it made me to think of the Holy Vernacle at Rome, which He hath portrayed with His own blessed face when He was in His hard Passion, with steadfast will going to His death, and often changing of colour.
Of the brownness and blackness, the ruefulness and wastedness of this Image many marvel how it might be, since that He portrayed it with His blessed Face who is the fairness of heaven, flower of earth, and the fruit of the Maiden's womb.
Then how might this Image be so darkening in colour and so far from fair?—I desire to tell like as I have understood by the grace of God:— We know in our Faith, and believe by the teaching and preaching of Holy Church, that the blessed Trinity made Mankind to His image and to His likeness.
In the same manner-wise we know that when man fell so deep and so wretchedly by sin, there was none other help to restore man but through Him that made man.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The passage is centrally defined by the visionary's bodily sight of God's face on a crucifix, describing specific human features like ears, color changes, and blood.
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 text emphasizes 'seeking' God with 'great desire,' 'abiding,' and 'trusting' Him as the primary mode of relationship and grace.
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.
God is shown actively ordering the visionary's experience, revealing Himself 'of His goodness' to stir desire and grant understanding.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The passage outlines the necessity of being restored by the One who made man after the fall, implying a journey back to the divine origin through grace.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The text describes humanity as 'blind and unwise' due to the fall into sin, necessitating God's grace to restore the connection.