Revelations of Divine Love · 31 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter XXIIIa
"The Glad Giver" "All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Jesus Christ" And in these three words: It is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me , were shewed three heavens, as thus: For the joy, I understood the pleasure of the Father; and for the bliss, the worship of the Son; and for the endless satisfying, the Holy Ghost.
The Father is pleased, the Son is worshipped, the Holy Ghost is satisfied.
And here saw I, for the Third Beholding in His blissful Passion: that is to say, the Joy and the Bliss that make Him to be well-satisfied in it.
For our Courteous Lord shewed His Passion to me in five manners: of which the first is the bleeding of the head; the second is, discolouring of His face; the third is, the plenteous bleeding of the body, in seeming [as] from the scourging; the fourth is, the deep dying:—these four are aforetold for the pains of the Passion.
And the fifth is [this] that was shewed for the joy and the bliss of the Passion.
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: so long dured the cost and the charge about our redemption in deed : of [the] which deed He enjoyeth endlessly, as it is aforesaid.
Jesus willeth that we take heed to the bliss that is in the blessed Trinity [because] of our salvation and that we desire to have as much spiritual enjoying, with His grace, (as it is aforesaid): that is to say, that the enjoying of our salvation be [as] like to the joy that Christ hath of our salvation as it may be while we are here.
All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Christ, ministering abundance of virtues and plenty of grace to us by Him: but only the Maiden's Son suffered: whereof all the blessed Trinity endlessly enjoyeth.
All this was shewed in these words: Art thou well pleased?
—and by that other word that Christ said: If thou art pleased, then am I pleased; —as if He said: It is joy and satisfying enough to me, and I ask nought else of thee for my travail but that I might well please thee .
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.
Think also wisely of the greatness of this word " ever ." For in it was shewed an high knowing of love that He hath in our salvation, with manifold joys that follow of the Passion of Christ.
One is that He rejoiceth that He hath done it in deed, and He shall no more suffer; another, that He bought us from endless pains of hell.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The passage attributes distinctly human emotions (pleasure, joy, satisfaction) and social roles ('Glad Giver', 'courteous giver') to the divine persons.
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 passage emphasizes a relationship of loving devotion and mutual delight between the 'Glad Giver' and the receiver, where the primary intent is to please and solace the beloved.
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 text states that 'it is God's will' that humans have true enjoyment and comfort in salvation, indicating an active divine ordering of human spiritual experience.
The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition.
The text presents 'joy', 'bliss', and 'satisfaction' not merely as feelings but as the primary modes through which the nature of the Trinity and salvation are revealed and understood.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
God is portrayed as a dynamic, emotional, and responsive 'Glad Giver' who feels pleasure, joy, and satisfaction in the act of giving and in the relationship with humanity.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
The text describes a profound union where 'we are His bliss' and God enjoys endlessly in us, while we enjoy in Him, transcending the separation between creator and creature.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The passage centrally teaches that humans are God's bliss and that through grace, the soul is occupied with God to enjoy salvation in a manner mirroring Christ's own joy, implying a sharing in divine life.