Revelations of Divine Love · 117 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter LXXVIIa
"Accuse not thyself overmuch, deeming that thy tribulation and thy woe is all thy fault." "All thy living is penance profitable." "In the remedy He willeth that we rejoice" Our good Lord shewed the enmity of the Fiend: in which Shewing I understood that all that is contrary to love and peace is of the Fiend and of his part.
And we have, of our feebleness and our folly, to fall; and we have, of mercy and grace of the Holy Ghost, to rise to more joy.
And if our enemy aught winneth of us by our falling, (for it is his pleasure, ) he loseth manifold more in our rising by charity and meekness.
And this glorious rising, it is to him so great sorrow and pain for the hate that he hath to our soul, that he burneth continually in envy.
And all this sorrow that he would make us to have, it shall turn to himself.
And for this it was that our Lord scorned him, and [it was] this [that] made me mightily to laugh.
Then is this the remedy, that we be aware of our wretchedness and flee to our Lord: for ever the more needy that we be, the more speedful it is to us to draw nigh to Him.
And let us say thus in our thinking: I know well I have a shrewd pain; but our Lord is All-Mighty and may punish me mightily; and He is All-Wisdom and can punish me discerningly; and He is All-Goodness and loveth me full tenderly .
And in this beholding it is necessary for us to abide; for it is a lovely meekness of a sinful soul, wrought by mercy and grace of the Holy Ghost, when we willingly and gladly take the scourge and chastening of our Lord that Himself will give us.
And it shall be full tender and full easy, if that we will only hold us satisfied with Him and with all His works.
For the penance that man taketh of himself was not shewed me: that is to say, it was not shewed specified.
But specially and highly and with full lovely manner of look was it shewed that we shall meekly bear and suffer the penance that God Himself giveth us, with mind in His blessed Passion.
(For when we have mind in His blessed Passion, with pity and love, then we suffer with Him like as His friends did that saw it.
And this was shewed in the Thirteenth Shewing, near the beginning, where it speaketh of Pity.) For He saith: Accuse not [thy]self overdone much, deeming that thy tribulation and thy woe is all for thy fault; for I will not that thou be heavy or sorrowful indiscreetly.
For I tell thee, howsoever thou do, thou shalt have woe.
And therefore I will that thou wisely know thy penance; and [thou] shalt see in truth that all thy living is penance profitable.
This place is prison and this life is penance, and in the remedy He willeth that we rejoice.
The remedy is that our Lord is with us, keeping and leading into the fulness of joy.
For this is an endless joy to us in our Lord's signifying, that He that shall be our bliss when we are there, He is our keeper while we are here.
Our way and our heaven is true love and sure trust; and of this He gave understanding in all [the Shewings] and especially in the Shewing of the Passion where He made me mightily to choose Him for my heaven.
A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.
The text instructs the reader to engage in specific mental acts: 'beholding' God's attributes and holding 'mind in His blessed Passion' with pity and love.
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 soteriological path described is one of loving devotion, trust, and meek surrender to a personal deity who is the source of all joy.
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 passage emphasizes that God actively orders human suffering and tribulation as 'penance profitable' and guides the soul toward joy.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The passage explicitly defines the Fiend's influence as 'all that is contrary to love and peace,' framing evil not as a positive substance but as an opposition to divine good.
Eckhart's radical reading of Matthew 5:3 — the saint as one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing, having emptied even the will and the self with which to receive God; distinct from renunciation_of_wealth (material poverty).
The text teaches that 'the more needy that we be, the more speedful it is to us to draw nigh to Him,' highlighting spiritual poverty as a catalyst for divine proximity.
Daily review of thought and action as spiritual practice.
The passage addresses the practice of self-accusation, advising against excessive self-blame while encouraging awareness of one's 'wretchedness' to draw near to God.