"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[1] two days and two nights,
and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have passed;[2] 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!_[3]
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[4] 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;[5] and
so I did. For methought I might longer dure to look even-forth[6] 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[7] the Cross was of horror to me, as if it had been greatly
occupied by the fiends.
After this the upper[8] 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. But in this I
desired never bodily sight nor shewing of God, but compassion such as a
kind[9] soul might have with our Lord Jesus, that for love would be a
mortal man: and therefore I desired to suffer with Him.
[1] "I langorid forth" = languished on.
[2] I thought often that I was about to die.
[3] Or it may be, at in de Cressy's version: _May my living be no
longer to Thy worship?_
[4] _i.e._ could.
[5] _i.e._ could.
[6] straight forward.
[7] MS. "beside."
[8] MS. "over."
[9] "kinde," true to its nature that was made after the likeness of
the Creating Son of God, the type and the Head of Mankind,--therefore
loving, and sympathetic with Him, and compassionate of His earthly
sufferings: Who, Himself, for Love's sake, suffered as man.
_THE FIRST REVELATION_