"It is not God's will that we follow the feeling of pains in sorrow and
mourning for them"
And after this He shewed a sovereign ghostly pleasante in my soul. I
was fulfilled with the everlasting sureness, mightily sustained without
any painful dread. This feeling was so glad and so ghostly that I was
in all peace and in rest, that there was nothing in earth that should
have grieved me.
This lasted but a while, and I was turned and left to myself in
heaviness, and weariness of my life, and irksomeness of myself, that
scarcely I could have patience to live. There was no comfort nor none
ease to me but faith, hope, and charity; and these I had in truth, but
little in feeling.
And anon after this our blessed Lord gave me again the comfort and the
rest in soul, in satisfying and sureness so blissful and so mighty that
no dread, no sorrow, no pain bodily that might be suffered should have
distressed me. And then the pain shewed again to my feeling, and then
the joy and the pleasing, and now that one, and now that other, divers
times--I suppose about twenty times. And in the time of joy I might
have said with Saint Paul: _Nothing shall dispart me from the charity
of Christ_; and in the pain I might have said with Peter: _Lord, save
me: I perish!_
This Vision was shewed me, according to mine understanding, [for]
that it is speedful to some souls to feel on this wise: sometime to
be in comfort, and sometime to fail and to be left to themselves. God
willeth that we know that He keepeth us even alike secure in woe and in
weal. And for profit of man's soul, a man is sometime left to himself;
although sin is not always the cause: for in this time I sinned not
wherefore I should be left to myself--for it was so sudden. Also I
deserved not to have this blessed feeling. But freely our Lord giveth
when He will; and suffereth us [to be] in woe sometime. And both is one
love.
For it is God's will that we hold us in comfort with all our might: for
bliss is lasting without end, and pain is passing and shall be brought
to nought for them that shall be saved. And therefore it is not God's
will that we follow the feelings of pain in sorrow and mourning for
them, but that we suddenly pass over, and hold us in endless enjoyment.
_THE EIGHTH REVELATION_