"The Love that made Him to suffer passeth so far all His Pains as
Heaven is above Earth"
Then said our good Lord Jesus Christ: _Art thou well pleased that I
suffered for thee?_ I said: _Yea, good Lord, I thank Thee; Yea, good
Lord, blessed mayst Thou be._ Then said Jesus, our kind Lord: _If thou
art pleased, I am pleased: it is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying
to me that ever suffered I Passion for thee; and if I might suffer
more, I would suffer more._
In this feeling my understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and there I
saw three heavens: of which sight I marvelled greatly. And though I see
three heavens--and all in the blessed manhood of Christ--none is more,
none is less, none is higher, none is lower, but [they are] even-like
in bliss.
For the First Heaven, Christ shewed me His Father; in no bodily
likeness, but in His property and in His working. That is to say, I saw
in Christ that the Father is. The working of the Father is this, that
He giveth meed to His Son Jesus Christ. This gift and this meed is so
blissful to Jesus that His Father might have given Him no meed that
might have pleased Him better. The first heaven, that is the pleasing
of the Father, shewed to me as one heaven; and it was full blissful:
for He is full pleased with all the deeds that Jesus hath done about
our salvation. Wherefore we be not only His by His buying, but also by
the courteous gift of His Father we be His bliss, we be His meed, we
be His worship, we be His crown. (And this was a singular marvel and a
full delectable beholding, that we be His crown!) This that I say is so
great bliss to Jesus that He setteth at nought all His travail, and His
hard Passion, and His cruel and shameful death.
And in these words: _If that I might suffer more, I would suffer
more_,--I saw in truth that as often as He _might_ die, so often He
_would_, and love should never let Him have rest till He had done it.
And I beheld with great diligence for to learn how often He would die
if He might. And verily the number passed mine understanding and my
wits so far that my reason might not, nor could, comprehend it. And
when He had thus oft died, or should, yet He would set it at nought,
for love: for all seemeth[1] Him but little in regard of His love.
For though the sweet manhood of Christ might suffer but once, the
goodness in Him may never cease of proffer: every day He is ready to
the same, if it might be. For if He said He would for my love make new
Heavens and new Earth, it were but little in comparison;[2] for this
might be done every day if He would, without any travail. But to die
for my love so often that the number passeth creature's reason, it is
the highest proffer that our Lord God might make to man's soul, as to
my sight. Then meaneth He thus: _How should it not be that I should not
do for thy love all that I might of deeds which grieve me not, sith
I would, for thy love, die so often, having no regard[3] to my hard
pains?_
And here saw I, for the Second[4] Beholding in this blessed Passion
_the love that made Him to suffer passeth as far all His pains as
Heaven is above Earth._ For the pains was a noble, worshipful deed done
in a time by the working of love: but[5] Love was without beginning,
is, and shall be without ending. For which love He said full sweetly
these words: _If I might suffer more, I would suffer more._ He said
not, _If it were needful to suffer more:_ for though it were not
needful, if He _might_ suffer more, He would.
This deed, and this work about our salvation, was ordained as well as
God might ordain it. And here I saw a Full Bliss in Christ: for His
bliss should not have been full, if it might any better have been done.
[1] "ffor al thynketh him but litil in reward of His love" [in
comparison with].
[2] MS. "Reward."
[3] MS. "Reward."
[4] See xxi., xxiii.
[5] MS. "and," probably here, at in other places, with something of the
force of "but."