"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,[1] the Holy Ghost. The Father is
pleased, the Son is worshipped, the Holy Ghost is satisfied.[2]
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:[3] 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[4] 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.
[1] "lykyng."
[2] "lykith."
[3] "Esterne morrow" = Easter morning.
[4] Experience of loving (?).
_THE TENTH REVELATION_