Greco-Christian stream·Beguine Mystics·The Flowing Light of the Godhead — Books I-VII (complete)·Book V

Book V

Thirty-five chapters. Heavy content includes Ch IX (the seventy men risen with Christ — Mechthild's apocrypha of the Resurrection); Ch XII (God's answer to Brother Heinrich about the writing of the book — the second textual genesis-passage in the Flowing Light after Book IV Ch II); Ch XXIII (a long narrative reading of the Annunciation and Nativity, with Satan's panic on seeing the Star and his plan to provoke Herod); Ch XXIV (Christ as the seventh of seven sons of the heavenly Father by Holy Christendom, with Dominic and Francis as the youngest); Ch XXVI (the Trinity singing to itself); Ch XXXII (Mechthild's own foreseen death); Ch XXXIV (the threefold blood — Christ's blood, the Father's blood, the Holy Spirit's blood — and the end-times pouring). Named figures: Heinrich (Mechthild's confessor, Ch XII), Saint Dominic + Saint Francis (Chs XXIV, XXXIV), Brother Albert (Ch XXVIII), Saint Elizabeth (Ch XXXIV), Sister Jutta of Sangerhausen (Ch XXXIV), Saint Peter Martyr (Ch XXXIV — the new martyr, Peter of Verona OP, d. 1252).

Books I-IV glossary holds. New for Book V: bömgarten register continues; Schenke / köpf not present in this book; hungerlachen (hunger-cloth, the Lenten veil hung in churches) appears in Ch XXIII and is rendered "hunger-cloth" with footnote.

Latin preserved: miserere mei deus (Ch XXXIII), Pater noster (Ch XXXIII), Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum filium tuum, Amen (Ch XXXV closing).

This is the fifth part of this book.

I. Of threefold contrition and tenfold benefit, and of the way of the angels and of the devils.

There is threefold contrition with which the sinner moves himself back into the seal that was engraved upon the cross, as our sins have broken it. The first is contrition of guilt, which has three things at it: bitterness in the heart, from which sin flowed out; shame in the senses which the sin has used; good example of life, where the person has gone wrong. This contrition reconciles the heavenly Father and the sinful soul, and frees her from the eternal hell-pain. The second is contrition of penance: it has also three things at it — diligent labour and steady security and pure victory over all temptation. This contrition frees the sinner from all purgatory. The third is contrition of love, for she is faithful to God alone. To her God's disgrace is more grievous than her harm or her heart-sorrow. She would rather journey with body and soul to the eternal hell than trouble her Beloved with a single mortal sin. This love-contrition sanctifies and makes perfect people on earth and exalts them in the heavenly kingdom before God. When the blessed soul stands in this state, then God is to her dearer than her own self, and sin is to her the highest grief. The blessed who has these three contritions, to him is here on earth the honour granted that God without ceasing lets his fiery Spirit shine out of his holy Trinity into the loving soul, just as a fair sun-ray shines hovering from the hot sun upon a new gold-coloured shield. The answering-glance of God and of the loving soul, which from them both shines out so blissfully, has so great power and so manifest shining — before all who in the heavenly kingdom, in purgatory, and in hell are — that the highest angels, Cherubim and Seraphim, must be intimate with the loving soul, and journey downward burning in uncountable love to the loving fiery soul in the same shining.

This is the noble princes' way to the lovely soul in this poor body, for the angel and the love of the soul are from God one whole nature from inborn chastity and from the love-fire in the Seraphim. But the acquired chastity, adorned and enlightened with the flowing fire of the divine love — that remains in the Cherubim. Yet down from them comes a fiery clear love-delight from the Seraphim, for they are fiery-loving. Therefore the noble shining is drawn downward, that they may flash back with love. The angels which are given to us at baptism cannot tend the burning love, for God has not given them the heat; but they are given to us to tend our virtues. Their noble presence and our best free-will sanctify all our works and drive out the devil's cunning and his power from our five senses. But the great fiery shining which goes all shining downward from the holy Trinity into the loving soul — that the devils fear so greatly that they never dare journey through the holy ray. Of this they suffer many a disgrace on the ways which God has given them in the air, since an earthly person, in God-union, can take these ways from them. They can fulfil all their ways which from wickedness they will have; and where they become aware of a loving soul in a body, there must they journey under the earth. They also cannot defile the air where they find the blessed who truly live without mortal sin. All the sins that they bring upon us they must begin first themselves. Then must we with Christian belief in our best senses climb up to God; then they lose all their power and must flee before us.

II. Of two kinds of pain and of manifold benefit and of the manifold throng of sins.

I thank God for all goodness, and lament about myself all the while that I live, for God torments nothing in vain. While the person can sin, he needs pain as well as the virtues. The pain is very useful which the person lays upon himself for God with counsel. The pain is yet more useful and noble which God lays upon us by his enemies or by his friends, as God is nobler in all pains. Christ did not redeem us with the pain which he laid upon himself, but he taught us with it how we should serve him with labour and with pain. But he redeemed us with the pain which his enemies laid upon him without guilt, and with the sorrowful disgraceful end, when no one was his faithful friend save a maiden alone — Mary his mother, who was united with him truly within, and stood alone outwardly with him.

When faithless people grieved me by my pain, then God gave me this comfort and said: Stand still — no one can do without pain, for it purifies the person from hour to hour from his manifold sins. O woe, then I saw following us so great a horrible throng of manifold sins as if all the mountains, all the stones, all the raindrops, all the grass, trees, leaves, and sand were all living persons and would press us, so that we should never come up to God. O woe for the grievous dust-sins which we cannot bring to words! Against these is given to us here the pain which we bear secretly on our poor body. The second: the bitterness of pain shields us against the coming fall, before which a pure heart often trembles which bears God's Spirit in itself enclosed. The third: the nobility of pain makes us worthy to receive God's grace; for when I receive all my comfort, my necessity, and all my earthly consolation with anxiety and with fear and with exiled hearts, then God is there with his comfort.

III. God will weigh all guiltless pain and also three kinds of people's blood.

On the last day, Christ Jesus shall hold before his Father a lordly scale, on which shall lie his holy labour and his guiltless pain, and within and beside it all the guiltless pain and disgrace and heart-sorrow which from Christ's love was ever suffered by people. Yes, then it comes to the right weighing; then those rejoice the most who have much of it there. The maidens' blood by nature, the martyrs' blood for the Christian faith, and the manslaughtered men's blood that happens guiltlessly in right necessity — that will the holy Son of God weigh with his blood, for it is given out in true innocence. The right blood comes not into the scale?²⁸ Why? It is already defiled, but it extinguishes those very sins which come from the flesh's knowing.

IV. Of marvellous love is manifold power. How it tastes. Of fourfold humility. Of sevenfold beauty of the loving soul.

O marvellous God-love, you have holy great power, you light up the soul and teach the senses, and give all virtues full might. Well am I, poor little peasant-woman,²⁷ that I, my Lady, ever saw you. Ah Love, you are blissful and praiseworthy to all works. This I feel in my soul: all virtues are subject to you.

But the sinking humility, which is not undercut with high mood in spirituality, and the inborn chastity or the acquired which equally pure full-stand — these two virtues must walk with Love, yet they are subject to her.

Love wanders through the senses and storms with whole virtues upon the soul. While Love grows in the soul, she climbs with greed up to God and spreads herself flowing toward the wonder that is her measure. She melts herself through the soul into the senses; so must the body also know its share, so that it is drawn in all things.

Whether one with God-love can have evil customs — that I can nowhere find, so great a power has the unfeigned love of God. But the soul never becomes so flowed-through with divine love that she is not often tempted with earthly things. That cannot the soul receive who is gone through with false love. As Love is full-grown at the soul, then she has also climbed upward as far as is possible from a person; for love has measure in her ordering. Had she no measure — ah, save God — how many a pure heart would break in sweet bliss!

When the soul with love's draw and with much greed of her hunting heart for God has climbed upon the high mountain of the mighty love and the fair knowing, then she does as the pilgrim who has climbed mountains with great longing, so he steps down on the other side with great fear, that he not throw himself off. So it is, that the soul is so greatly shone-through in the heat of long love, and so become powerless in the embrace of the holy Trinity, that she begins to sink and to cool —

as the sun from the highest place goes downward and sinks down to night. God knows, so is it with the soul and also fulfilled in the body.

The love-rich soul sinks down in the draw of the bottomless humility and yields ever onward. What she does for God's love is very pleasing to her of the noble nature which God and she in one meaning fulfil. But she turns the eye of pleasure from all things, that she may win God much praise.

The body also sinks very greatly when it serves its enemy and keeps silence, and avoids its friends for God's honour. The soul sinks yet further, for she has more might than the body; she sinks with great diligence into the lowest place that God has in his power. Ah, how do I dare name this place to those¹ who do not know the sinking humility?

The first humility lies outwardly at the clothes and at the dwelling, that they are measured and spiritually cut and sewn, and yet pure. The second lies at the customs in fellowship, that they be loving in all distresses and toward all things. From this grows the holy God-love. The third humility lies at the senses, so that she loves all things according to their right use and orderly. The fourth humility dwells in the soul; that is the sinking humility which performs so many a sweet wonder on the love-rich soul. She drives her up into the heaven and draws her down into this abyss. She leads the soul to all creatures one by one and says: Now look, this is all better than you are! and brings her to her place, where she may not go further — that is, under Lucifer's tail. Could she there in the longing for God's honour be after her will, she would undertake nothing further.

So sorely is the poor love-rich soul bound with the humble love, that she fears not nor is ashamed except only in a well-bred way, as one is wont in the heavenly kingdom to fear. But the poor body must, from the darkness of his heart and from the weakness of his outward senses, both — fear and be ashamed — for he is yet unchanged from death. But the soul is as fair in her body as in the heavenly kingdom; she is, however, not so sure. She is as bold, but not so strong. She is as mighty, but not so steady. She is as loving, but not so joyful. She is as generous, but not so rich. She is as holy, but not so guiltless. She is as enough, but not full. This is alone the soul who here is through-flowed with humility for God's love.

When she has thus climbed up into the highest that can happen to her while she is yoked to her body, and has sunken down into the deepest she can find, then she is full-grown in virtues and in holiness. Then must she be adorned with pain in the long waiting.

So she goes to stand on faithfulness and looks at all things with great wisdom, so no thing can escape her; she ever wins God his praise thereby.

V. Of a Beguine's purgatory, for whom for self-will no prayer helped.

O sin, you are so harmful — since holy works also are so harmful, which one does without counsel; so that one says: No, I am over [the need for] human counsel. "I will live according to God's counsel" — before these words it shudders me ever and ever. For no person can in any place humble himself so rightly profitably as that he with submitted heart follow Christian counsel.

I have found this at a lady: She had our Lord heart-dear, and the love she enjoyed with such inhuman labour that her nature dried so greatly that she had to die. Then I prayed for her in Christian custom. In the draw of my spirit I saw her spirit, which was bright in itself like the sun. That she had from her pure heart in faithful meaning. She was surrounded with a great darkness and greatly desired the eternal light. She was in an upward draw, and ever the dark night before her. That was the self-will without counsel, which had hindered this perfect person so greatly.

I ask her: With what can one help you? Then she answered thus: I would on earth follow no one's counsel after Christian ordering; therefore no one's prayer or longing can help me. Then I turned to our dear Lord and asked him how this sorrow could be — that a person could come to pain who here for his love had taken upon himself such holy pain. Then our Lord said: All virtues are without merit to me which happen without counsel; for I came to earth with counsel, and I served on earth in great submission to my Father and to all people, and so I journeyed to heaven in whole freedom; but what I never did, in that no one followed me. The longing, prayer, and all the labour which is done here for her, with that she is adorned when she journeys to heaven. The soul: For all that is given us on the way to the heavenly kingdom is rightly ours. But when we come there, it becomes the common souls'. That God does for love of us, that they all the sooner come to us and help us praise God in the eternal honour.

The justice of her suffering was seventeen years; but the mercy of God has relieved it for her to seventeen months, because she did it from such heart-loving love. God help us to right measure. Amen.

VI. How the soul praises the holy Trinity.

Lord Jesus Christ, who has flowed without beginning out of the heart of your eternal Father spiritually, and was born from a pure whole Maiden, Saint Mary's flesh; and you who are with your Father one Spirit, one will, one wisdom, one power, one highest strength above all that ever was without end! Lord, eternal Father — since I, the unworthiest of all people, have also flowed spiritually out of your heart, and I, Lord Jesus Christ, am born from your side fleshly, and I, Lord — God and human — by both your Spirit am made pure — so I, poor troubled person, speak thus: Lord heavenly Father, you are my heart! Lord Jesus Christ, you are my body! Lord Holy Spirit, you are my breath! Lord, holy Trinity, you are my only refuge and my eternal rest.

VII. How God praises the soul in return.

You are a ground-laying of my divine flesh, you are an honour of maidenly constancy, you are a flower of the high bliss, you are a chief-ess over the devils, you are a mirror of the eternal beholding.

VIII. Three children the person shall have, for whom he shall pray.

No one knows what comfort or pain or longing is, unless he himself first is touched with these three. I seek help, for to me alas it is too painful. I have three children whom I look upon with great sorrow.

The first are the poor sinners who lie in the eternal death; there is no more comfort than that they have the human body. O woe, this child I look upon with bleeding heart, and I love it with weeping eyes in my poor soul, and bear it before the feet of its Father, where I won it. Then I look upon this child, and pray its faithful Father Jesus that he may waken this child with that same voice of his divine mercy with which he wakened Lazarus. To this God answers thus:

I will change the child's sickness. Would it not fall back into this death, then it should ever be like to me in my beauty, in my nobility, in my riches, embraced and through-gone with all delight in the eternal eternity. Stand up, my dear child, you are healed, the free will which I have given you keep, that I will never take from you. For thereagainst all your worth shall be weighed in the fair heavenly kingdom equal to the saints. O woe, yet this still lies in his own self-will!

My second child — that are the poor souls who languish in purgatory, to whom I must give my heart-blood to drink. When I pray for them and look upon the manifold distress and the bitter taste they suffer one by one from each sin, I have a motherly pain; yet to me it is dear that they with right guilt suffer pain to God's honour.

They suffer their pain with great patience, for they see openly all their guilt. They suffer their distress in well-bred wisdom and drink into themselves much heart-sorrow. Shall this child soon be healed, the mother must be very faithful and merciful.

My third child — that are the imperfect spiritual people. When I look on all my children, no one is so woe to me as this one alone — for it, alas, with outward senses in transient things has so far and so greatly parted itself from heavenly things that the noble custom and the sweet God-secrecy it has all lost, into which God with singular choosing had drawn it. Afterwards they are so much perverted that no one can turn them with words, so they revile the inwardness and pervert God's sweetness, and hold all that they see and hear in question. So they appear outwardly wise, and are yet within, alas, all fools. This child can most worst be healed, for it falls first into wilful strife, then into laziness, then into false comfort, then into mistrust, then alas it becomes wholly graceless. Then this poor child shuffles in sinful living unto his end; then is it greatly at risk where the neglected soul shall turn.

IX. Of the honour of the seventy men who stood with Christ as witnesses.

On the lordly Easter day, when our redemption was so greatly revealed, that Jesus Christ rose so mightily and so lordlily emptied his grave, that the Jews and the heathen lost their manly strength and all their honour, and the true Christian people were blessed with the Father's will and were graced with the Son's power and were sanctified with the Holy Spirit's teaching for ever — then with our Lord rose up seventy men.² They had been so submissive to God's command — when they did the God-strife, then were they found righteous people; when they were tested, when in their great thirst they cast the water to their mouth with both hands.²⁶

Their soul was given them back from God into their body, so that one could mark that they had been dead people. But the sinful human sap that Adam bit from the apple, which still naturally goes through all our limbs, and on top of it the cursed blood, that to Eve and to all women from the apple arose — that was not given back to them, for their conversation should be divine, a witness with God that the eternal death was dead. Therefore they died no more, since they had not these two things on them. But yet their soul separated itself from their body without pain and without woe. Their body lies very beautifully above the air and above the stars. Because they did not die secondly humanly, their bodies could no more be laid to the earth. Adam kept the sap on himself, and after him all men. Eve and all women kept this very shameful blood. This is what alone naturally torments our flesh and our senses, and at last in us must bitterly die. For Jesus Christ has, after Adam's fall, taken no pain from us, except the eternal death — and on top of it, that we can come back with contrition. But he has given us much comfort and counsel and teaching, by which all our sickness we can indeed see.

X. How sin is like to God's greatness.

To almighty God's greatness no greatness is so like as the sinful greatness of my wickedness.

XI. Spiritual name shall be exalted. Of the sisters' bearing. How they shall pray and beseech with God.

O spiritual name, how noble you are above all earthly names! Therefore Jesus Christ himself would in all his praise so faithfully bear it, that all high names — kings, emperors, counts, and all the names that are noble after these — these names must all pass away; but the spiritual name alone shall be exalted, according as it is here nobly borne. Yes, it shall marvellously, singularly, holily be exalted, with Brother Jesus and Sister Mary, who were the very first who ever bore a spiritual name in such great damnation outwardly.

This is very against the people who here spiritually adorn themselves so greatly outwardly with such holy bearing and with such deep bowing, and hang themselves before the open people with fair words, so that one may rightly suppose that they have inwardly the Holy Spirit's flow, that drives it all so out. No, it is, alas, only a very great swift temptation, which the person takes upon himself from free will, that he without labour has a good word, and yet feels not in his heart the Holy Spirit's full birth. This becomes manifest in the place where he becomes a horrible bear and a burning lion among his most intimate companions, where he should be a lamb in gentleness and a dove in virtues.

So their life is from the world a deceit, and before God and their companions a very harmful lie. O woe to you, very unblessed greed, how my heart hates you! For you rob my dear sisters of the inward God-sweetness and the outward love-fellowship, which they should prepare and lead into the holy bride-bed of the holy Trinity. They make so hard within and so unwilling without, that one dare not speak a spiritual word before them — it is at once perverted by them.

No, dear sister, you must first have broad senses; then to you a good-willed heart and an open soul, where the grace can flow in. Make your need without counsel and without distress too broad, then to you truly your height of the holy longing and your breadth of the divine fulfilment and the depth of the flowing God-sweetness shall be ever unready. For it is an eternal harm and a high unbreeding, that a king's bride so gladly wades in the puddle.³

Ah, sister, when you would rightly pray, then give yourself wholly to God and say: Most dear, beloved Jesus Christ, this hour is alone yours, and the poor sinners', and the holy Christendom's, and the troubled souls' — and not mine. All my heart's might and strength I give you, Lord, today, that you, most dear, to your own praise after my longing in their help would come; and give me, Lord, after that I rightly know who I myself am, then first I grieve myself.

But dear sister, when you go to your work, then bless yourself, and say:

Help me, Jesus, my heart-love, that I my soul and my senses so deeply wind in you that I do not kindle the earthly greed. Yes, sister, are you wise of senses, then greed assails you with fierceness; but are you wise of graces, then no wickedness can mislead nor betray you. For in the grace that flows down out of the holy Trinity into a heart that ever stands open toward heaven, there one finds the truth and all things' discernment. It is very lightly taken, that one before people be good; if the truth is not there, then you are a serpent's poison. Make your heart ever burn pure, and show yourself outwardly small, then are you with God in common.⁴

XII. How God answers a brother of the scripture of this book.²⁹

Master Heinrich, you wonder at the manly words written in this book. I wonder how this can amaze you. But it sorrows me from the heart greatly, since I, sinful woman, must write — that I cannot write to anyone the true knowing and the holy lordly beholding except these words alone; they seem to me, against the eternal truth, all too small. I asked the eternal Master, what he would speak to this. Then he answered thus: Ask him how it came that the apostles came into such great boldness after such great timidity, when they received the Holy Spirit. Ask more, where Moses was when he looked on nothing but God. Ask yet more, whence that was, what Daniel in his childhood spoke.

XIII. Of tenfold useful good person's prayer.

This prayer has great power, which a person performs with all his might. It makes a sour heart sweet, a sad heart joyful, a poor heart rich, a foolish heart wise, a timid heart bold, a weak heart strong, a blind heart seeing, a cold soul burning. It draws downward the great God into a small heart; it drives the hungry soul up to the full God; it brings together the two lovers, God and the soul, in a blissful place where they speak much of love. O woe, I unblessed receive the sacrament for this, that I cannot die.⁵

XIV. Of wicked priests' purgatory.

It is long that I saw a purgatory which was like a fiery water, and it boiled like fiery bell-metal, and it was above veiled with a dark mist. In the water swam spiritual fishes which were like to human images. These were the poor priests' souls who in this world had soared in the greed of all delight, and had here burnt in the cursed unchastity which had so greatly blinded them, that they could win no good. Upon the water journeyed fishers; they had neither boat nor net, but they fished with their fiery claws, for they also were spirits and devils. As they brought them onto the land, they then drew them off bitterly the skin spiritually and cast them at once into a boiling kettle; therein they thrust them with fiery forks. As they were thus followers of their will, then they devoured them in their beaks. Then the devils raised themselves upon the water again, and drew them through their tail, and fished them and devoured them and digested them again.

XV. Of a good priest's purgatory.

A pure priest died in his own right parish. Then I prayed for him as for another person in Christian custom. Then my soul saw his in praiseworthy worth, so that he was still in waiting for the heavenly honour. Four angels carried him over all weather in the first heaven, and they played to him with the heavenly strings. That was his purgatory, with which they prepared him for the heavenly bliss. I asked him with what he had received the singular worth. Then he said: I loved on earth the wilderness, and I feared myself alone in my prayer. Then I said: Ah you very blessed one, why did you not journey at once with these lovely angels to heaven? Then he said again thus: The honour is so great that I shall receive from my pure priesthood, that I cannot yet come there.

XVI. It is devilish that one sins.

Certain learned people say that it is human that one sins. In all my temptation of my sinful body, and in all the feeling of my heart, and in all the knowing of my senses, and in all the nobility of my soul, I could find it never otherwise — that it is devilish that one does sin:

Be sin small or great, the devil is ever its companion.

But our acquired devilishness from free will is alone more harmful to us than all our humanness. This is human — hunger, thirst, heat, frost, pain, sorrow, temptation, sleep, weariness; these are things that Christ suffered on himself, who was a true human, for us and with us. But were sin alone human, then he had also to have sinned, for he was a true human in the flesh and a righteous human in wisdom and a steady human in the virtues and a perfect human in the Holy Spirit; and above that he was an eternal God in the eternal truth and not a sinner. But should we become like him, we must also like him live or with contrition be saved.

XVII. This is a greeting and a praise and a prayer of the sinner-woman.

Greeted be you, living God! You are above all things mine. That is to me an endless joy, that I without peril can speak with you. As my enemies hunt me, I flee into your arm; there I can lament away my sorrow, as you will incline yourself to me. You know well how you can move the strings in my soul. Ah, begin at once, that you may ever be blessed. I am an ignoble bride, yet you are my noble Beloved, of that I will ever rejoice myself.

Think how you can fondle the pure soul in your lap, and bring it to fulfilment, Lord, on me at once, although she be not your companion. Ah, draw me, Lord, up to you, so I become pure and clear; do you leave me in myself, then I remain in darkness and in heaviness.

XVIII. How God answers to this.

Thus God answers: My return-greeting is so great a heaven-flood, should I give myself into you after my might, you would not keep your human life. You see well, I must withhold my might and overcome⁶ my brightness, that I may the longer keep you in the earthly sorrow. For there your sweetness rises up in the height of the eternal worth, and my strings shall sweetly ring for you after the precious cost of your long love. Yet I will first begin and temper in your soul my heavenly strings, that you may the longer wait; for high brides and noble knights must with precious cost be long and sorely prepared.

XIX. How seventeenfold sin hunts the human.

These things hunt a person so far from God that he can never come back to God unless great power is done to him by the holy Trinity.

Vanity is the first sin which begins to hunt the person from God; and if we let this not, then unchastity raises itself. But if we let unchastity not, then greed raises itself. If we let this not, then laziness raises itself; if we let this not, then lying raises itself; if we let this not, then perjury raises itself; if we let this not, then wrath raises itself; if we let this not, then back-biting raises itself; if we let this not, then pride raises itself; if we let this not, then hatred raises itself; if we let this not, then vengeance raises itself; if we let this not, then despair raises itself; if we let this not, then evil boldness raises itself; if we let this not, then shamelessness raises itself; if we let this not, then perverted wisdom raises itself; if we let this not, then unbelief raises itself and says: It is not as one says.

O woe, then receive they all the things which from God come down so wickedly that one hardly dares say a word; and what they themselves bring forth is so perverted and with lies so greatly mingled, that, alas, no one can find the Holy Spirit in their words. But they sometimes show themselves praiseworthy — yet it is, alas, treacherous.

Perfect soul, rejoice, you are alone God-like. Yes, it is well fitting, for you drink with divine patience without guilt much bitterness into yourself.

You are by your enemies often troubled. Thus the cry of hell calls upon the heaven-flowers; yet they bloom on for themselves very high in their noble beauty, for their root, their steadfastness, is from the Holy Spirit at all times green.

XX. A praise of God in eight things. Of the offering of sins.

O great dew of the noble Godhead! O small flower of the sweet Maiden! O useful fruit of the fair flower! O holy offering of the heavenly Father! O faithless pawning of all the world! You are, Lord, my refreshment and I your blossoming. You are to me, Lord, small in your submission, and I am to you great in the sorrow of my wickedness. I offer you, Lord, every day all that I have on me. That is all wickedness. Pour you, Lord, your grace into it, that I may flow from your love.

XXI. Why the human⁷ is cast away and yet beloved, and how you shall bless yourself.

Thus speak the senses of the human who has experienced the truth: Lord, my body is killed in the transformation of all wickedness. Therefore your enemies have cast me from their face like a dead one who smells foully. But Lord, my soul lives in you; therefore I am loved by your friends. Ah Lord, dear Bridegroom, my sweet Jesus Christ, I bless you⁸ without ceasing in my heart above all earthly things, and beg you to keep me from them unmingled. For however holy they are, they yet sway me in the highest point from you. That I cannot bear, therefore I must strive with them.

XXII. Of seven things of the judgment. Of shame and good will.

The noblest joy of the senses, and the holiest peace of the heart, and the most loving sheen⁹ of works — these come from a person's being truthful in all his doing.¹⁰ Here our dear Lord himself teaches me seven things which all the blessed shall have on themselves, who at the last judgment with Jesus Christ shall sit over all human stocks. Whoever has not these things must stand before judgment like a sold knight before his lord; for all who here strain themselves against God's truth with the swift lie sell these virtues.

The first is justice in the presence. This is the gloss: see I that my friend does my enemies and God unrighteousness, I shall faithfully give my friend the guilt, and lovingly help my enemies. The second: merciful in need. Gloss: see I my friend and my enemy in like distresses together, I shall equally help them. The third: faithful in the fellowship. Gloss: I shall never blame my companion except only for his unfaithful soul. The fourth: helping in distress in the secret. Gloss: that one seek and ask where the exiled-sick are, and the captives, and console them with words, and beg them to tell you their secret distress, that you may come to their help. O woe, that one goes without sighing and without tears and without all kinds of mercy past the exiled sick!

What is evil-fitting for spiritual people and what so widely drives them from God, that they on that very spot lose the sweet God-intimacy, and yet will not know that God's judgment so strikes.

The fifth: that one be speechless in distress. Gloss: that one not speak the greedy words that rise up from a high-minded, wrathful heart; from that one finds bottomless grace in God. The sixth: that one be full of truth. Gloss: that person is truly full of truth whose heart in his best conscience gives him purely no guilt and rejoices that God's eye looks into his heart, and who could nowhere be ashamed even if all people looked into his heart. The seventh: that one be the enemy of lies. Gloss: that we blame the lie in all people, and not cover it in ourselves.

These seven things we shall practise and fulfil against the taste of our poor flesh and against the delight and weakness of human senses. We can not otherwise fulfil them. But our soul's nobility for all good things gives us, with right God-sweetness, the first counsel; but our debased flesh neglects with its ignobility many a divine day. When they think of the blessed hour, when God out of his bottomless heart and out of his wise senses and out of his joyful mood — which without ceasing pours full of all goodness — and out of his sweet mouth has so much tempered spiritually into our soul, wisely into our senses, necessarily into our body, then must we be ashamed outwardly of our evil customs, and inwardly of our faithless heart. We can also alas be ashamed at our senses, that we bear the noble manifold God-gifts so uselessly, that they bring back so little fruit into the same place from which they flowed out — that is God's heart. O woe of my guilty pain! The good will brings all virtues into right place, alone, that the body cannot fulfil the works.

XXIII. Of Saint Mary's prayer. Of Gabriel's light. Of the child's cloth. Whence the milk came and of the child's offering. Of the devils and of the hunger-cloth.¹¹

I saw a Maiden at her prayer; her body was inclined to the earth and her spirit had raised itself toward the eternal Godhead. For before the time when Jesus Christ unlocked the heaven with the key of the holy Cross, no person was ever so holy that his spirit could or must climb up with labour and soar with longing and embrace with the love of the holy Trinity in the eternal height. Therefore the pure maiden's spirit could not come into the heaven, for Adam had shoved the bolt¹² too far forward.

But God inclined himself, and stood so near to the earth that he consoled his friends, and they understood his will. But the prophets called loudly and bid our Lord come down. But this Maiden drew our Lord down with a sweet voice of her soul; and she said in her prayer when she was alone thus: Lord God, I rejoice that you will come in such noble fashion that a maiden shall be your mother. Lord, that will I serve with my chastity and with all that I have from you. Then the angel Gabriel stepped down in a heavenly light. The light surrounded the maiden round about, and the angel had so bright garment that I can find nothing like it on earth. When she saw the light with fleshly eyes, she rose up and was startled. When she looked upon the angel, she found her likeness of chastity in his face. Then she stood with great breeding and inclined her ears and ordered her senses. Then the angel greeted her and announced God's will to her. His words were pleasing to her heart, and her senses became full, and her soul became fiery. Yet she weighed it according to discernment; thereto brought she maidenly shame and divine love. When she was informed, she opened her heart in good will with all her might. Then she knelt down and said: I give myself to God for service after your words.

Then the whole holy Trinity stepped in with the might of the Godhead and with the good will of the manhood, and with the noble fitness of the Holy Spirit through the whole body of her maidenhood into the fiery soul of her good will, and set itself into the open heart of her most pure flesh, and united itself with all that he found in her — so that her flesh was his flesh, so that he grew a perfect child in her body, and so that she became true mother of his flesh, and an unhurt maiden remained. So, the longer she bore him, the lighter, the fairer, and the wiser she became. Then she stood up and said: Lord, Father, I praise you, for you have made me great, and my kindred shall become great in heaven and earth.

When the time came around, when other women are sad and walk burdened, then Mary was light-faring and glad. Her body was yet wholly full thereof, for she had embraced therein the well-made Son of God. Mary did not know the time before, when God would be born of her, until she saw him in her lap in the road and in the night in Bethlehem, in the strange city where she herself was a poor unlodged guest.

The almighty God with his wisdom, the eternal Son with his human truth, the Holy Spirit with his fine sweetness, went through the whole wall of Mary's body with soaring bliss without all labour. That was as quickly happened as the sun gives its shining after the sweet dew in loving rest. When Mary looked upon her fair child, she inclined her head to his face and said: "Welcome to me, my guiltless child and my mighty Lord, of whom all things are yours."

In the conceiving of our Lord and in the bearing of his mother, and in the birth, and in the lap of his mother, before he came into the manger — the strength of the holy Trinity and the blissful heaven-fire was on Mary so hot that the hell-spirit, who journeys through all the world and knows all the happening of things, to the land and the city where Mary was could never come so near that he had perceived the wonder — how the child had come there.

Mary took from Joseph's saddle a hard cloth which the ass on his back under the saddle had borne, and on top of that the upper part of her shift, under which she had borne our Lord. The other part she bound again about her own body together. In these cloths the fine Maiden wound the great Saviour and laid him in the manger. Then he wept at once like a newborn child. For while the children are speechless, they never weep without right distress. So did our Lord, because against his noble nature in a cattle-stall he was so hard bedded, for the wicked sin. Then he wept all human stocks, then he hid all his bliss and all his power. Then the Maiden was troubled and the child became hungry and cold. Then must the mother still her son — that was his Father's will and the Holy Spirit's delight. Then the Maiden inclined herself with motherly love in maidenly breeding to her tormented child and offered him her childlike breast.

Hear now wonder: the shining blossom of her fair eyes and the spiritual beauty of her maidenly face and the flowing sweetness of her pure heart and the joyful playing of her noble soul — these four things drew themselves together after the Father's will and after the Son's need and after the Holy Spirit's delight into her maidenly breast. Then the sweet milk flowed down from her pure heart.

Then the child sang humanly and his mother rejoiced holily. The angels sang God a praise-song. The shepherds came; they sought and found¹³ our true ransom-pledge.

Then I asked Mary where Joseph was. Then she said, he is gone into the city and buys us small fish and common bread, and water they also drank. Then I said: Ah Lady, you should eat the very fairest bread, and drink the noblest wine. No, said she, that is rich people's food; we have not it in this poor body.

When the strange Star shone, then Satan came to Bethlehem and followed the three kings very swiftly, and he looked at the child very wickedly.

When the child was offered with the high offering such great honour, then came Satan's thoughts in great distress. And he said to himself thus: How has this come to you, you unblessed one! This may well be the same child of whom the prophets have written, of whom your master Lucifer has so long and so often commanded you that you should come to its bearing and make her impure. So would remain to us for hell all the world in common. This child without sin sired and born — it could not otherwise have been hidden from me. Now I have lost all my craft, now must I go back to my master and lament to him this distress, for this child will become to us too great. Should he climb over us, how shall we bear that? There was never a child born before to whom this honour was offered.

When Lucifer heard this news, the ground-fiend sat and grieved with his teeth and grinned, that the fire of his wrath shone over all hell. Then he said thus: Shall a person be our judge? Then we must ever quake before all the people who live after his will. Journey back, Satan, and take to help the princes from the land, the masters from the Jews, and teach them how they may kill him in his childhood, before he goes to school. When Satan came to Herod, he found Lucifer's likeness in the debased man — hatred, pride, greed. In these three ways the great devil entered into his great heart and prepared himself in all his five senses, and made the king so murder-greedy that he did the devil's will upon the guiltless children, who are now lordly-holy in the heavenly kingdom.

I asked Mary where she had performed the offering, that she did not buy for herself an offering-lamb. Then she said: the holy flowing generosity, and the needful mercy, and the love of willing poverty have taken the treasure from me. My offering-lamb was Jesus Christ, the almighty God's Son, who from my heart was born, and to whom after his Father's command all the unspotted lambs ever are offered and brought to honour according to his Father's meaning — he is my true offering-lamb. I should have no other.

The offering that was brought to my child, with that I considered all those that I could truly find in need. That were the impoverished orphans and the pure maidens who came thereby into marriage, that one need not stone them; and on top of that the exiled sick and the long-aged. They should enjoy it, and for them had God kept it.

But thirty marks of gold remained over to me from these poor according to right need; those I should give to the hunger-cloths,¹⁴ before which the common people went up to their prayer, for great signification lay there. The cloth was half black and half white. Northward in the temple the cloth was black; that was the long darkness in the old law. On it were sewn green images. For although the law was darkened with many great sins, yet there were certain persons in it who never grew dry from their sins, but they were dark with the guilty. The making of the images, that was all from guilt and from distress, which the great God so greatly moved that he, and how he, preserved with his retinue Noah the righteous man, and let all the world go under.

So then in the prayer-house the cloth was noble white. That was a foretoken of the pure, clear chastity of Saint Mary, by which we should still all overcome our heart-sorrow. Above were sewn images with gold, like to the birds which Noah had sent out of the ark, that thereby were known the faithless greedy ones, who all their comfort here seek upon the earth. But there was also sewn on the pure dove with a green twig, which came back so guiltless, that she did not take the carrion into her mouth. By this were known those who every day with new virtues come to God and hold themselves in the faithful heaven-flight with the Holy Spirit's draw.

Long down where the pieces went together, was a golden border. Across the middle went a green band that was set with precious stone. That signified the noblest wood that our Lord's body bore upon it when one dug through the heaven-gates and with the hammers struck them open — that Adam's bolt fled thence. Although few knew the meaning, yet the two adornments were a lordly cross. On the cross was sewn a white offering-lamb, and it was adorned with precious stone and with clear gold, just as it should rightly burn out. That was foreshadowed and was then fulfilled when the guiltless God-lamb took a great love-death on the high cross. Therefore the dead hunger-cloth with the dead lamb fell down at our Lord's martyrdom, so that the living God-lamb in the same place might ever be worshipped.

Mary sewed her child Jesus a coat with such a workable seam that when the coat became short and narrow for him, she could let it out and lengthen it. The coat was brown of hard twisted yarn.

Joseph was a poor people's carpenter, so that he gained some pennies for their need. Mary sewed and spun, so that she gained three garments.

When they fled into Egypt, God's angel had surrounded her with a heavenly light, so that the devil did not know where the child went, until the time when it grew up, a child of thirty years, a perfect man. Then the devil became aware of him in the wilderness and afterwards at many an hour of divine signs. Then he turned to the Jewish masters who were inwardly very wicked and outwardly in their bearing very fair. These he taught how they should withstand Jesus with perverted words, and should never receive his teaching, so that they might stand in their Jewish law.

Then Satan journeyed back to Lucifer and said: Alas Master, our teaching must pass away! I have found on the sinful earth a man, who alone is stronger and wiser than we all were before we came to fall, for I cannot with all my senses bring upon him a sinful thought.

Then Lucifer grinned like a hound and bit his barking-hound and said: You shall withstand him with all people; is he then the highest of all people, he may escape all sin.

Master, we shall come well out of this distress, for I find most of the people who would gladly kill the man. Then he said: No, I fear it could be evil for us, for he with the highest God's strength has so quickly delivered them from fleshly sickness and from human death — were his life taken from him, I fear yet more, that his soul would come hither to us and free his own. For that is far above our might, that he frees the people on earth against nature from all kinds of pain to die; rather he himself must with the original sin journey to hell. But remains he pure from all sins, and is his life taken from him guiltless, then he belongs not to hell. For neither angel nor person was ever damned without guilt; so is he alone noble and free, and what he then will, that must against our thanks happen. But you can with light craft watch that the most throng belongs to hell. But you shall yet pursue that one despise him on the very highest and that one torment him with the sharpest pain. Is he then a human, he can fall into great doubt, and so he can remain to us.

Mary our Lady spoke with her thoughts to our Lord as often as she would, and so his Godhead answered her sometimes; thereby she bore well-bredly her heart-sorrow, and that was to Mary Magdalene very unready. When she did not see our Lord with fleshly eyes, she became uncomforted, and her heart bore the while great sorrow and discomfort. She burned sorely in simple love, without high knowing of heavenly things, until the hour when the apostles received the Holy Spirit. Then first was her soul wounded¹⁵ with the Godhead. But our Lady was very still when our Lord from death rose up so lordlily. Yet her heart had at the divine knowing before all people the deepest ground.

XXIV. Of sixfold garment of our Lord God, and of the virtues of Saint Dominic, and how God has honoured his Order in four things.

A high prince who has a useful son for himself and a consoling son for his people — the son is such a praiseworthy son to his father and such a lordly Beloved son, that the remembrance of the son and all his works awaken the father's honour, wherever the son turns. This high prince is our dear Lord, the heavenly Father, who has won seven useful sons and one very fair daughter, by our mother the holy Christendom.

His first son, our dearest brother, was our Lord Jesus Christ. What honour the heavenly Father has of the son, and what comfort his people have from him, is well manifest. And how the heavenly Father has united himself with this son, and how he has set him at his right hand, and how much power and honour he has given him — that is without measure, and yet well-measured. The second son of the heavenly Father — that were the holy apostles, who have kept for us the precious treasure that on the high mountain was dug, which a tree bore, and our enemies dug through at five ends and beat all our heavenly treasure out of it. The third son — that were the bold martyrs, who watered the heaven-road with their blood. The fourth son — that were the steady confessors, who give us pure (truth) and teach. The fifth son — that were the pure maidens who have, for God's love, kept their chastity. They can move the heavenly Father, where they bear his likeness wholly on themselves. He will have them alone for himself, and they shall wear their chaplets in his fondling eternally. Yes, they shall not cover their head with shame, as the earthly brides are wont — when our Lord had these useful children in the high banquet so lordlily seated beside him, that all their sorrow and their merit on earth was forgotten.

Then his common people went so greatly astray on the right belief and on the pure confession, that the heavenly Father had mercy and won then two sons in one bearing again by our dear mother, the holy Christendom; and she herself suckled these two sons — yes, with her breasts, which are so full of the sweet milk that she has them and never can suck them out. These breasts are the old law and the new law, with which our mother the holy Christendom suckles all God's children.

This our Lord also said: One should set no one to priest unless he know both the old law and the new law.

For on one foot no one can walk at court, nor long stand at service.

These two sons are the Preachers and the Lesser Brothers, of whom Saint Dominic and Saint Francis were the first roots. Where, oh where is gone what they faithfully tended! The more passes, the weaker the Order becomes; the longer it is, the sooner shall another son be born out of the faithful heart of the eternal Father, who his children wholly will not forsake. Saint Dominic marked his brothers with faithful devotion, with lovely look, with holy wisdom, and not with peril, not with perverted senses, and not with unfaithful presence.³⁰ The wise he taught yet further, that he should with divine simplicity temper all his wisdom; the simple he taught the true wisdom; the tempted he helped to bear secretly all his heart-sorrow. The young he taught to keep silence — therefrom they became outwardly well-bred and inwardly wise. The weak and sick he consoled very lovingly, and he tended also all their need with faithful diligence. They all in common rejoiced in his long presence and his sweet fellowship made for them light all their burdensome labour. This Order was in the first times pure, simple, and full of the burning God-love. The pure simplicity that God gives to single persons is sometimes scorned by certain people, so that he loses the gift in which one finds and chooses the God-wisdom. There also is quenched God's burning love.

To him who in the Order is heart-sorry that he becomes regarded and receives all earthly honour for a great temptation — he cannot leave it from the right nobility of his spiritual spirit, which he has received from God with holy sinking of his heart under all creatures. Either he must keep the honour with fear of shame and with faithful diligence and with merciful help and with mild joy, or he must after that strive with all wisdom that he leave the burden with honour. For a spiritual heart must have still peace and lovingly bloom upward against the holy Trinity.

God has these two sons specially honoured in four things. That he has done that they may not worry about themselves more than that they let the sin go; but all their care and labour, said our Lord, should happen so that my people may become blessed and holy. The first is fair receiving from the people; the second, faithful help for the need from nothing; the third, the holiest wisdom out of the divine truth; the fourth, the most useful power for the holy Christendom. That one drives the brothers too greatly without mercy and without sweet teaching — from that, harmful things happen of which I must now keep silent.

XXV. Of one thing one enjoys in the heavenly kingdom, which is in seven things; thereafter follow seven things. The praise of the troubled person is profit in seven things.

One thing I enjoy in the heaven most; it is also the noblest and shines fairest against the holy Trinity, and costs also in this body most. That is, that one in poverty, in disgrace, in exile, in sickness, in spiritual poverty (which is the heaviest), in the constraint of obedience, in all kinds of bitterness within and without — yes, that one here therein will and may and can praise God from the heart, thank with joys, and reach up with longing, and fulfil with works. From this become soul and body in heaven so noteworthy and praiseworthy, that they sing more fairly and love more than the others, and shine more clearly in the joy than the others, and that they soar higher than the others, and live more blissfully than the others, and that they are more lordlily adorned than the others, and have from riches greater worth than the others, and more blissfully enjoy and more deeply suck into the holy Trinity than the others.

Lord God, I ask you: how does this praise taste to you, and this lonely-ness that a troubled person performs to you without all sweetness? Hear now what he says:

It climbs up with power, and its honour is and becomes manifold, for to it must yield all that ever was, until it comes into the divine place of my holy Trinity, and there does such wonder that it goes through my three Persons, and stirs and excites and makes love-greedy my whole Trinity. My taste which I have — that the soul itself feels well. I can be with full intimacy with her, should she lay herself rightly measured and bare on my divine arm, and that I must play with her, for therefore have I given myself into her power, childlike, poor, naked, bare, despised, and at last in death — that she alone may be (ah, if she will) my nearest, my dearest companion; and she shall ever in my holy Trinity with soul and with body soar and play satisfied and drown like the fish in the sea. Where then is come all her heaviness which she for me and after me has suffered? Thus I will give her sweet exchange.

XXVI. How God praises himself and sings.

Ah, now hear how the holy Trinity praises itself with its unbegun wisdom and with its endless goodness and with its eternal truth and with its whole eternity. Now hear the most sweet, the highest, the most blissful voice, how the holy Trinity in itself sings with one whole voice, from which all the holy sweet voices have flowed which were ever sung in the heavenly kingdom and in the earth, and shall yet eternally:

The Father's voice speaks in praise-song: I am an out-flowing fountain which no one can exhaust. But that one may perhaps stop his own heart with a useless thought, that the unresting Godhead which ever-more labours without labour, cannot flow into his soul.

The Son sings thus: I am a returning-riches that no one can keep; for the generosity that ever has flowed and ever shall flow from God comes all back to its Son.

The Holy Spirit sings this praise: I am an unconquered strength of the truth, which one finds at the person who praiseworthy with God endures whatsoever befalls him.

Thus sings the whole Trinity: I am so strong in my indivisibility that no one can divide nor break me in my whole eternity.

XXVII. With twelve words the heavenly Father received his Son Jesus.¹⁶

With these words the heavenly Father received his Son, when he had come from this earthly strife into the heavenly peace: Welcome, my lordly son, that I myself am my hand at your work, my honour at your power, my strength at your strife, my praise at your victory, my will at your return, my wonder at your ascending, my wrath at your judgment. The unspotted bride that you bring me — let her be yours, and now ever more undivided. My Godhead is your crown; your manhood is my son; the spirit of both of us is one will, one counsel, one strength in all things, without beginning and without end. Your soul is our three Persons' nearest bride.

O how blissfully Christ's soul plays in the whole holy Trinity! Just so, as the marvellous gleaming that soars in the fair sun, which no one can see save him who has very fair eyes.

XXVIII. Of seven crowns of Brother Albert. Another thing is God's ordering, another is choosing.

Wherever skill has wisdom and love, there choosing brings fruit; and no one knows what good he has on himself unless he be tempted with evil. I asked from love for Brother Albert's soul; then God showed me his worth. Then I saw seven maidens' crowns soaring above his head. Then I greatly wondered how it was, since he was a man of contrition. Then our Lord said: This crown he has won because he kept seven maidens in their chastity by many a labour, alone for my love; and eternally shall they all adorn his worth, and shall yet never touch his body or his soul. I have it in the heavenly kingdom seen — reward, worth, and crown — and that is not all one. The reward lies in the work; the worth in the virtues; the crown in love. But the reward is rich after the manifoldness of good works; the worth is broadened after the measure of the virtues; the crown shines in the heights after the diligence of burning in love. Brother Albert told me that a brother should die in six years. That was not true. In the seventh year I asked our Lord how this was. Then our Lord said: He saw the ordering and not my choosing. I choose my singular friends in long disgrace without guilt, and I let them in holy longing live longer.

When a person looks at his heart in love's light, which is in the truth, then he finds nothing but that he rightly should be despised more than anyone. Therein grows longing with immeasurable hunger and brings then the person out of himself into God's will so far, that God grants that he tests the person, and gives him then all new gifts, if he with good diligence will keep and preserve them.

XXIX. After God's draw the human were as an angel, if he followed it. And of the devil's wickedness.

He who rightly held himself after the draw that comes from God and after the light that he knows would come into such great bliss and into such holy knowing that no heart could bear it. So would he be as an angel always lovingly united with God in all things. So would he become the devil's hell and God's heavenly kingdom. But when the good person lets go from the draw, God sends him the devil, that he may tempt him with the things that are the heaviest, that he may awaken him again. But our dear Lord withdraws the devil's might and shields the person, so that he cannot bring him down. But the devil supposes rightly that leave is given him that he may bring the person down after his will; therefore he is so diligent day and night.

O woe is me, poor one! To me has it often so happened: God has shown me a lordly thing and promised it to perform, that I, for my unworthiness, dared not trust, and therefore I thanked him not enough for it. Then came the devil and would lay pain upon me. Then I said, what will you? You see well that God is here with me. How dare you torment me before his presence? Then the devil said: I will, as I ever willed, set my throne beside his; yes, I would drive him from the throne of your soul, if I could, and set myself therein, and would gladly that the heavenly kingdom, paradise, purgatory, and earth — that these all were one hell in the eternal hell. Then I said: Would you not that these all were one heavenly kingdom, that you also could come thither? Then he said: No, that I can never do. Then I said: Alas, how truly unblessed you are, that you are not ashamed before God! Then he said: Whoever has any good on himself is not wholly wicked; and whoever sins loses the shame, for if he were ashamed, he would not do the sin. I am bold as a fly, and ever fly at. I spare no one; now he who defends himself with virtues remains unburdened, and he who steady-stands in God overcomes all his heart-sorrow lordlily.

XXX. Of twenty powers of God's love, and of manifold names.

Ah dear God-love, embrace the soul now, for it would murder me above all woe if I should ever be free of you. Ah Love, now let me not grow cool, my works are all dead if I do not love you. O Love, you make sweet pain and distress; you give teaching and comfort to the true God-children. O love-band, your sweet hand has the power; it binds both young and old. O Love, you make great burdens light and small sins seem heavy to you. You serve gladly without reward, subject to all creatures. Ah sweet God-love, when I too long sleep in the neglecting of good things, then do well and waken me and sing to me, Lady, your song, with which you lure the soul like a sweet string-sound. Ah Love, Lady, throw me under you, I become very gladly victory-less, should you then take from me eternal life; on that, Lady, lies all my comfort. O woe, mild God-love, you spare me too greatly; that I lament evermore. Love, your very noble kiss has filled my mouth. Love, your very pure tormenting makes me live without sin. Love, your steady devotion has brought me into such sweet trouble. O divine love, how shall I bear your absence when you would be strange to me? Love, this is a marvellous high mood, that your strangeness does me good! O marvellous love, blessed is he ever whom you teach, that is his most blissful humility — that he, Lady, asks of you that you turn from him. Ah Love, how few you find who seek you with all might in all things and with steady diligence enjoy you, and who in loving desire bid you flee from them. But there are very many who call to you with the mouth and with the works turn from you. Love, your parting and your coming — that is alike welcome to the well-ordered soul. Love, you have all undone that God has worked with us in heart-loving love. Love, your very noble purity, which like a fair mirror stands before God at the chaste soul, makes hot love-delight in the maidenly breast toward Jesus its Beloved. The very loving and maidenly ones — they are the maidens of the Seraphim. Love, your holy mercy does the devils many a sorrow. Love, your very sweet peace brings gentle mind and pure customs. Love, your holy contentment makes free moods in willing poverty. Love, your true humility — that laments not gladly discomfort or labour.

XXXI. Of ten powers of love, and that no creature can fully think the soul's longing toward God.

O Love, how broad becomes your light in the soul, and how fiery is your shining, and how incomprehensible is your wonder, and how manifold is your wisdom, and how swift is your gift, and how strong is your bond, and how perfect is your being, and how soft is your flowing, and how great is your cost, and how faithful is your labour, and how holy is your discernment! As you the soul with all these things journey through, and she then raises herself and begins to fly with the dove's feathers — that is with all the virtues — and begins then to long with the eagle's greed, then she follows the heat up to heaven, for to her all things seem cold and unsalted which are transient.

So I speak from the mouth of truth thus: Lord, the longing that I have toward you in your draw; Lord, the wisdom that I then receive in the love's flight; Lord, the union that I then grasp in your will; Lord, the steadfastness that I then keep after your gift; Lord, the sweet remembrance, as I remember you; Lord, the chosen love that I have toward you, is in itself so rich and before your God-eyes so great; were it not you knew it, Lord — then could it not all the sand-corns, all the water-drops, all the grass and leaves, stones and wood, all the dead creatures, on top of that all the living creatures, fish, birds, animals, worms, flying and creeping, devils, heathen, Jews, and all your enemies, yet more all your friends, people, angels, saints — now, if all these persons could speak, would, and call without ceasing until the last day — truly, Lord, that you know well, they could not tell you half the meaning of my longing, and the distress of my torment, and the hunt of my heart, and the upward jerking of my soul after the taste of your salve and the undivided cleaving without ceasing.

Yes, Mary, Lady, mother of God, how would it have gone with you if you had begun with your Son to make known to the eternal Godhead the love which a united soul without falseness in this body has in the eternal Godhead, and the stirring with which he fondles her? Lady, you might become weary, and your Son must become powerless, for the divine love's fiery strength goes over all human might.

XXXII. Of the high end of Sister Mechthild.

Now I must yet write this speech under constraint, which I would gladly keep silent, for I fear greatly the secret swing of empty honour. But I fear much more — will God be just to me — that I have kept silent his mercy too much.

Sorrow, fear, and steady heart-sorrow I have borne secretly from childhood for a good end. Now in my latest time God has shown me thus, that from the heavenly kingdom came four throngs in procession: that were maidens and angels. The maidens signified virtues with which a person has served God. The angels signified a pure life with which the person has followed God.

Our Lord and his lordly mother followed the blissful procession, until the first stood before the person's mouth. Thus the way was peaceful round about and round; he was brighter than the sun from the shining of the saints who came from the God-bliss.

Then the soul said: Lord, this way pleases me above all my worth immeasurably well; but I fear greatly how I shall come out of my body. Then our Lord said: When that shall happen, I will draw my breath, that you may follow me like a magnet-stone. On both sides of the procession was a throng of devils, of whom there was so many that I could not see over them; yet I feared none. They struck themselves with great fierceness and they scratched each other like the senseless. Of this the soul rejoiced more than that she saw our Lord before her. Then she asked of great wonder our Lord how this was. Then our Lord said: The joy comes from the certain assurance that you all these devils can never hinder from me.

XXXIII. How small sin harms perfection, and how the devil thereby approaches the soul.

This hinders spiritual people most from right perfection, that they so little heed the small sins. I tell you in truth: when I neglect myself with a laughter that harms no one, or with a sourness in my heart that I show to no one, or with a small impatience of my own pain, then my soul becomes so dark and my senses so dull and my heart so cold, that I must exiledly weep and sorrowfully lament, and friendly beg and strongly long, and humbly know all my un-virtues; only then can the grace happen to me, poor one, that I creep back like a beaten hound into the kitchen.

Still more: whenever I have a fault on me unknown and unchanged, then at once a hellish spot stands on my soul. So there can be no counsel for it. The devil, who tends the purgatory where the sin should burn within, will at once look at his likeness. Then it begins to weigh on me where I am alone, for my soul was made free from all weighing when I received the gift one calls known love. Then I fall at once on the earth and say: Miserere mei Deus or Pater noster.¹⁷ Then at once I come back into my sweet paradise from which the spot had driven me.

XXXIV. Of fivefold useful sufferings — to which evil people are sent — and how God will wash Christendom in his own blood hereafter.¹⁸

It greatly amazes me, after the nobility that lies in the holiness, and after the weakness that lies in the human, that Saint Elizabeth so swiftly became holy and so unlong lay under the earth. Of this our Lord informed me and said thus: It is the messengers' right that they be swift. Elizabeth is and was a messenger whom I sent to the unblessed ladies who sat in the strongholds, with the unchastity so greatly through-flowed and with the pride so greatly covered, and with the emptiness so steadily surrounded, that they rightly should have gone into the abyss. After her image many a lady has followed, in such measure as they would and could. Saint Dominic I sent to the unbelieving as a messenger, and to the dull as a teaching, and to the troubled as a consolation. I also sent Francis as a messenger to the swift priests and high-minded laypeople. But Saint Peter, the new martyr,¹⁹ is my messenger of the blood, by whom now the false Christendom is so sorrowfully held. They all say they are pure, and they are before my eyes unchaste. They say they are faithful, and they are yet before my eyes false. They say they have me dear, and they have their flesh much more dear. He who will remain with me, let him comfort himself with Saint Peter of the earthly body. The hidden guilt makes at last the open distress.

I, poor person, I was in my prayer so bold that I rashly did, and took once for all the debased Christendom on my soul's arm, then I bore it with sorrow. Then our Lord said:

Let it; it is too heavy for you. Ah no, sweet Lord, I will lift it up and bear it before your feet, with that same bliss with which you bore it on the cross. Then God allowed me, poor one, my will, that he might still me.

When the poor Christendom came thus before our Lord, she was like to a maiden. Then I looked at her, and I saw also that she looked at our Lord. Then I was greatly ashamed. Then our Lord said: Now see, does it fit me well that this maiden should I in my eternal bride-bed without end love, and with my imperial arms take to me, and with my divine eyes look upon — for she is sore-eyed in her knowing, and she is also lame on her hands, for she does grudgingly good works? She is also halt²⁰ on the feet of her longing, for she remembers me seldom and slothfully. She is also unclean in the skin, for she is impure and unchaste. Then the poor spirit said: What counsel shall come to her? Then our Lord said: I will wash her in her own blood, and all the blessed who are there truly guiltless I will shield and take secretly to me in a holy death.

Further said our Lord: Sister Jutta of Sangerhausen²¹ I have sent to the heathen as a messenger with her holy prayer and with her good example. This our Lord also said: This book I now send as messenger to all spiritual people, to the wicked and to the good. For when the pillars fall, the work cannot stand. I tell you in truth, said our Lord, in this book stands my heart-blood written, which in the last times I will pour out again. Of threefold blood our Lord told me thus: The first blood that Abel and the children²² — John the Baptist and all who their holy guiltless blood poured before the martyrdom of our Lord — that was Christ's blood, for they suffered for his love the blessed death. The second blood was the heavenly Father's blood that Christ from his guiltless heart poured out. The third blood, which before the last day one shall pour in Christian belief, is the Holy Spirit's blood; for without the Holy Spirit's devotion no good deed was ever fulfilled. The martyrs' blood for Christ gives fellowship and boldness; the Father's blood in Christ gives redemption and belief. The last blood in the Holy Spirit gives keeping and honour.

XXXV. How Sister Mechthild thanks and praises God, and prays for many sorts of people and for herself.

Ah mild Father, God from the heavenly kingdom, draw my soul all flowing, untroubled, toward you, and flow her, Lord, to meet with all the blissful you have in yourself. So she can beg and command and you, Lord, fully praise of all your goodness. Ah, and give me, Lord, your holy Trinity's draw in the sweet love's flight, so, Lord, that I may praise-fully enjoy all your mild gifts, and that I, sweet Lord, never beg you that you, Lord, will not give me to your praise. Amen.²³

Ah Father of all goodness, I, poor sinner, thank you of all faithfulness with my tormented body and with my exiled soul and my sinful heart and with my troubled senses and with my despised being in this world. Lord Father, that is mine and nothing else, and with your dear Son Jesus Christ, and with the fellowship of all creatures. All they were unspoiled, and as they shall yet come back into the most praiseworthy that they will and can become.

Ah sweet Father, with all these things I praise you today for all your faithful shielding which you ever laid upon my poor body, and upon my exiled soul. With these things, great God, I thank you, Lord, of all your mild gifts that you, Lord, ever vouchsafed to give me in body and in soul. With this community of all creatures I desire heart-tenderly your praise today in all things, for all things which, Lord Father, out of your sweet heart unspoiled are flowed. But with all these things, dear above all dears, I beg you, Lord, to your own honour for true conversion and for whole turning of the poor sinners who today lie in the mortal sins. I beg you more, my true Beloved, for holy growth of all virtues and Christian constancy on all the blessed who here live without mortal sin.

I beg you again, very dear, for all the tormented souls who through our sins have journeyed into purgatory, that we may with good example keep souls. I beg you, Lord, for holy healing and for true shielding, and for the fulfilment of your Holy Spirit, on all those by name who help me bear my exile, Lord, here, poor one, for your love, in body and in soul. I beg you, rich God, through your poor Son Jesus, that you would make the pain of my spiritual poverty and the gall of my bitterness into honey in the room²⁴ of my soul. I beg you, living God, for the eternal nobility of our Christian belief, that you, Lord, keep us from all false drawings with your divine wisdom; and steady, Lord, our spirit to rest in your holy Trinity.

I beg you, sweet Lord, for all my Christian-tormentors, that they yet may know you and holily love you. I beg you, almighty God, for true ordering with discernment for the false people in lordship, and for merciful sparing of the guiltless in the common people. I beg you, eternal comfort, that you today come for comfort to all the troubled souls who today with anxiety part from their body, that you, merciful God, would be their keeper and assign them to the eternal life. I beg you, Lord, for pure cleansing and spiritual constancy and praiseworthy keeping of the divine truth in all things, on all those by name who bear spiritual appearance and spiritual power alone for your love. I beg you, mild God, for true thankfulness at all times for all your gifts, in help of those who through your love bear loving burdens.

I beg you, holy God, for merciful looking upon my useless life, and for steady union, Lord, of yourself in my soul, and for the faithful way-food of your holy body, which must be at my end my last food in soul and in body. Also I beg you, high blissful Trinity, for the last hour of the exiled parting of my poor soul from my sinful body, that you, Lord, would then incline yourself to me, so that all my enemies part from me sad, and I, Lord, after your sweet delight and my long longing may without ceasing look upon you, so that my soul's eyes must in your Godhead play, and your sweet love-delight from your divine breast must soar through my soul. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum filium tuum. Amen.²⁵

Here ends the fifth part of this book.

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