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

Book VII

The closing book of the Flowing Light. Sixty-five chapters composed at Helfta in Mechthild's old age (she entered the Helfta convent c. 1270 and died there c. 1282), addressing the convent of nuns who became her audience and her copyists. Heavy chapters: I (the long apocalyptic crown of Christ with three arches, gathering all classes of saints into one final image); II (Mechthild's all-souls-day vision and the rescue of countless souls from purgatory); XVIII (Mechthild's commendation of the seven canonical hours to Christ's passion); XXXVI (the allegorical "spiritual cloister" with virtues as officials — Abbess Love, Prioress Holy Peace, etc.); XXXVII (the eternal high-time of the Trinity at the end of time, with the white-clothed maidens dancing before Christ); LVII (the twofold paradise where Enoch and Elijah still live in earthly-but-shielded form). Mechthild speaks of her physical decline in old age (Ch III), dictates prayers and devotional exercises for her sisters, and closes the book with messenger-chapters where she sends Gabriel to Christ on her behalf. Latin liturgical fragments preserved with footnotes; Books I-VI glossary anchors hold unchanged.

Editorial conventions. Speaker tags in capitals (e.g., OUR LORD:, THE SOUL:) are added by the translator for clarity where Morel's source has only the inline Alemannic form (Vnser herre, Die seh) without dialog-style formatting; the all-caps tags are not in the manuscript. Square brackets […] mark words supplied by the translator where the source is corrupt, lacunose, or grammatically inverted; corresponding footnotes flag the substantive cases. Italicized Latin fragments are preserved as Morel prints them; their translations are footnoted at first occurrence.

This is the seventh part.

I. Of the crown and worth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he after the last day shall receive.

Our Lord the heavenly Father has still kept in his divine wisdom many an unspeakable gift, with which after the last day he will adorn his chosen children, namely his only-begotten Son Jesus our Redeemer. For him the heavenly Father has prepared a crown made and adorned with such great, lordly, manifold works, that all the masters who ever were and now are and ever shall be could not fully write the brightness and the manifold bliss of the crown. The crown was seen with spiritual eyes of the loving soul in the eternal eternity, and her shaping was known. What is that, eternity? That is the uncreated wisdom of the endless Godhead, which has neither beginning nor end. The crown has three arches: the first arch of the crown were the patriarchs, the second the prophets, the third the holy Christendom. The crown is formed and adorned with the presence of all the blessed who on the last day shall possess God's kingdom. They shall yet hold their worth in orderly fashion according to their works.

The first arch of the crown is wrought and lit up with the precious stones of all the holy inwardness and good works which the patriarchs ever fulfilled. The arch is also formed with human image, soul and body. The first image on the arch of the crown is Saint Stephen and all the martyrs formed with him, who ever in Christian belief their blood have poured; beside this Saint Peter and all God's apostles also formed with him. Beside them all the blessed who have followed the apostles' teaching. The married people shall also on the arch be formed with their children, who with good works have followed God.

The second arch of the crown is formed with all popes and all spiritual fathers with him, to whom God has committed his sheep. The arch is wrought with all spiritual power and is adorned with Christian teaching.

The third arch of the crown is most beautifully formed with the noble manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and beside him his lordly mother Mary with all her maidens who shall follow the Lamb. Saint John the Baptist is there beside the Lamb very near, and all the blessed who under his hands became Christians. The arch of the crown is wrought with the shaping of all creatures, according to the love and the meaning of the creator, which he had to that purpose, when he created all things according to his will. The crown is everywhere blossomed with many a knightly shield of the holy strong Christian faith. The kingdom shall also stand on the crown formed, wrought and adorned unto the last commoner, ever according as they are worthy that they have served God. The crown shall also be adorned at Antichrist's time with many a lordly image — like Elijah and Enoch and many a holy martyr before them, adorned with the holiness of their life and consecrated with their faithful blood. The crown shall also be coloured with the Lamb's blood and lit up and gilded with the mighty love which broke Jesus' sweet heart within.

This crown has our heavenly Father created, Jesus Christ has earned it, the Holy Spirit has wrought and forged it in the fiery love, and so fittingly made it with the noble art of the holy Trinity, that it fits our Redeemer Jesus Christ so well and so lordly stands, that the heavenly Father receives more joys from his only-begotten Son. That must be. Although the eternal Godhead without beginning has all bliss and joy in itself, and now has and ever shall have, yet it does him singularly eternally well that he shall so joyfully look upon the eternal Son with all his followers. When Jesus Christ has done his last judgment, and his evening-meal has served and held, then shall he this crown from his heavenly Father in great honour receive, and with him all who with body and with soul to the eternal high-time come with labour. So shall every soul and body see their worth on the crown.

The crown is wrought on earth at precious cost, not with silver nor with gold nor with precious stone, but with human labour, with human tears, sweat and blood, with all virtues and finally with the painful death. The angels are not seen on the crown, because they are not humans; but they must with blissful song praise God at the crown. The first choir sings thus: We praise you, Lord, for your married law, from which all these have come who are formed on your crown. The second choir: We praise you, Lord, with the belief of Abraham and with the hot longing and prophecy of all the prophets. The third choir: We praise you, Lord, with the wisdom and merit of all your apostles. The fourth choir: We praise you, Lord, with the blood and with the patience of all your martyrs. The fifth choir: We praise you, Lord, for the holy prayer and Christian teaching of all the Baptists and all the confessors. The sixth choir: We praise you, Lord, with the contrition and steadfastness of your widows. The seventh choir: We praise you, Lord, with the chastity of all maidens. The eighth choir: We praise you, Lord, with the fruit of your mother and Maiden. The ninth choir: We praise you, Lord, for your holy death and for your lordly life after your death, and for your great outflow of all gifts and all goodness, with which you, Lord, have raised us and praiseworthily ordered. We praise you, Lord, with your fiery love, with which you have united us.

Above on the crown soars the very fairest banner that was ever in this kingdom seen. That is the holy cross, where Christ his death has suffered. The cross has four ends. The lowest end is adorned with bliss, brighter than the sun. At the front end under the cross soar upright the pillars, coloured with the Lamb's blood, adorned with the nails by which our Lord was wounded. Above on the tree of the cross soars the most beautiful imperial thorn-crown of the kingdom.

The thorns are blossomed, lily-white, rose-coloured, blissful, heaven-clear.

This is the banner of the crown, with which Jesus Christ won the victory and came alive back to his Father. At once after the last day in the eternal high-time, when God has made all things new, this crown is manifested and soars upon the head of the manhood of our Lord, to the holy Trinity's honour and praise and to all the blessed's joy ever more.

The manhood of our Lord is a graspable image of my eternal Godhead. So that we can grasp the Godhead with the manhood, enjoy alike the holy Trinity, embrace and kiss and the ungraspable Godhead surround, which neither heavenly kingdom nor earth, hell nor purgatory ever can grasp nor withstand.

The eternal Godhead shines and lights up, and makes love-delightful all the blessed who are present to him, that they rejoice without labour and praise ever without heart-sorrow. The manhood of our Lord greets, gladdens and loves without ceasing his flesh and his blood. Although flesh and blood are now not [here], yet the brotherly kinship is so great that he must his human nature singularly love. The Holy Spirit also gives out his loving heaven-flood with which he pours to the blessed and so fully drenches them that they with joys sing, tenderly laugh and leap in well-bred fashion, and flow and swim; they fly and climb from choir to choir and through the kingdom's heights. There they see in the mirror of eternity and know the will and the works of the holy Trinity; and how they themselves are formed in body and in soul, as they shall ever remain.

The soul is in the body formed like to a person, and has the divine shining in her, and shines through the body as the shining gold through the clear crystal.

So they become so glad and so free, swift, mighty and love-rich, clear and like to God as that can possibly be. So they go where they will above a thousand miles, as one can now think a thousand thoughts.

Burning is the journeying; yet they cannot ever grasp the end of the kingdom nor touch the wide room and the golden streets; they are over-great, and yet well-measured; and yet not gold, for they are eternally better than gold and precious stones; this is all earth and shall come to nothing.

Here comes the end of the crown: The Holy Spirit forges still the end of this crown until the last day; so will the Father and the Son reward his labour. He will give him as reward all the souls and bodies which in God's kingdom are gathered. There shall the Holy Spirit eternally rest in, and he shall them without ceasing greet and gladden. All that for God's love ever became good or is yet to be done; all that through God is renounced and suffered, must all on the crowns blossom stand. Ah, what a crown! Ah, who helps me that I yet on the crown might be a small flowerlet, like the unbaptized children,³³ who are the smallest flowers on the crown!

Is this speech too long, that is its fault, that I in the crown found manifold dwellings; yet I have set down many a long speech with short words. This I speak to myself: How long will you, base world, bark? You must yet keep silent, for the very dearest I must keep silent.

II. How on All Souls' day a person prayed for the souls in common.

On All Souls' day I prayed with the holy Christendom for the common souls who go their penance in purgatory. Then I became aware of a purgatory like an oven which was outside black and within was full of fire-flames. I looked in, how they stood in the flames and burnt like a bound straw. There stood one beside me who was like a great angel, whom I asked how it was that the souls were so greatly straining themselves when the prayer came to them from good people. Certain ones pressed out and certain ones could not get out. He whom I asked answered me: When they were on earth, they would not help those who in distress begged them. Then my soul had mercy beyond her might and beyond her worth, and called into heaven: Lord God, might I in to them go and suffer with them, that they the sooner might come to you! Then our Lord revealed himself, that he was the angel who stood beside me, and said: Will you go in, I will go with you in. Then our Lord embraced the person's spirit and led her in. When the soul came in with our Lord, then was it not woe to her. She asked, how many were of them? Then said our Lord: You cannot count them, and they are those for whom you have prayed when they were on earth.

There I found him for whom thirty years before I had been wont to pray, and I was troubled, for I had asked³⁴ to give myself to him, and I dared not for my baseness ask such great a lord such great things. Then I spoke one word thus: Ah dear Lord, will you free them? Then they rose all together up in great company, blissful, whiter than a snow, and soared toward the paradise in sweet, clear bliss; there they rested with joys within. When they rose out of the fire, they sang the psalm all out: Laudate, pueri, Dominum.¹ After this they sang: We praise you, Lord, for the greatness of your goodness, for the mildness of your gift, and the faithfulness of your help.

Still our Lord stood beside the place of the fire, and had the person's spirit embraced. Then said the person's soul:

Ah Lord, you know well what I desire. That was, she would gladly fall onto our Lord's feet, that she might thank him. Then our Lord let her down, and she thanked him back, that she might see the great honour which from God had happened to the poor souls. Then she found on his feet the rose-coloured wounds of our true redemption. Then she begged: Lord, give me your blessing. Then said our Lord: I bless you with my wounds. — That must happen to me and to all God's friends and mine. This, alas, has not happened from my labours, for I have many in the holy Christendom much dearer than what is mine.

III. How precious it is that a person with humble words look at his heart without ceasing.

I know no one so good, but it is needful for him that he look at his heart without ceasing and know what dwells within, and also rebuke his works often. This one shall do with humble words. This God's voice taught me, for I never did any work so well that I could not have done it better. This is my rebuking, now let us thus rebuke our weakness: Ah, you most base creature, how long will you lodge your useless habit in your five senses? Our childhood was foolish; our youth was assailed; how we have prevailed in it is to God manifest. Alas, my old age now stands before me much to rebuke, for it is useless in shining works and is, alas, cold of graces. It is also powerless, that it does not have the youth with which it can bear the fiery God-love. It is also un-suffering, that small pain does much woe to it, which youth does not heed. Yet the good old age is gladly long-patient, and it trusts God alone.

Seven years ago, a troubled old person lamented this harm to our Lord. Then God answered him thus: Your childhood was a companion of my Holy Spirit, your youth was a bride of my manhood, your old age is now a housewife of my Godhead. — Alas, dear Lord, what avails that the dog barks; while the householder sleeps, the thief breaks into his house: the prayer of the pure heart yet sometimes wakens the same dead sinner. Alas sinner, how greatly may one weep for you, for you are a murderer of yourself, and you are a harm of all good, and also of their profit! The good person receives great profit; when he sees that another behaves basely or falls into sin, he looks far around himself, that he come not into the same distress; so the good person betters himself by evil things, with which gladly good works follow after; but the wicked becomes worse. When he sees evil examples, he becomes so evil that he despises good works and good people; so his own perverted wisdom pleases him best.

My dear schoolmaster, who taught me, simple and dull, this book, also taught me this speech thus: Whatever the person does, is he not truthful, you shall not be intimate with him. I know an enemy who is a quencher of divine truth in the person's heart. If one gives him the place, he writes with the person's free will the false wisdom in the person's heart and says: I am by nature angry and weak. — With this you cannot excuse yourself with God nor with honours. You shall by grace become gentle and strong. "I have no grace." — Then shall you in dis-grace call upon the gracious God with humble tears and with steady prayer in holy longing, so must the worm of wrath die. You shall use power on yourself, so no painful power need go over you from God nor from anyone; so the worm of wrath becomes nothing. Would we our wrath and all our imperfection overcome and drive out with God, then must we rightly keep our sinful temptation secretly silent, and show outwardly holy joyful bearing.

Ah poor me! However long we storm in wrath, have we any good on ourselves. We must yet come back to our heart, so must we from guilts be ashamed, so has the wrath consumed our might and dried up our flesh, and so have we lost our useful time, in which we should have served God. O woe, that is an eternal harm! But ah! the sinful tears trouble me which one weeps in proud wrath. Of that the soul becomes so dark that the person cannot rightly enjoy any good things.

The contrite tears are so holy: could a great sinner weep one contrite tear for all his sins, he would never come to the eternal hell, would he remain so. Whatever small daily sin the good person has on him, which he wholly will not let go while he lives — dies he so without confession and without penance, however holy he is, he must to bitter purgatory. For as merciful as God is, so just is he also and against all sins angered.

This I counsel myself: there must love dwell; by dull-good we shall never be. There humility gladly dwells beside.

IV. Of our Lord's broom.

When I came to the cloister, not long after, I was so greatly tormented by sickness that my Lady had mercy. Then I said to our Lord: Dear Lord, what will you with this pain? Then said our dear Lord thus: All your ways are measured, all your foot-steps are counted, your life is sanctified, your end will be joyful, and my kingdom is very near to you. — Lord, why is my life sanctified, and I can so little good do? Then said our Lord: With this is your life sanctified, that my broom never goes from your back. — Te deum laudamus, that God is so good.

V. Why the cloister at one time was assailed.

Those shall do good secretly whom they know to be in need, for the good that one withholds from them, I will not have at the cloister. — This is the gloss: That each one from his office mercifully does good to those whom he knows to be needful.

VI. Of the chapter, and how the person shall look at his sins and weep for them. Of two golden pennies and of good will and longing.

Whoever has this knowing, let him lament and weep with me. For God's chosen children often receive God's body and holily receive it, then must I with burning contrition go into my chapter-house. Then comes my unworthiness and touches me; then comes my un-diligence and accuses me; then comes the lightness of my mood and reproaches me for my unsteadiness; then comes the baseness of my useless life and troubles me; then comes the divine fear and scourges me; then I crawl like a small worm in the earth and hide myself under the grass of my manifold neglect all my days. Then I sit and cry up into the heaven: Ah merciful God! Grant me that I may today be a sharer of the graces which your chosen ones have now received. Here our Lord answers thus: Take two golden pennies which are both alike heavy and buy with them; pay they alike much, then they are alike good. O woe, dear Lord, how can my baseness be like to your goodness, for I am not as I would wish to give you honour! I have not as well befits you, and I cleave to nothing with comfort of my soul in the world. Thus I am cast away and sorrowful become. I am not as I have long desired. Our Lord says thus: With good will and with holy longing you can repay what you will.

VII. How the person at all times shall be united with God.

That the person without ceasing be united with God, that is heavenly dwelling above all earthly delight. How shall this happen to us? Our longing shall without ceasing walk in all our work, and we shall with Christian belief and with divine knowing without ceasing look at all our works and never be useless, so we live to our Lord God with all our works, for all his works which he ever wrought on earth for our love. Thus are we united with him in his earthly works with heavenly love. Hereafter we are spiritually enlightened, so we praise our Lord God with all the gifts that were ever given — our body and good, friends and kin and all earthly delight that we could desire. With this we thank God for all his mild gifts which he ever gave us on earth in body or in soul. So we are again united with God in nameable love and humble thankfulness. With this we shall draw all God-gifts into our heart, so our Lord becomes love-full, so our senses become opened, and so our soul becomes so clear, that we see into the divine knowing, as a person looks at his face in a clear mirror. So we can know God's will in all our works, that we honour God's will and have it dear in painful gift as in consoling gift, and rejoice over what happens to us without sin. We shall weep over the sin and hate it, for it is a cursed time. With this we are on earth united with the saints in the heavenly kingdom, for they rejoice most over the will of God in the heavenly kingdom.

I do not know how the enemy became aware that God gave me this knowing in the night, and I therein with great bliss was united, when he came to me and spoke faithfully, for he wished to deceive me. His voice I heard with my fleshly ears, and I saw a shape with spiritual eyes — black, honey-coloured, and like to a horrible man. I feared him yet not. That is from this: when God's gift soars in the soul and wrestles in the senses, then the body cannot in his presence fear. But when the body yet in useful works wrestles, comes he then, then it becomes so woe to the body in his presence that I (never) came to so great pain on earth.

Then he said to me: I dreamed at night that I was rich and had much. Then he would have me suppose that this holy God-union with the soul was all a dream. Then the housewife within, the body's² soul, spoke: You are not truthful. Then he said: Yes, I shall last as long as God lives. Then the soul said: Now you are yet learned; tell me, what shall I do? The devil made too much of it: You should rejoice yourself and should bear this great thing in great mood. The soul: I am yet, alas, so small that I can grip through the needle's eye,³⁵ beyond all my enemies, into the heaven-gate of my eternal land. The devil: You are too greatly fenced in. The soul: In your words I know your falseness, doubt, empty honour and pride. Were a steel wall to go up to the clouds round about me, yet my heart would never from my enemies be secure and free. Then he stood and trembled before me. O woe, how full of falseness this seemed to me. Then he raised his head and sprang wrathfully hence.

VIII. How a person seeks God.

When God will be strange to the person, then he seeks our Lord God and says: Lord, my pain is deeper than the abyss, my heart-sorrow is bitterer than the world, my fear is greater than the mountains, my longing is higher than the stars. In these things I cannot find you anywhere. — In this sorrow the soul became aware of her Beloved beside her, like a fair Youth so fair that it is unspeakable. And had he yet hidden himself, then she falls upon his feet and greets his wounds, which are so sweet that she of all her pain and all her age cannot feel. Then she thought: O woe, how gladly would you see his face! Then must you renounce the wounds; and how gladly would you hear his words and his desire! Then she stands up in unwavering breeding, clothed and adorned. Then he says: Welcome, my dearest! In the voice of the words she knew that to him every soul that in his favour serves God is the dearest. Then he said: I must spare you on the enjoyment, both yours and mine. "The enjoyment is unspeakable." — Then he said: Take this crown of the maidens. Then the crown came from him and went onto her head; it shone as if it were of pure gold. The crown was twofold and was also of the love crown. Then said our Lord: This crown shall be manifest before all the heavenly host. Then she begged: Lord, will you tomorrow receive my soul, as I have today received your holy body? Then he said: You shall yet become richer through suffering. — Lord, what shall I now do here in this cloister? — You shall enlighten and teach them, and shall with them dwell in great honour. — Then she thought: Ah, now you are here alone with our Lord. In this thought she saw two angels stand by her, who were as noteworthy as earthly princes before other poor people. Then she said: How shall I now hide myself? Then they said: We will bring you from pain to pain, from virtues to virtues, from knowing to knowing, from love to love. — That a sinful mouth shall and must speak this is heavy to me, and I dare yet not let it from God, and from obedience of human shame and of divine fear must I keep all my days.

IX. How the loving soul praises our Lord with all creatures.

The loving soul never grows sated of praise, therefore she gathers in herself all that God ever created in her longing and calls into the heaven: Lord, were all these persons so perfect, and so holy as it were possible, as your blessed mother Mary, yet would it not suffice to me, poor one, that I could not fully praise you with your only-begotten Son. Lord, can one fully praise you? No, of that I rejoice. Then our Lord answered thus: The maidens who have long served me shall praise me.

X. This happened at one time when great war was.

I prayed our Lord God for the distress of war and for many a sin of the world. Then our Lord answered thus and said: The sins stink at me, from the abyss of the earth up to the heaven. Were it possible, they would drive me out. The sins had once driven me out; then I came humbly and served the world unto my death; that cannot again happen to me. Now I must sometimes my justice through the sin (work).³⁶ — Dear Lord, what shall we poor now do? Then said our Lord: You shall humble yourselves under the trembling hand of the almighty God, and fear him in all your works. I will still free people from all distress; these are my friends. The common prayer fills my heart. How my mood stands, that I show. The prayer I gladly hear from spiritual people who pray it from the heart.

Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini. Laudate Dominum omnes gentes. Gloria Patri. Regnum mundi. Eructavit cor meum. Quem vidi. Gloria Patri etc.³

Lord, heavenly Father, receive your service and your praise from your troubled children, and free your people from this present distress, and free us from all our bonds, save only the bonds of love, which must never be taken from us.

XI. How our Lord was seen like to a labouring man.

Our Lord showed me a likeness, which he has fulfilled on me and still does. I saw a poor one stand up on the earth who was clothed with poor linen cloths like a labouring man. A bier he had in his hand, on which lay a burden like the earth. Then I said: Good man, what do you bear? I bear, said he, your pain. Turn your will to the pain and lift up and bear. Then said the person: Lord, yes, I am so poor that I have nothing. Then said our Lord: Thus I taught my disciples when I said: Beati pauperes spiritu.⁴ That is, when a person cannot and would gladly, that is spiritual poverty. The person: Lord, is it you? Turn your face to me, that I may know you. Then said our Lord: Know me within. The soul: Lord, saw I you among a thousand, I would know you well. My heart has built me up within for a peril, and I dared not declare it to him that it were he. Then I said: Dear Lord, this burden is to me too heavy. Then said our Lord: I will lay it so near to me that you well may bear it. Follow me, and see how I stood before my heavenly Father on the cross, and remained so. Then she said: Lord, give me your blessing on it. — I bless you without cease. Good counsel shall come to your pain. — Lord, help all those who gladly suffer pain for you.

XII. How a person should withstand empty honour and temptation.

When the person thinks any good of himself, then comes at once the empty honour, sprung out of the corner of the heavenly heart, with a sinful delight and will prepare itself in the five senses. So shall the person constrain his mood and shall himself at once before his heart with humble fear strike and bless himself with the sign of the holy cross, so it becomes at once nothing, as if it had never been. This I, poor one, have often experienced. The same one shall do at once when the evil flying thoughts come. They also vanish from the power of the holy cross when it is grievous to the person.

XIII. How our Lord was seen like a pilgrim.

I, poor unworthy, I deny myself and speak what I have seen and heard in God. In one night I saw our Lord stand in the likeness of a pilgrim, and he did as he had wandered through Christendom. Then I fell upon his feet and said: My dear pilgrim, where do you come from? Then he said: I come from Jerusalem (he meant the Christendom), and I am driven from my lodging. The heathen do not know me; the Jews will not have me; the Christians fight me. — Then I prayed for Christendom. There our Lord cleared himself most fairly of the great disgrace which he suffers from the Christendom, and laid out how much good he had done to the Christendom from the beginning, and how much he had laboured for the Christendom and still every day seeks the place in them, where he might pour his grace into them. Then our Lord again lamented and said: With their free choice the people drive me from the lodging of their heart, and when I find no place at them, I let them remain at their free choice, and when they die, as I then find them, so I judge over them. — Then I prayed for the gathering: Dear Lord, let them not perish; I will set a light in their churchyard, by which they shall know themselves.

XIV. Of God's choosing and blessing.

In another night when I was in my prayer and longing, and looked for nothing, then I became aware of our Lord. He stood in the churchyard and had before him the whole gathering, ordered as they had come to the cloister. Then said our Lord to them: I have chosen you; choose me, then I will give you. Then I said: Lord, what will you give them? Then he said: I will make shining mirrors of them on earth, so all those who desire shall know their life by them. And in the heavenly kingdom I will make them shining mirrors, so all who see them shall know how I have chosen them.

Then our Lord reached out his hand and gave them his blessing and said: I bless you with myself; you will [have] me in all your thoughts. — Those who will have our Lord in all their thoughts, those are the blessed who rightly praise our Lord. Then I said, they will ask me in what manner I have seen you. Then he said: There are certain among them who know me.

XV. How the person who loves the truth shall pray.

The person who loves the truth gladly prays thus: Ah dear Lord, grant me and help me that I without ceasing seek you with all my five senses, in all things holily, for I have chosen you above all lords, and I have chosen you above all princes as my soul's Bridegroom. Give me also, Lord, that I may find you with all my longing, burning and quenched. I desire also that I may enjoy you with flowing love of all your gifts. Give me, Lord, fully your return-flow, which fills my mouth, so that pain, mockery, bitterness are ever softness to me. That must to me from your grace ever happen; mild God, now grant it me. Help me also, Lord, that I may keep you in renouncing of all my will according to your desire, so I would never lose love, unquenched, ever more. Amen.

XVI. How a person desires and prays.

A person desired above all gift and above all pain, that God would free his soul with a holy end. Then said our Lord: Wait for me. Then the person said: Dear Lord, I cannot steer my longing — I were so gladly with you. Then said our Lord: I have desired you before the world's beginning; I desire you and you desire me. Where two hot longings meet together, there is love perfect.

XVII. How Knowing speaks to Conscience.

Knowing spoke to Conscience: How much one shames you and does you pain, that you yet purely in God stand.

Conscience: Lady Knowing, you have spoken a good little word. When all his hindrances hang, he must have a humble heart.

Knowing: Lady Conscience, you have so noble a mirror in which you so often look at yourself. That well may be the living God's Son with all his works. It might also not otherwise be, that you are so wise.

Conscience: Lady Knowing, when I [look at]³⁷ myself, it is to me both well and woe; well, that God the flowing goodness is toward me; woe, that I am so small in good works.

Knowing: Lady Conscience, you have in all things dearer God's will and God's honour than your profit in body and in soul; you are the devil's hell and God's heavenly kingdom. What may I then liken to you?

Conscience: Lady Knowing, all that I have from God, that he has lent me, that I may with it work his praise and his honour and also my profit; for I must give it back to him, so I need his graces well.

Knowing: Lady Conscience, you are sorely bound with the world's sins, and spiritual people's imperfection does you many a heart-sorrow. They have free choice, that they can journey to the heavenly kingdom or to the hell or into the long purgatory; that is to you a heavy burden.

Conscience: Lady Knowing, I do not lament that I have unwill and that I suffer ache. The world's sins regret me, just as love-pain purifies the body from sins and sanctifies the soul in God. Thus we will with joys stand at his command.

Knowing: Lady Conscience, the good-willed rich in the world offer God their goods and their alms; the spiritual people offer God in his service their flesh and their blood; above all things they offer God in obedience their own will. What weighs more must pay more.

Conscience: Lady Knowing, with this it is not enough. Will we enjoy God in the heights, then must we have the crown of humility and purity, of chastity inborn or acquired, and the heights of love above all things. This same blissful garment wears the holy Trinity on her — the Father the heights of love, the Son the humble pure chastity, that he has shared with all his chosen ones; the Holy Spirit the love-burning toward us, in all our good works.

Knowing: Lady Conscience, the steadfastness at good things, that is a labouring love that one cannot do without, if one will with God possess the highest honour in both, here and in his eternal kingdom. Well is he who here exerts himself in it.

XVIII. Of the commending of the seven hours of the martyrdom of our Lord.

At matins. 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 faithful ransom-pledge of all the world, Lord Jesus Christ! Receive your holy matins to the praise and honour of your exiled birth, your exiled need, your sore martyrdom, your holy death, your lordly resurrection, your fair ascension, your almighty honour, to praise and honour. Think of me, dear Lord, that I in all my doing, in all my leaving, in all my living your holy will may fulfil to a good end, to your holy Trinity's honour, and all who with me in your name are your and my friends.

At prime. O exiled disgrace, O sorrowful smart, which killed your lordly body and your sweet heart! Help me, dear Lord, that I all my disgrace and all my heart-sorrow in your love must and may lament away. As it in your eternal honour may please, and I therein ever blessed remain.

At terce. O heavy burden, O exiled bearing, which you, Lord, have borne under your cross! Bear us, Lord, above all our distress into the eternal life.

At sext. O bloody distress, O wound deep, O great smart! Let me, Lord, not perish in all my pain's distress. Amen.

At none. O most blessed distress! O most holy death! O most blissful mirror of the heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, hung high on the cross through feet and through hands: I commend to you, Lord, my soul at my last end, that I may without ceasing ever more united be. As your heavenly Father was and is with you. Grant me this and all who mean you with faith. Amen.

At vespers. O bound love-flowing! O faithful heart-pouring! O lordly body that for me was killed, very dear Jesus Christ! I beg you, that my five senses without ceasing must and may rejoice themselves at the bloody spear and at the wounds of your sweet heart, and that my exiled soul there eternally may within rejoice itself, and those with me, for whom I must and will Christianly pray. Amen.

At compline. O holy depth of all humility! O mild breadth of all gifts! O lordly love of all heights, of all loves, Jesus Christ, that you within beg your heavenly Father! Fulfil now, Lord, your prayer on us and sanctify us in the truth, and give us the depth of all humility, in which we may incline ourselves under all creatures, when the creatures withstand us who do not as we.

Give us, Lord, the breadth of all generosity, good-willed in all our ordering, to fulfil for your love.

And give us, Lord, the heights of your love, which keeps us pure in you and unspoiled from all earthly things. Amen.

XIX. Of the greeting of our Lady.

I greet you, Lady, dear Mary:⁵ that you are a bliss of the holy Trinity, that you are a beginning of all our blessedness, that you are a companion of the holy angels here and in God's kingdom. —

I greet you, Lady, dear Mary: that you are a flower of the patriarchs, that you are a hope of the prophets, that you are a white lily of the humble maidens

Think how to you came the greeting from Gabriel's mouth, and greet my soul at my last hour, and bring me with joys untroubled out of this exile into the joy-rich land of your dear child, where I rest find.

I greet you, etc. that you are a teaching wisdom of the apostles, that you are a rose of the martyrs, that you are a sending of the confessors, that you are a helper of all widows, that you are an honour of all saints of your dear Child. Pray for me, that I with all my works may be sanctified with them as it is to me, poor one, possible. Mary, dear empress.

I greet you, etc. that you are a refuge of the sinners, that you are a manly helper of the despaired, that you are a comforter of all holy Christendom, that you are a terror of all evil spirits — for they are cursed by you. Compel them, dear Lady, from me, that they never rejoice themselves at me, and I ever steady be at your service.

XX. How one shall commend the Ave Maria to our Lady.

Greeted be you, heavenly Empress, God's mother and heart-dear Lady, receive, Lady, today your Ave Maria, to the praise and honour of the blissful eye-glance of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which so blissfully toward the maidenly motherly face open and unhidden stands, full of all blessedness.

Ah Lady, on this I think with all my longing and all my prayers. All my pain and all my distress, and all my heart-sorrow, my honour, my soul's and my last end, when I turn hence out of this sorrowful exile — this must all to your motherly faithfulness and your maidenly honour be commended, and to your ladylike goodness without ceasing commended, and on top of that all those with me, who your and my friends in the name of the almighty God are. Heart-dear Lady mine, Mary, noble Empress.

XXI. How a person shall look at his heart before he goes to God's table.

You will have teaching from me, and I myself am unlearned. What you desire, you find a thousandfold in your books.

When I, poor one, go thither and must receive the body of our Lord, I look at the face of my soul in the mirror of my sins. There I see in myself how I have lived, how I now live, and how I yet will live. In this mirror of my sins I see nothing in it but O woe! and O woe! So I cast my face to the earth and lament and weep if I can, that the eternal ungraspable God is so good that he will incline himself into the foul puddle of my heart. Then I think thus, that it were more fitting in right, that one drag my body to the gallows like a thief, who has stolen from his right lord the precious treasure of purity which God gave me in the holy baptism.

This will we sorrowfully lament all the while we live, that we have often darkened what you must, Lord, fatherly forgive, whatever sin the person has not confessed, nor yet will confess, with that he shall not receive God's body. Now I will trust the true hope and thank God that I was ever made, that to me, poor one, this can happen, that I must receive God's body. Now I will with joys go to God's table, and I will receive the same bloody Lamb that on the holy cross would stand, bloody, unbound, with his holy five wounds. Well to us that it ever happened! In his holy martyrdom will I lament away all my discomfort. So we go then with joys and with heart-loving love, and with an open soul receive our Beloved. Our very heart-dearest Beloved, and lay him in our soul as in a sweet sucking cradle, and sing to him then praise and honour for the first discomfort he would suffer, when he in the manger lay. So we bow ourselves to him with our soul and with our five senses, and thank our Beloved and say thus: Lord, I thank you for yourself. Now I beg you, very dear, that you give me your jewel, that I purely may live out from all sins. Lord, where will I lay you then? What I have, that I will give you. I will lay you on my bed. The bedding is all pain. When I think on your pain, I forget mine. You shall, Lord, lay your hip³⁸ on me. The pillow, that is my heart-sorrow, that I am not at all times ready to receive your painful gift; of that, Lord, is all my lament.

This bed's cover is my longing, with which I am bound. Will you now, Lord, still me, then do my will. And give me the sinners who are in mortal sins, so you gladden the soul of mine. Lord, what will we now of love speak, when we so near together are laid in the bed of my pain.

I have you, Lord, received, as you on earth are risen from death. Dear heart-Love, now console my mood, that I without ceasing purely by you stand. There follows great blessedness after. Give me, Lord, the guilty soul out of purgatory alone for me; the recompense is far too dear.

Now have I you, Lord, received, as you to heaven are journeyed, now must you, very dear, not too greatly spare me. I must yet die of love, you can me, Lord, never otherwise still.

Give me, Lord, and take from me, Lord, all that you will, and let me yet this will, that I die of love in the love. Amen.

XXII. Of the praise of the heavenly Father.

Well am I! I praise you all ways, God, of your noble goodness, that you have chosen me for your holy service. Sanctify my mood, that I with holy inwardness receive all your gifts, and I with joys with you stand.

XXIII. How one shall thank the Son.

Well am I! I thank you, imperial God's Son. For that I think you ever more, that you have me in the world from the world taken. Your holy pain is mine, that you for me have suffered. All that I ever suffer, that I will give you back. Although it be unequal, it makes my soul yet free. Hold me ever in your favour, that you ever praised may be. Jesus, my very dear, loose my bands, let me with you remain.

XXIV. Of the love-flood.

Well am I! I thank you, Holy Spirit, this is my belief, that you are one Person of the holy Trinity. Your sweet loving burning-flows extinguish all my heart-sorrow, for they gently come out of the holy Trinity. I beg you, Lord, Holy Spirit, that you cover me from all wickedness of the evil spirits with your divine love, that what they at me seek, they not find.

XXV. Of the greeting of the holy Trinity.

I, poor of all virtues, I, base in my being, do I dare or can — then I greet the height, the brightness, the bliss, the wisdom, the nobility, the marvellous union of the holy Trinity, where all has flowed out, unspoiled, that was, that is, that ever shall be. There I must go again in; how shall this happen to me? I must crawl back, for I am guilty; I must go on bettering with good works; I must run with faithful diligence; I must fly with dove-feathers, that is virtues, and good works and holy mood. I must soar at all things above myself; when I am most weary, then I come again in. How I shall then be received, that no human eye ever saw, that no human ear ever heard, no human mouth could ever speak. Gloria tibi Trinitas!

XXVI. How one shall flee to God in the temptation.

Lord Jesus Christ, I, poor person, flee to you and desire your help, for my enemies hunt me. Lord God, I lament to you, for they wish to drive me from you. Lord, almighty God's Son, drive them from me. Give me not into their power, and hold me purely in you, for you have me with your martyrdom redeemed. Be now my help and my comfort and let me, Lord, not perish, for you would for me die. Lord Jesus Christ, I seek your help. Waken my soul from the sleep of my laziness and enlighten my senses from the darkness of my flesh, give me your guidance, to walk all my ways to you without sin, as it is possible from a person, for my faults see your eyes.

Mary, God's mother, heavenly empress, on this must be my helper, for I, alas, am guilty, that I find grace at your dear Child, mother of all chastity, I lament to you all my heart-sorrow. Salve Regina.

XXVII. How the spiritual person shall keep his heart from the world.

When the spiritual person sees his kin and his dearest friend before him fair adorned and clothed after the world's fashion, then he needs to be armed with the Holy Spirit, that he not think: Thus could you also well have done! From the thought becomes his heart so dark and his senses so unready to God, and his mood so lazy to holy prayer, and his soul so rightly exiled from God, that he then to his worldly kin inwardly becomes more like than to a spiritual person.

Will he purely with God stand, then must it come to a strife, then is then his conscience troubled, which is a lantern-vessel of the Holy Spirit; for the conscience does not shine without the Holy Spirit's light.

When the light is fair in the lantern lit, then is the lantern's adornment fairly known. So it is with the spiritual person: to him all the world's adornment is a horror in his heart. He keeps his lantern fair and unquenched. But is his heart open toward the world, then is his lantern broken, then comes the bitter northwind of the greed of the world from our kin, that they to us greatly lament that they have of the puddle too little, where they alas yet within sink down, and in the sins drown. This quenches our light, and we have yet not of the world. After that comes the sin-wind, the false delight of the world, that fair shines, and has yet many a bitter pain. Will this please us well, then we have the eternal harm. That we may gladly guard, for there is no sin so small, but that it is to us at our soul an eternal harm. Why? There was never a sin so holily changed, but it were better undone. Therefore must we steady fear have⁶ whether we with God may bitterly stand. What we have to God given, we may from him never without our harm take back, for we have it to him lordly given.

The fish in the water looks with great desire on the red bait with which one will catch him; he sees yet not the hook. So it is with the world's poison, it knows not its harm. Will you now rightly return, then look at your Bridegroom, all the world's Lord, how fair he stood clothed with purple garments, red-blood, black-coloured, with scourges struck, to the pillar bound. There he received for your love many a sharp wound. This let into your heart go, so can you the world's deceits escape. Will you further follow with your holy thoughts, then look up how he on the cross stood, upright high, before all the world's eyes with blood bedewed. The garments shall be your heart's joys. His imperial eyes with tears overflowed, his sweet heart with the love pierced through.⁷ Now hear yet the voice; that teaches you the God-love, how the smiths' hammers knocked and struck through his hands and feet on the cross.

Think also of the spear's wound that through the side went to the ground of his heart, and lament to him all your sin; thus you win God's knowing. Look at the sharp crown that he upon his head bore; kiss him above all things, he gives you enough of all bliss. Thank him how he would die for your great love, and let no one deceive you, so you can a queen be of his kingdom ever more. Will you choose to this, then you overcome with joys all the world's heart-sorrow.

XXVIII. Of the distress of a war.

I was commanded with a holy earnestness that I pray for the distress that is now in Saxon lands and in Thuringian lands. When I offered myself with praise and with longing, our dear Lord would not receive me, and kept silence with earnest stillness; that I had to bear for seventeen days with loving patience. Then I said to our dear Lord: Ah dear Lord, when shall come the welcome hour, that you will and that I must pray for this distress. Then our Lord showed himself to me and said:

The blissful red morning with manifold colour — these are the poor who now suffer manifold distress.

There shall to them the eternal sun afterward rise of the eternal light, which shall shine on them with eternal joy after this distress. There become they sanctified and clarified as the playful sun, when she toward the mid-morning forces in and the height steps.

Certain ones are in the host where they are in need and with fears; these I let be captured and bodiless, that they to me may come. Those who are the cause of the war are more horrible in themselves and grim in their works, that they the images of my God-house dare to assail. There I knew that the eternal death follows after. Those who rob the street on foot — were there no war, they would be thieves and false people. Thus the evil make the blessed good. Thus must God his own out of pain love; he can them otherwise not gain.

Thus has God told me of the foes, and I yet know not where it shall end take. I know that well for sure, that I to God's friends from the heart shall well please. I know that well for sure what God's friends suffer, that their God never forgets, for he is their help and their comfort in all their distress. After this we shall strive and with joys gladly suffer, so we can before God look and shine.

XXIX. Of a teaching.

Will you your heart wholly to God turn, then must you three things have as a teaching: fear yourself for all sins, good-willed for all virtues, steady for all good things, so can you your life to a good end bring. Will you yourself to this compel, then can you with God's help well fulfil. Beg God steadily on this, so you bear softly all your trouble. Beg purely and serve God with diligence, so you become joy-rich.

XXX. A prayer when one crowns the maidens.

Receive, Lord, your brides⁸ and meet them with the lilies of pure chastity all their days.

Receive, Lord, your brides and meet them with the roses of diligent labour for a good end.

Receive, Lord, your brides and meet them with the violets of bottomless humility, and lead them into your bride-bed, and embrace them with all love ever undivided.

XXXI. Of a lament.⁹

This is the loving soul's lament, which she alone cannot bear; she must say it to God's friends, that to them love-service may please.

Love-sick and body-weak, pain, distress and hard compulsion, that makes me the way too long to my dear Lord. How shall I, Beloved, do without you so long? Yes, I am to you, alas, all too far.

Will you, Lord, my lament not receive, then must I go again into my mourning, and wait and suffer, both silent and openly. You know that well, dear Lord, how gladly I were with you.

OUR LORD: When I come, then I come great. There was never discomfort so great, that I cannot heal it. You must yet more wait; I will better prepare you, before I bring you before my Father, that you us the better please. I still gladly hear your love-sound. When dark become our human senses, then we awaken with the lament in our heart the divine love.

XXXII. How the good person's works shine against the works of our Lord.

How the good person's works shall light up and shine in the heavenly honour, mark in these words:

As we here have been guiltless, so shall God's guiltlessness shine and light up in our holy guiltlessness.

As we here labour in good works, so shall God's holy labour light up and shine in our holy labour.

As we here have inwardness in God secretly, so shall God's holy inwardness light up and gleam in our holy inwardness manifoldly.

As we here our pain thankfully receive and patiently suffer, so shall God's holy pain light up and shine in our pain.

As we here all virtues have practised with diligence, so shall God's holy virtues light up and shine in our virtues in manifold honour. This were eternally ever more.

As we here in love burn and shine in holy living, so shall God's love in our soul and in our body burn and shine without ceasing, ever more unquenched.

These answering-glances shine and light up from the eternal Godhead. These good works we have received from God's holy manhood. And we have fulfilled them with the Holy Spirit's help.

Thus come our works and our life back into the holy Trinity. There it becomes manifest, how it stands with us now here. After that we here holily in divine love live, after that shall we there in the heights blissfully soar, and after that shall love's might be given us as reward, that we shall become mighty to do all our will, that we from the saints shall be known how we have been; therewith must we their companion be. Amen.

XXXIII. Of the spiritual drink.¹⁰

I am sick; I greatly delight in a healthy drink that Jesus Christ himself drank. When he, God and human, came into the manger, then was the drink at once prepared for him. Of this he drank so much, that he was so love-fiery drunken that he in all virtues drove away¹¹ all his heart-sorrow. He gave ever virtues; the goodness in him became never sick. For the healthy drink I long. This drink is pain through God's love. The pain is bitter. So we grind into it a root, called: gladly suffer. The other root is called: patience in the pain; which is also bitter; so we grind into it a root, called: holy inwardness, which makes the patience sweet and all our labour. The third root is: in pain long wait for our eternal life and our salvation; which is also very bitter. So we grind into it a root, called: with joys unwearied.

Ah dear Lord, would you give me this drink, then could I unwearied with joy in pain live. There would I a while of the heavenly kingdom do without; so sweet after it is my desire. Now must you this, Lord, to me after your dearest will give, and to all who through your love desire it.

XXXIV. Of the spiritual food.

After a bitter drink one needs gentle food. The upstanding longing and the sinking humility and the flowing love — these three maidens bring the soul up to heaven before God, and so she becomes aware of her Beloved. Then she says: Lord, I lament that you are so greatly assailed by the dearest you have on earth — that is the Christian person. Lord, I lament to you, that your friends are so sorely hindered by your enemies. Our Lord: Have they the right goodness in them, all that goes over them without sin, that they consume blissfully into the true God-knowing. Therefore the pain calls loudest: above all God-service, give way to me, for that the person is unconsoled according to the will of God, since the person were consoled according to his own will. God's will is pure; our will is greatly mingled with the flesh. All who greatly love within become outwardly stilled, for all outward labour hinders the inward spirit. That then the spirit within sings, goes above all earthly voice.

The patience sings most fairly above all the angels' choirs, for the angels have no patience, for they feel no pain. This we have from the manhood of our Lord, on top of all the honour with which we from God on earth are honoured, and with which in the heavenly kingdom along be exalted. From the noble labour of our Lord and from his holy pain is our Christian labour and our good-willed pain ennobled and sanctified, just as all waters are sanctified from the Jordan in which our dear Lord was baptized.

Ah dear Lord, help us that our holy longing never must grow weary, and our sinking humility never must raise itself with pride, and the flowing burning of the holy God-love must here be our purgatory, in which all our sins are blotted out.

XXXV. Of the seven psalms.¹²

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, these holy seven psalms I speak to the praise and honour of all your holy pain, in which you would die for me on the holy cross.

[Then follow seven prayers commending each of the seven penitential psalms to a moment of Christ's coming at her death: as a faithful physician (Domine, ne in furore); as the dearest friend in distress (Beati quorum); as a faithful confessor (Domine, ne in furore second); as a faithful brother (Miserere mei Deus); as a faithful Father to his child (Domine, exaudi); sending his maidenly mother (De profundis); coming finally as the dearest Bridegroom with the morning-gift on the arm of his love (Domine, exaudi).]

XXXVI. Of a spiritual cloister.

I desired of God, if it were his will, that he would let me understand that I write no more. Why? Because I know myself so base and so unworthy as I was thirty years ago and more, when I had to begin it. Then our Lord showed me in his hand a small sack and said: I have still roots. Then I said: Lord, I do not know the roots. Then he said: You shall know them well when you see them. One shall refresh the sick with them, strengthen the healthy, waken the dead, sanctify the good with them. Hereafter I saw a spiritual cloister, which was built with virtues.

The abbess is the true Love, who has many holy senses, with which she diligently keeps the gathering in body and in soul, all to God's honour; she gives them many a holy teaching, that ever God's will may be — of which her own soul becomes free.

The love-chaplainess is divine humility; who is ever to love subject, so must pride go aside.

The prioress is the holy God-peace. To her good will is given patience, so that she the gathering with divine wisdom teaches; to whatever things she turns, that is ever to God's honour.

The sub-prioress is love-fellowship; she shall the small fragments gather and quench them with divinity, whatever one does wrong, that one shall not long bear in mood; with this God increases the person's goodness.

The chapter shall four things in it have; that is the manifestation of the holiness, that at God-service lies. Her gentle labour does the enemies many a sorrow and God many an honour, of which she may rejoice herself greatly. She guard herself from empty honour, to be a help of the honours of others. Serve they with diligence, then rewards them God alike.

The choir-mistress is the hope, filled with holy, humble devotion, that the heart's powerlessness in the song before God so fairly may compel, that God loves the notes that in the heart sing. Whoever with her thus sings, with her shall succeed in the heavenly love.

The school-mistress is the wisdom, who with good will diligently teaches the dull, of which the cloister is sanctified and honoured.

The cellaress is an outflow in helpful gift. That she that in divine joy does, of this she wins holy mood in divine gift. All who anything of her desire, those shall be well-bred and content ever without lament. So flows into her heart the sweet God-gift.

Those who help her thereto, those shall ever win as she the sweet God-gift.

The chamber-ess is the generosity, who ever gladly does well in orderly measure. She gives what she has not with kindly will, of which she must from God singular gift win. Those to whom she gives anything, they thank God for it with holy inwardness; of this the heart's place takes like the noble drink in pure vessel.

The infirmarian is the flowing mercy, who ever hungers after this: that she unwearied be ready for the sick with help and with purity, with refreshing and with joyfulness, with comfort and with love-fellowship. So God gives her his return-reward, that she ever gladly does it, who shall help her with it: the same from God shall come to pass.

The portress is the watchfulness, who ever exerts herself with holy mood to gain whatever is commended to her, so her labour remains unlost, so she may readily come to God when she will pray; so God is with her in a holy stillness, to lament away her heart-sorrow. For she sometimes does heavily, which all reconciles the holy obedience, to which she then with joys is subject.

The novice-mistress is the holy custom, who shall ever burn as a candle, unquenched in the heavenly freedom, thus we bear softly all our heart-sorrow unto a holy end.

The provost is the divine obedience, to whom all virtues are subject, so may the cloister in God stand. Whoever will give himself to this cloister, he shall ever with divine joy live, here and in the eternal life. Well is he who in it remains!

XXXVII. Of the eternal high-time of the holy Trinity.

Whoever in true love will prepare himself for the eternal high-time of the holy Trinity, he must ever begin: he shall the heavenly Father follow and serve without ceasing with holy fear and with humble humility in all things. He shall his Son follow and serve with pain and with patience, with willing poverty in holy labours. He shall the Holy Spirit follow and serve in holy hope above all words, with sweet heart in gentle mood, so one tastes his goodness.

The pure loving maidens shall further follow the noble Youth Jesus Christ, the pure Maiden's child, who all-full love-loving, as he was at eighteen years; so is his Person to the maidens most love-delightful and most fair; so they follow him with blissful tenderness into the blossoming meadow of their pure conscience. There the Youth breaks for them the flowers of all virtues, of which they make the noble wreaths that one to the eternal high-time shall wear.

When the noble judgments are happened, where Jesus Christ himself will serve, then one sees there the highest praise-dance, where shall then every soul and body bear their virtues' wreath, which they here have fulfilled with many a holy devotion. So they follow the Lamb in uncountable bliss, from bliss to love, from love to joys, from joys to clarity, from clarity to power, from power into the highest height, before the heavenly Father's eyes.

So he greets his only-begotten Son and on top of that many a pure bride who there with him have come.

Ah dear Son, what you are, that I am, and that they are, of that I rejoice. My dear brides, rejoice yourselves ever more, rejoice yourselves in my eternal purity, lament away now softly all woe and all sorrow. My holy angels shall serve you, my saints shall honour you. The mother of my Son's manhood shall be ready to praise you, that you are her companions. Rejoice yourselves, dear brides, my Son shall embrace you all, my Godhead shall go through you all, my Holy Spirit shall ever more lead you in blissful eye-sight after all your will. How could it go better for you? I will myself love you.

Those who are not pure maidens,¹³ they shall this high-time possess and see and enjoy as far as it is possible.

When I in a short hour with my soul's eyes this heard and saw, I was a human dust and ash as I before was.

XXXVIII. How a spiritual person shall lament and know to God his sins every day.

I, sinful person, I lament and know to God all my sins of which I am guilty before God's eyes. I know and lament all my good works which I have neglected. I know and lament the sins which I committed when I did not know what sin was. I lament the sins that are worse, which I have done knowingly and with wickedness and with un-leisure and with emptiness. Have mercy, Lord, on me, for they are to me truly sorrowful. And give me, Lord, your whole certainty that you have forgiven me them all. I cannot otherwise with joys live.

Jesus, very dear Beloved mine, hold me in true contrition and in heart-loving love to you in, and let me never grow cool; so that I your heart-loving love in my heart and my soul and in my five senses, and in all my members without ceasing feel. So I cannot grow cool.

XXXIX. How the devils strike each other and hunt, bite and gnaw, when a loving soul, who burns of divine love, parts from this world.

Well to the good person, that he ever was born, who with all virtues follows God. That were possible to fulfil! His soul becomes in love free. At his last end, then come the holy angels and receive the pure soul with uncountable love in heavenly bliss and bear her from hence with joys, and with great praise bring her to God. The enemies from hell, who were come there, were of all their labour deprived. With hatred and with fierceness were they come; when they then saw that their will was not happened…

XL. Thus speaks the loving soul to her dear Lord.

Were all the world mine, and were it of pure gold, and should I in it after wish eternally be, the all-noblest, the all-fairest, the all-richest empress, — that were to me ever worthless.

So very gladly would I see Jesus Christ my dear Lord in his heavenly honour.

Mark what they suffer who long await him.

XLI. How a preacher-brother was seen.

Forty years ago I knew a spiritual man; for then spiritual people were simple and meek of mind. He took to him a spiritual life and devoutness, and performed for our Lord openly many a holy labour. He is now departed; then I begged our Lord for his soul as a Christian should, that if any guilt were upon him, God would forgive him. Then I saw at first a brightness which was prepared for him from God, but I did not find him within it, and my soul was troubled. Thereafter at another time, when I again prayed for him, I found him in a fiery cloud, and he begged that one would give him something.¹⁴ Then I spoke with all my might to our dear Lord: Ah dear Lord, grant me that I may with good repay woe. Then he raised himself up in the cloud and said: Lord, how strong is your power, how truly upright is your truth. Then I said: Now then, how are you faring? Then he said: I fare as it appears to you. — "Whence have you this pain?" — The souls who false-holy shine, they accused the innocent to me; for that I made them pay, and I held sinful suspicion against them — from that I have this pain. — "Ah, had I one sigh, nothing could come to him from me, for he had also somewhat forgotten himself toward me."¹⁵

The third time I prayed for him; then he journeyed away in bliss. Then our dear Lord met him and said to him: That your way after your death has been so long and so heavy, that is given you from evil people. You have followed me secretly and served me faithfully; you shall wear the maidens' crown — the crown of righteousness and the crown of truth. — Then he journeyed shining away over eight choirs and touched the ninth; then I saw him no more. Had the false liars not borne tales against him, he would have journeyed without pain to the eternal joy. That he would trust them — that was his loss.

XLII. Of the honey-drink.

Lord God, lock now your dear treasure with a holy end, and unlock him, that he to you to praise may be in heaven and on earth.

Then spoke a voice: You shall keep for me the honey-drink, which lies in many a fold; I will unlock it; of it shall yet many enjoy.

XLIII. Of the simple love, how the wise was seen.

Those who would know much and love little, they remain ever in a beginning of a good life. Of that we must ever steady fear bear, how we may there please God.

The simple-mannered love and small knowing, those grow to great things in.

The holy simplicity is a physic of all wisdom; it makes the wise man hold himself for a dull one. For the simplicity of the heart dwells in the wisdom of the senses, and from this comes many a holiness on the person's soul.

XLIV. Of five sins and of five virtues.

In poverty greediness, and lying in the truth, slow toward mercy, shameful mockery in present company, [an unmeasured one]¹⁶ in ordering: — these five things unfulfilled make sick the spiritual life.

Truth without falseness, manifest love among one another, fear in three fears, hidden love to God in my heart manifest, diligence to all good things, — these five things keep healthy the spiritual love.

XLV. Of seven things in the loving longing.

Seven things must I to God's honour speak:

Lord God, is it possible, then give it me, that I never on earth may forget them.

Five one finds in the heavenly kingdom; two must here remain.

The first is the harm of my guilt, for I have sinned and neglected good works which I might well have done.

The second is, Lord, that I without ceasing wait for you, when you will come to me — in whatever manner you appoint, with a holy end to me.

The third, your unresting longing which I have for you.

The fourth, love's burning never quenched, ever through you.

The fifth, the first answering-glance of your noble face toward me. That could not on earth according to my longing, alas, ever happen to me; of that my soul sings often: O woe!

The sixth I dare scarcely name; I become dumb as I know it. I never on earth heard it named.

That is the playful love-flood which from God secretly flows into the soul and her back again with its strength according to its might. What between them both then is bliss, no one knows from another, what they work between themselves, for each finds his share. What he has here lent out, shall there all be given back to him. This is the heavenly God-love which he here pours out very small and there never wins end.

The seventh one can scarcely with words touch; with Christian belief one may sense it — how great, how high, how wide, how blissful, how lordly, how joy-rich, how rich. Well to him who eternally with him shall dwell!

The joyful eye-sights full of all delight and the holy enjoyment according to wish, those are very manifold without number, and never seen, ever more lordly drawn, for they soar out from the living God.

The over-sweet longings, blissfully hungry, love-full, they flow ever more into the souls, overflowing from God. Still the soul keeps her sweet hunger and lives without burden.

XLVI. How the soul announces herself in spiritual poverty.

Here announces herself the soul in spiritual poverty and in eternal love toward God, and in unresting longing toward God to journey hence.

She speaks thus: The long waiting now goes away; the coming-to passes that God and the soul shall be united, undivided, ever more. When I think on this, my heart rejoices itself greatly.

Ah dear Lord, how still you now keep silent. For this I thank you ever more, that you so long forbear me. Else must you ever eternally be praised, that your will is done and not mine.

Now will I shelter myself in your words which I in Christian belief have heard, where you say: Those who love me, I have love for them. To them will we come, my Father and I, and we will make a dwelling with him. Well to me, dear Lord, of your mild goodness! That can you not refuse.

Then said our Lord: When comes the time of my saving, that I will give you the heavenly gifts, then am I very swift, in which my eternity lies kept. I will still unfold them, and I will raise her up out of the bloody earth, for to me nothing dearer can be.

The eternal love toward God dwells in the soul; the transient love toward earthly things dwells in the flesh. Here are five senses, mighty over [the soul], to whichever she turns.

XLVII. Of a sin that is evil above all sins.

A sin I have heard named. I thank God for it, that I do not know her. She seems to me, and is above all sins evil, for she is the highest unbelief. I am, of her, with all my soul and with all my body, and with all my five senses, and with all my heart, an enemy. I thank Jesus Christ, the living Son of God, that she never came into my heart. This sin has not arisen from Christian people; the humble¹⁷ enemy has betrayed the simple people with it. They would so holy be, that they into the eternal Godhead would draw themselves and lay themselves beside the eternal holy Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When they find themselves in haughtiness, then they give themselves into the eternal curse. They will yet be the most holy. They have their mockery of God's words which are written of the Manhood of our Lord.

You allerpoorest person, did you truly know the eternal Godhead, then were that impossible: you would also know the eternal Manhood which there soars in the eternal Godhead; you must also know the Holy Spirit, who there enlightens the Christian person's heart and tastes in his soul above all sweetness, and teaches the person's senses above all mastery, that he humbly might say [only] what before God [he] can complete.¹⁸

XLVIII. How Love was seen with her maidens.

In the night I spoke thus to our Lord: Lord, I dwell in a land which is called exile, that is this world, for all that is therein cannot console me nor gladden me without pain. Therein I have a house called full-of-pain, that is the house in which my soul lies captive — my body. This house is old, small and dark. This one shall spiritually understand. In this house I have a bed which is called unrest, for I am with all things in woe that do not to God belong. Before it I have a chair which is called unease. Unease gives me strange sins to know, of which I never was guilty. Before the chair I have a table which is called unwill, that of spiritual living among spiritual people I should so small find. Upon the table lies a tablecloth which is pure, called poverty; that has in it very many a holy good. Would one rightly enjoy it, one would have it from the heart dear. The love of riches is a thief of poverty. Upon the table comes for me a food called bitterness of sins, and beside it shall be called good-willed labour. The drink is called barely-praise, for I have, alas, all too little of good works on me.

This I saw within darkly; then to me revealed herself the true God-love. She was like a noble Empress' maiden. She was nobly formed in her body, white and red in blossoming youth. She had with her very many a virtue, all of them maiden-like; with these she served me as I myself willed. Yet they all wished gladly to give themselves to my service. She was crowned more than with the shining gold. Her garment was like green silk.

When I rightly looked at her, then was my dark house enlightened, that I knew all that was within it, and all that ever there happened. When I saw her, I knew her well, for I also had seen her when she was my dear companion. Of this I will now keep silent, for those things are also in the [former] book written. — Then I said: Ah dearest maiden, now are you more than thousand-fold above me; yet you serve me with so great honour, as if I before then were an empress. Then she said: When I found you in pure will, that you of all transient things would let go, then I would not be alone your lady — I must also be your steady maiden, so greatly does a pure heart move me, which has through the true God-love loosed herself from all earthly things. (She means this: however many earthly things one has, that they yet not cleave to the person at his heart.)

Dear maiden, since you have served me so long, that is the base lady's right,³² that she of the noble maidens lordly reward. I have given you as reward all that I had, and all that could on earth have happened to me. Then she said:

I have it all gathered up; I will give it back to you with great honour.

I know not, lady, what more I shall give you; unless you wish my soul, that will I gladly give you.

Then she said: This I have long desired of you, now have you at the last fulfilled it for me. Speak now to my maidens, that they to you diligently serve, so may I dwell with you in true God-love, which I myself am.

Then speaks the soul to the first maiden, to Rest:¹⁹

Lady true Rest, come here to me, and bring me holy tears, which make me sin-free.

Lady Humility, sit here beside me, and drive haughtiness and empty honour from me. When they see you beside me, they must flee before me.

Dear Lady Gentleness, sit here beside me under my garment, so love-fellowship remains ready for me.

Ah noble Obedience, I give myself to you in all my works subject. You shall never from me go, so may I keep in all my works the divine truth without lying, which God's friends well becomes.

Dear Lady Mercy, be beside me when I serve the sick diligently, that I may well bear the cost, that I may serve them with goods and with body.

Ah dear Lady Chastity, to you I commend my maidenly garment, that it may ever pure and clean be, for my dear Bridegroom Jesus Christ is at all times beside me.

Lady Patience, I have great strength in keeping silent and in suffering; you take from all my temptations their might, that they may not harm me. I will keep you with labours beside me.

Lady Holiness, come here to me, and kiss my soul's mouth, and dwell in my heart's ground, so I remain ever more whole.

Lady Hope, I beg you, that you bind together all my heart-wounds, which Love has struck me with; that I may ever keep God's blessing, whatever unease shall be given me.

Ah lordly, holy Christian belief, you ever enlighten my soul's eye, that I well know whither I am turned in Christian things; I commend to you my works and my senses.

Ah dear Lady Watchfulness, do not sit, stand at all times beside me, so I remain free of evil.

Lady Measure, be at all times beside me, so may I to God at all times to his service ready be.

Lady Sufficiency, you are my dear chamber-maid; I must love you greatly, you make my hard bed soft, my coarse food savoury, you give me power in poverty; this comes from God's goodness.

Peace and stillness I cannot do without, you must with me wander in all my ways. Those who much speak and much whisper, they keep their honour scarcely; those who much rumour-speak, that can never be useful.

Wisdom is at all times beside Love, and is of all maidens the mistress. She keeps whatever Love gives; she makes the person useful for what he teaches or reads. Chaste Shamefacedness has singular virtue on her, she is gladly unpraised in all people's presence.

Now am I with maidens well possessed; yet are there two whom I will not forget — Fear and Steadfastness: these two shall ever be beside me, so may all my maidens of their office well take care.

I thank you, dear God-love, Lady Empress; for you have all to my help given in my exiled heavenly-way.

XLIX. Of a lay-brother.

In the order of Preachers a brother was struck dead by the thunder. There was prayer made for his soul with faithful longing, that if anything were on him unchanged, it would be forgiven him. Then his soul was shown to the same person who prayed for him; he was fair in heavenly bliss and had no pain. That was from this, as his soul spoke: I was humble in my works, I was fearful in my senses, I was good-willed in all my works — therefore have I no pain. The soul: Why did you not journey at once to the heavenly kingdom? Then he said: I must first here receive divine knowing and heavenly love, of which I had none on earth. — "Whence is it that you have the small spot on your face?" Then he said: I bore my face severely against those who did not do my will; that remained unchanged on me. — "By what may one take this spot from you?" Then he said: Had I a single sigh! — Then nothing of that could come to him from the person, for [the sigh] was given him in the meanwhile. Then he rejoiced and said: Now it is gone. — "Why bear you this crown? Now you are not yet to the heavenly kingdom come." Then he said: I had a singular death; from that God has given it me.

L. Of the painful gold.²⁰

Ah dear Lord Jesus Christ, who are an eternal God with the eternal Father, think on me. I thank you, Lord, for your sonly gifts with which you touch me without ceasing, which all my bones and all my veins and all my flesh cut through. When I, Lord, may thank you for these with holy thankfulness, then am I safe, and otherwise not. You may well hold your base ones basely, for, Lord, your meaning is good and better than good; for many a thing is called good which is not so good as that of yours, which you do to me. But when you touch me with your overlordly sweetness which goes through all my soul and all my body, then I fear myself, that I of your divine delight may all-too-much draw into me, since I am on earth unworthy of it. Therefore I beg you sometimes for other people more than for myself, that I may renounce my delight through God's love and through Christian faithfulness.

Hereafter I fear the rising up of haughtiness, which threw the noblest angel out of the heavenly kingdom. I fear also the serpent of empty honour which deceived Eve. I fear the unfaith which sundered Judas from God. Am I faithful to God, then I stand with all virtues, with all goodness in all watch, beside God with our dear Lady, his maidenly Mother.

LI. A prayer against negligence.

I, allerleast, I allerbasest, I allerunworthiest among all the people known, I desire, I beg you, heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Holy Spirit, Lord holy Trinity, that you would today forgive me all the negligence with which I have neglected myself in your holy service, not alone through need and through necessity, but rather through my sinful wickedness, which I well could have let alone had I willed. Now receive, Lord, this small bettering which I now offer you with my will, to the honour of your dear Mother and to all the saints whom one today celebrates in holy Christendom, and to all God's saints to praise and honour in blessedness, with which they, dear Lord, have come to you.

Now help me, dear Lord, to such an amendment in my life, that I to your holy ones may be a companion on earth in holy living, that in your kingdom I may possess their fellowship before your lordly face, and all those with me who beg my prayer.

LII. How the loving soul bows under the hand of God.

I speak to my five senses: Bow yourselves under the almighty hand of God, for the enemies from hell must bow themselves and bend, however haughty they are, in their fiery bonds under the hard compulsion of the almighty God.

Those who are in the purgatory, they must bow themselves in their guilt under the penance, until at the last hour they may pure be found.

The sinners on earth, they must bow themselves under the burden of their guilt at the judgment, with contrition, into penance, or else into the eternal hell.

The good people on earth, they must bow themselves with the [contrition]²¹ into penance all their days.

The chosen pure, who mean our Lord God with all faithfulness, are sorely beset, and they suffer many a holy burden. They bow and bend themselves under all pain and under all creatures with soaring love. To them haughtiness is very dear-priced.²² On this I shall think, and I will and must out of the same cup drink which my Father drank from, if I shall possess his kingdom.

The heavenly kingdom bows itself with all holy angels in blissful holiness, for what they are and live, that God has given them for nothing.

The saints bow themselves and bend before God in flowing love and blissful longing with diligent acceptance. So they thank God, that to them his gifts in their needs on earth were so lovingly ready; therewith they bore softly all their heart-sorrow.

So must to me happen, for I also through his love in many a pain am.

LIII. Of the imprisonment of spiritual people.

It moves me at my heart, the burden of this gathering in which I am. Then I spoke in the night, in the desert of my heart, to our Lord thus: Lord, how pleases you this imprisonment? Then said our Lord: I am imprisoned in him. — In this word was given me the sense of all these words thus:

I fasted with them in the wilderness. I was tempted by the enemy with them. I laboured all my days in well-bred fashion in useful fruit with them. I was betrayed with a kiss with them. I was sold in faith with them, when they reveal themselves to me in God-service. I was sought in peril with them. I was attacked with them in full fierceness. I was captured in greedy ill-will with them. I was bound in obedience with them. I was mocked in great disfavour with them. I was struck²³ in great innocence with them. Whatever bitterness they hear, that shall not trouble them. I was dragged before judgment with them as a guilty thief. On this they shall think in chapter and in confession. I was scourged with them; when they scourge themselves, they shall think on me. I bore my cross with them. When they are burdened, by that they shall think on me. I was nailed to the cross with them, through which they gladly suffer and scarcely lament their burden. I commended my spirit at my death to my Father with them; so shall they commend themselves to me in all their needs. I died with them in a holy end, so shall all their bonds become loosed. I was buried with them in an earthly stone; so shall they be and remain, pure from all earthly things. I rose up from death, so shall they ever from their failings rise up, so may they the heavenly clarity in their soul receive. I journeyed to heaven with my divine strength; thither shall they follow me in all this fear's might.

I hope this truly, that you without ceasing perform this and know it. In whom it is not yet, that the true God may yet bring it to completion!

LIV. Of four things of belief.

That one Christianly believes in God, and that one loves God holily, and that one Jesus Christ truly knows, that one his teaching faithfully follows unto the person's end — of this I believe, that one in these four things finds the eternal life. We believe Christianly, not as Jews, nor as unbelieving Christian people. They will believe in God and not in his allerholiest work which he wrought, that is, that he has given us his only-begotten Son; him they despise. Lord God, this we lament to you. We believe in him unto the will of God, that he has sent us his only-begotten Son into this world. We believe in the works and in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, with which he has redeemed us. We believe in the Holy Spirit, who has fulfilled all our blessedness in the Father and in the Son, and still fulfils it in all our good works.

How shall we love God holily? We shall love all that the holy Trinity bids. God has not created sin, therefore he hates it on us. God loves the goodness on us, which he himself is.

How shall we know Jesus Christ? By his works we shall know him, and shall love him above us. How shall we follow his teaching? As he has taught us, and his followers still teach us. The while that we here are, our blessedness shall be increased.

LV. So writes a friend to his friend.

Because you love God above your human might, because you have God dear with all your soul's strength, because you know God with all your soul's wisdom, because you have received God's gift with many a holy thankfulness — therefore I send you this letter.

The great overflow of divine love, which never stands still and flows ever more without ceasing, without any kind of labour, with such sweet flowing ever unwearied, that our small vessel becomes full and overflowing — would we not stop it up with our own will, our vessel flows ever over from God's gift.

Lord, you are full and make us also full with your gift. You are great, and we are small; how shall we become like to you? Lord, you have given us, and we shall further give. Although we are a small vessel, you have yet filled it. One can pour a small full vessel into a great vessel so often, that the great vessel becomes full from the small vessel. The great [vessel] is the sufficiency of God which he receives from our works; we are, alas, so small, that a small fear from God or from holy scripture so fills us, that we cannot more at the hour [hold]. So we pour the gift out again into the great vessel which is God. How shall we do that? We shall pour it with holy longing upon the sinners, that they be purified — so it becomes full again. So we pour it again upon the imperfection of spiritual people, that they further strive and become and remain perfect. So it becomes again full; so we pour it out again upon the need of the poor souls who are tormented in purgatory, that God through his goodness may take from them their manifold need. So we pour it with holy mercy upon the need of holy Christendom which stands in many sins. Our Lord God has first loved us; he has also first laboured for us; he has also through us suffered most. The same shall we give back to him, will we be like to him.

So spoke our Lord to a person: Give me all that is yours, then I give you all that is mine. The recompense of the love which we to God offer, that is very sweet. The recompense of the labour, that is to us, alas, very often heavy. For what the love has within consumed, the person must, alas, sometimes without do without. How heavy that is, asks one of me? That I could yet with human senses never put forth. Our Lord has very much for us suffered, unto death. Now seems to us, alas, a small suffering so great, that I must myself despise and to God lament, that I have so small virtues. Love makes suffering sweet, more than one may say; and would we God become like, then must we win over many a strife. The remembrance of God and of the loving soul come together in like fashion as the sun and the air, with the noble God-strength, mingle themselves together in a sweet press, that the sun overcomes the air's coldness and darkness.

That one cannot mark, it is all one sweetness; that comes from the divine bliss.

God give us and keep us all this love! Amen.

LVI. How God touches his friends with pain.

When the person has a sorrow which he did not seek and has small guilt in himself, thus speaks our Lord to it: I have touched them. Gloss.

In like fashion as my Father let me be touched on earth, so those whom I draw to me on earth, to them the drawing does much woe. They shall know this for sure: the more heavily I draw them to me, the nearer they come to me.

When the person over himself gains the victory, that he weighs pain and consolation alike, then will I lift him into the sweetness. So shall to him taste the eternal life.

LVII. A little of the paradise.

This was shown me, and I saw how the paradise was made. Of its breadth and its length I found no end. When I first came thither, that was between this world and the paradise's beginning, I saw trees, leaves and bright grass, and no weed. Some trees bore apples, and the greatest most bore nothing but leaves with noble scent. Swift waters flow there through, and a southwind toward the north. There met me in the waters earthly sweetness tempered with heavenly bliss. There was the air sweeter than I can speak of. Within there was no animal nor bird, for God had committed it to the person alone, that he might with ease therein dwell.

Then I saw two men therein — that were Enoch and Elijah. Enoch sat, and Elijah lay on the earth in great inwardness. Then I spoke to Enoch. I asked him what they lived on after human nature. Then he said: We eat a little of the apples and drink a little of the water, that the body may keep its living, and the greatest is the God-strength. I asked him: How came you hither? — I came hither so that I knew not how I came hither, nor how it was with me when I sat down here. I asked about his prayer. — Belief and hope — out of these we prayed. I asked how it fared with him, whether it irked him to be there. Then he said: It is all well with me and nowhere woe. — Do you fear anything before the strife that yet shall happen in the world? — God shall arm me with his strength, that I shall well stand the stroke. — Do you pray for the Christendom? — I beg that God loose them from sins and bring them into his kingdom. Elijah raised himself up; then was his face fairly fiery, heaven-coloured; as white wool was his hair. They were clothed as poor men who with the staff go for their bread. Then I asked Elijah how he prayed for the Christendom. — I beg merciful, humble, faithful and obedient. — Do you beg for the souls? — Yes; as I desire, so their pain is lessened.²⁴ As I beg, so the pain also passes away. — Are they ever loosed? — Yes, many. — Why has God brought you hither? — That we shall be helpers of the Christendom and God's, before the youngest day.

I saw a twofold paradise. Of the earthly part I have spoken; the heavenly is there above, which covers the earthly part from all unweather. In the highest part are within the souls who were not worthy of the purgatory and yet were not come into God's kingdom.

They soar in bliss as the air in the sun. Lordship and honour, reward and crowns have they not yet, before they come into God's kingdom.

When all earth passes away and the earthly paradise does not stand, as God his judgment has done, then shall the heavenly paradise also pass away. All shall in the common house dwell that to God will come. Then shall be no sick-house more; whoever in God's kingdom comes, he is free from all sickness. Praised may Jesus Christ be, who has given us his kingdom!

LVIII. Of Saint Gabriel.

Holy angel Gabriel, think on me! The message of my longing I commend to you. Say to my dear Lord Jesus Christ how love-sick I am for him. Shall I ever be healed, then must he himself be my physician.

You may say to him in trust: the wounds which he himself has struck me, those I may no longer unsalved bear, and unbound. He has wounded me unto death; leaves he me now unsalved lying, then I can never be healed. Were all mountains a wound-salve, and all waters a physician's drink, and all trees with blossoms a healing wound-binding — with these I could never be healed. He must himself in my soul's wound lay [his salve].

Holy angel Gabriel, think on me! This love-message I commend to you. Whoever will have God dear, this love-letter will awaken his senses, whether he will follow God.

LIX. How the message came before God.

I have the truth in my spirit well taken, my message has to God come. The answer that to me back shall come, it is so great, so mighty, so bottomless, so manifold, so wonder-rich and so over-clear, that I cannot receive it the while I shall be in earthly being. I part for a little while from this poor life, and so that I there never remain. Now must I swiftly the speech keep silent; I could not more of it receive, that one openly of it should speak. But I saw Saint Gabriel in blissful honour in the heavenly heights before God stand, as I, poor one, could receive it.

There were put on him new love-fiery garments, which were given him as reward, that he the true message so lordly can perform. His face I saw love-fiery, playful, clear. He was with the Godhead surrounded and gone-through. His words I could neither understand nor hear, for I am yet like an earthly fool.

LX. How the Child was seen.

In the night, when God's Son was born, then was the Child seen wound in poor cloths and bound with cords. The Child lay alone on the hard straw before two beasts. Then I spoke to the Mother: Ah dear Lady, how long shall your dear Child so alone lie? When will you take him upon your bosom? Then said our Lady — she yet did not let the Child anywhere from her eyes — she reached him her hands²⁵ and said: He shall these seven hours under night and under day on this straw lie. His heavenly Father wills it so. To the heavenly Father this was particularly well, that I knew well. I begged the Child for those who had commended themselves to me. Then spoke a voice out of the Child — he yet did not stir his mouth anywhere: Will they keep me in their remembrance, then I will keep them in my grace. I have them nothing to give but my body and the eternal life. In presepio the Child lay on the hard straw; his heavenly Father willed it so.

LXI. How one shall prepare oneself for God.

When the bird is long upon the earth, by that it spoils its wings, and its feathers become heavy. So it lifts itself up into a height and weighs its feathers, and draws itself up into a height so long, until it touches the air; then it comes into the flight. The longer it flies, the more blissfully it soars — scarcely so much that it touches the earth, that it refresh itself. So has love's bird taken from it the earthly delight; in like fashion shall we prepare ourselves, as we [to him] shall come. We shall the feathers of our longing ever weigh upward to God. We shall raise our virtues and our good works with love. Will we here not let go, then we shall become God's own.

(Vacat.)

Ah desiring love, you call many a sweet voice into the ear of your dear Lord; your rest is small. Now rejoice yourself and keep not silent, he will yet himself with joys turn toward you.

Ah loving love, you suffer many a sweet need; your exile is great. How shall you Jesus win? He runs all-too-long before you. You have yet him for sin chosen, and have lost yourself in him; of that must you many a pain suffer; I will console myself in him.

Ah full²⁶ love, you stretch sorely my heart and my senses, so that I would soon away from here. I cannot win you according to wish, so must I yet after lament-love love.

Ah strong love, you are in great watch, you mean all things with goodness, you bear sorely above all need, your hope and your belief are great, you shall overcome all your need.

Ah wise love, you have holy ordering, how you God therein may praise and know and his will in all things fulfil. Do you this with faithfulness, so may you in God rest; of this will I rejoice myself.

LXII. How the maidens serve their lady the Queen.

So was the speech revealed to a person in his spirit thus: I saw a way which went from the east where the sun rises, into the west where she goes down. On this way wandered all those who of good will are toward God. They all wandered in the valley and yet hurried unequally. They wandered as pilgrims who had let go what they had dear and would seek the allerbest, which is God. Certain ones turned back with the delight which they had let go, and did not complete it. Certain ones rested in the grass of manifold delight and in the flowers of empty honour; these remained very long in the way. To them is afterward very heavy the broom of bitter purgatory given, although they live without mortal sin.

Hereto answered our Lord thus: Certain people who wander with good will in holy works, and yet have on themselves so heavy manners, and make themselves with their roughness so unbecoming that one can scarcely bear them — in those people is my judgment kept. They should sorely seek my mercy with humble words, so they would keep their good works unlost, and the bitterness of their heart would become nothing, and so they could come to themselves. He who seeks my mercy can darkness not bear.

One went alone in the way. That was from this, that earthly delight could give no consolation to his soul. Then he saw two persons go before him. The one went at the left hand, the other at the right hand of the way. Then the person asked who they were and what they took care of. Then said he at the left hand:

I am God's justice; God's judgment was given me, that is mine, since Adam in the paradise sin committed. My judgment has been long and great; now has come this maiden who beside me goes, who is become my companion, who is called Mercy. All who seek her and steadily call upon her, those overcome all their heart-sorrow. She is very perfect; she has taken my justice from me. Whatever burden befalls the person, and he with contrition to me flees, she lays her gentle hand upon the crime; so I stand as a dumb one and may against it nothing do. This does all the true God's Son, who has taken my greatest justice from me with his mercy. She consoles the troubled, she heals the wounded, she gladdens all who come to her, she has taken great power from me. She has me dear, and I her; we shall ever together be, until the youngest day, when the judgment is mine.

God's judgment and God's justice, that is not all one.²⁷ The judgment judges the guilt which has fallen on him without contrition; the justice is a holy life which God has given to all his dear friends; of which he himself in his living took care, for he was just in all his doing. So knows he that we take care, so may we pure with him be.

This God's mercy and his Son's holy justice, which he himself held on earth in his living, and both their Holy Spirit's gift — these followed in the way a lordly company. They were all maidens-like. When I saw them, I knew them all well, yet would I question them, that I might have an answer from them. I asked who they were and what office they took care of. Then said they:

We are maidens noble and well-bred, and serve God to his praise on his dearest Queen, whom God has chosen above all things, that is the person's soul and body. We serve our Lady the Queen that she with all diligence and with all her senses in all things her Lord's will may fulfil in Christian ordering; so she shall never be found guilty.

"Lady Wisdom, what can you serve with your sister Discernment?" We teach my Lady the Queen that she may ever know how to part the evil from the good with divine wisdom in holy discernment; that she may think how it now is

and how it yet may become. Of this she wins in all things profit.

"Lady Truth, what can you serve at court with your sister Holiness?" I serve my Lord and my Lady the Queen with all faithfulness, that she to her Lord in all her needs ever faithful may be; of which she remains safe and free, and that she ever within holy may be. In all things to her Lord subject, so she remains outwardly praiseworthy.

"Lady Humility, what can you serve with your sister Gentleness?" I teach my Lady the Queen that she my Lord's will and all his gifts from the heart loves. So may she rest in holy gentleness, so she drives away with joys all her heart-sorrow.

"Lady Mildness, what can you serve with your sister Obedience?" I teach my Lady the Queen that she with desiring God-love in her prayer mild be to the evil and the good, to the living and the dead. The treasure is manifold and great; it comes all back into her bosom. Will she do her Lord's will, that shall she, holy obedience, in all her works fulfil, so she remains God's Queen.

"Lady Strength, what can you serve with your sister Steadfastness?" I teach my Lady that she be strong in all strife, so may she in her kingdom remain. That she ever steady be, so she remains ever free from her Lord.²⁸

These maidens are without human number, for all that the good person in God does inwardly and outwardly, thereto belong all virtues. With these maidens in the way wandered a great Lord, who was like the most holy and most lordly bishop — that was our Christian belief, which was rich in love and burned all from divine love. With all these virtues he served this Queen. Above in the height soared a maiden who was like to a golden eagle. She was surrounded with a heavenly shining; she lightened and she taught and she tempered all these maidens to the service of their Lady the Queen.

This love dwells in the Christian belief; she rests in the palace of her Lady the Queen. That is her office.

That she draws love to love — God to the soul and the soul to God, therefore she stands in the first commandment.

LXIII. God's will is a prince in all being.

Steady longing in the longing, steady ache in the body, steady pain in the senses, steady hoping in the heart for Jesus alone. All who have themselves let go in God, those mark well what I mean. I was two days and two nights in such great unease come, that I had hope that my end were come.

Then I thanked God as far as I could for his gifts. Then I desired that God would take me to him, if it were his dearest will.

"Yet, Lord, may your praise from this be increased, then will I gladly through your love remain in this poor body. Lord, I have lived so many years and lonely days,²⁹ that I have given you, Lord, never so heavy an offering. Lord, your will be done and not mine, for I am not my own, but in all things yours."

Then I saw in the far heights a preparation of the saints, as if they would come to my end. Their persons, who they were, I did not see between them, for there was such a strong light that there in the midst shone, which made me think that I with them were one. This was high in the west, where the sun goes down. From the north were come evil spirits, who held there about, who must see my judgment. They had also together wound themselves and were compelled like beaten dogs. They roared with their throats at me. I feared them not, I consoled myself.

Then I knew that they to God's honour must come thither, for God's Son has freed his friends from all their need, and they with their disgrace go again to hell. In these things was given me in my body a change, that I yet must remain in this bitter, exiled life. I was so safe and so free without fear and without pain — woe, woe, woe! — that if it could not remain so in the death of God's goodness, then were it now woe to my heart. Had I now human might and divine love, then would I now first begin to serve God; this would I to a good end bring, as I ever willed and still will.

LXIV. How God serves the person.

Thus speaks a beggar-woman in her prayer to God: Lord, I thank you, since you have taken from me with your love all earthly riches, that you now clothe me and feed me with foreign goods; for all that with possession to me with delight in the heart cleaves, that must all foreign be to me.

Lord, I thank you, since you have taken from me the might of my eyes, that you now serve me with foreign eyes.

Lord, I thank you, since you have taken from me the might of my hands.

Lord, I thank you, since you have taken from me the might of my heart, that you now serve me with foreign hands and heart.³⁰

Lord, I beg you for them, that you will reward it in earth with your divine love, that they must seek you and serve you with all virtues unto a holy end. All who with pure heart all things let go for God's love, those are all archbeggars; those shall on the youngest day sit at the judgment with Jesus our Redeemer.

Lord, all that I lament to you, that must you change in me and in all sinners. Lord, all that I beg of you, that must you grant me and all imperfect spiritual people, through your own honour. Lord, your praise must in my heart never become small, whatever I do, leave undone, and suffer. Amen.

LXV. How God adorns the soul with pain.

When the maidens are at all times clothed after the will of their Bridegroom, then they need no high-time garments — that is, that one with pain be in sickness, in aches, in temptation and in many a heart-suffering, of which we find much in the sinful Christendom.

These are the high-time garments of the loving soul. But the workday-garments — that is fasting, waking, discipline, confession, sighing, weeping, praying, fearing the³¹ sin, hard compulsion of the senses and of the body in God through God, sweet hope and without ceasing love-longing, and without ceasing a begging stillness in all works. These are the workday-garments of the good person. When we are sick, then we wear the high-time garments; but when we are well, then we wear the workday-garments.

Thus speaks the pained body to the exiled soul:

When will you fly with the feathers of your longing into the blissful heights, to Jesus, your only love? Thank him there, Lady, for me, although I be sinful and unworthy, since he yet would be mine when he into the exile came and took our manhood upon himself, and beg, that he me without guilt may keep in his pure care, unto a holy end.

When you, dear soul, from me turn — the soul. Ah my dearest imprisonment, in which I am bound, I thank you for all that you have followed me. Although I am often troubled by you, yet you have come to my help. To you shall yet all your need be taken on the youngest day, so shall we no more torment each other, so shall it to us all well please, that God with us has done. Will you now steady stand and have sweet hope:

Obedience is a holy band — she binds the soul to God and the body to Jesus, and the five senses to the Holy Spirit. The longer she binds, the more the soul loves. The baser the body holds itself, the baser its works before God and before people with good will.

Explicit liber.

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