make us so heavy and so weary in this, that we should let out of mind the fair, Blissful Beholding of our Everlasting Friend.
CHAPTER LXXVII
"Accuse not thyself overmuch, deeming that thy tribulation and thy woe is all thy fault." "AH thy living is penance profitable." "In the remedy He willeth that we rejoice"
OUR good Lord shewed the enmity of the Fiend: in which Shewing I understood that all that is contrary to love and peace is of the Fiend and of his part. And we have, of our feebleness and our folly, to fall; and we have, of mercy and grace of the Holy Ghost, to rise to more joy. And if our enemy aught winneth of us by our falling, (for it is his pleasure,[1]) he loseth manifold more in our rising by charity and meekness. And this glorious rising, it is to him so great sorrow and pain for the hate that he hath to our soul, that he burneth continually in envy. And all this sorrow that he would make us to have, it shall turn to himself. And for this it was that our Lord scorned him, and [it was] this [that] made me mightily to laugh.[2]
Then is this the remedy, that we be aware of our wretchedness and flee to our Lord: for ever the more needy that we be, the more speedful it is to us to draw nigh to Him.[3] And let us say thus in our thinking: I know
