The Book of Margery Kempe (28 page)

The Abbess of Denny,
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a house of nuns, often sent for the said creature, that she should come to speak with her and with her sisters. This creature thought she would not go until another year, for she could ill endure the effort. Then, as she was in her meditation, and had great sweetness and devotion, our Lord commanded her to go to Denny and comfort the ladies who desired to converse with her, saying in this way to her soul, ‘Daughter, set off for the house of Denny in the name of Jesus, for I wish you to comfort them.'

She was loath to go, for it was a time of pestilence, and she thought she might, for no advantage, have died there. Our Lord said to her mind again, ‘Daughter, you shall go safely, and come safely back.'

She then went to a worthy burgess's wife, who loved and trusted her very much, and whose husband lay very ill, and told the worthy wife that she would be going to Denny. The worthy woman did not want her to go, and said, ‘I would not for forty shillings,' she said, ‘that my husband died while you were away.'

And she replied, ‘If you gave me a hundred pounds, I would not remain at home.'

For when she was commanded in her soul to go, she would in no way withstand it, but in spite of anything she would set off, whatever happened. And when she was commanded to be at home, she would not go out for anything.

And then our Lord told her that the said burgess would not die,
and she went back to the worthy wife and told her to be comforted, for her husband would live and get on well, and he would not die yet. The good wife was very glad and replied to her, ‘Now Gospel may it be in your mouth.'

Then this creature would have hurried off, as she was commanded, but when she came to the waterside, all the boats had already left in the direction of Cambridge before she got there. Then she had great distress as to how she would fulfil our Lord's bidding. And at once she was bidden in her soul that she should not be sorry or miserable, because she would be provided for well enough, and she should go safely and come safely back. And so it happened indeed.

Then our Lord in a way thanked her, because she in contemplation and in meditation had been his mother's handmaid, and helped to look after him in his childhood and so forth, until the time of his death, and said to her, ‘Daughter, you shall have as great reward with me in heaven for your good service, and the good deeds that you have done in your mind and meditation, as if you had done those same deeds with your bodily senses outwardly. And also, daughter, when you do any service to yourself and your husband, in meals or drink or any other thing that is needful for you, for your confessors, or for any others that you receive in my name, you shall have the same reward in heaven as though you did it to my own person or to my blessed mother, and I shall thank you for it.

‘Daughter, you say that it is a good name for me to be called All Good, and you shall find that name is all good to you. And also, daughter, you say it is very fitting that I be called All Love, and you shall find indeed that I am all love to you, for I know every thought of your heart. And I well know, daughter, that you have many times thought, if you had many churches full of money, you would have given it in my name. And also you have thought that you would, if you had had enough money, have founded many abbeys for my love, for religious men and women to live in, and given each of them a hundred pounds a year to be my servants. And you have also in your mind desired to have many
priests in the town of Lynn, who might sing and read night and day to serve me, worship me, praise and thank me for the goodness that I have done to you on earth.

‘And therefore, daughter, I promised you that you shall have the same reward in heaven for this good will and these good desires, as if you had done them indeed. Daughter, I know all the thoughts of your heart that you have for all kinds of men and women, for all lepers, for all prisoners; and as much money as you would give them in a year to serve me with, I take it as if it were done indeed. And daughter, I thank you for the charity that you have towards all lecherous men and women, for you pray for them and weep many a tear for them, desiring that I should deliver them from sin, and be as gracious to them as I was to Mary Magdalene, and that they might have as great a love towards me as Mary Magdalene had. And, with this condition, you would like every one of them to have twenty pounds a year to love and praise me.

‘And daughter, this great charity that you have towards them in your prayer very much pleases me. And also, daughter, I thank you for the charity that you have in your prayer when you pray for all Jews and Saracens, and all heathen people, that they should come to Christian faith, so that my name might be magnified in them; and for the holy tears and weeping that you have wept for them, praying and desiring that if any prayer might bring them to grace or Christian belief, that I should hear your prayer for them, if it were my will.

‘Furthermore, daughter, I thank you for the general charity that you have towards all people now living in this world, and all those that are to come until the end of the world: that you would be chopped up as small as meat for the pot for their love, so that I would, by your death, save them all from damnation if it pleased me. For you often say in your thoughts that there are enough in hell, and you wish that no more men should ever deserve to go there.

‘And therefore, daughter, for all these good wills and desires, you shall have most high reward in heaven. Believe it well, and
never doubt it at all, for all these graces are my graces, and I work them in you myself, so that you should have the more reward in heaven. And I tell you truly, daughter, every good thought and every good desire that you have in your soul is the speech of God, even if you do not hear me speaking to you sometimes, as I sometimes do to your clear understanding.

‘And therefore, daughter, I am like a hidden God in your soul, and I sometimes withdraw your tears and your devotion, so that you should think in yourself that you have no goodness of yourself, but all goodness comes from me; and also, so that you should truly know what pain it is to be without me, and how sweet it is to feel me, and that you should be the more busy to seek me again; also, daughter, so that you should know what pain other men have, who wish to feel me and may not. For there is many a man on earth who, if he had for only one day in his whole lifetime what you have many days, he would always love me better, and thank me because of that one day. And you may not, daughter, do without me for one day without great pain. Therefore, daughter, you have great cause to love me well, for it is not because of any anger, daughter, that I sometimes withdraw from you the feeling of grace and the fervour of devotion, but so that you should know for sure that you cannot be a hypocrite for any weeping, for any crying, for any sweetness, for any devotion, for any thought of my Passion, or for any other spiritual grace that I give or send to you. For these are not the devil's gifts, but they are my graces and my gifts, and these are my own special gifts that I give to my own chosen souls, whom I knew without beginning should come to grace and dwell with me without end.

‘For in all other things you may be a hypocrite if you wish, that is to say, in understanding, in praying many beads, in great fasting, in doing of great penance outwardly, so that people may see it, or in doing great deeds of charity with your hands, or in speaking good words with your mouth. In all these, daughter, you may be a hypocrite if you wish, and you may also do them well and holily, if you wish to yourself.

‘See, daughter, I have given you such a love that you shall be
no hypocrite in it. And daughter, you will never be losing time while you are so occupied, for whoever is thinking well may not sin during that time. And the devil does not know your holy thoughts that I give you, nor does any man on earth know how well and holily you are occupied with me, nor can you describe yourself the great grace and goodness that you feel in me. And therefore, daughter, you beguile both the devil and the world with your holy thoughts, and it is very great folly for worldly people to judge your heart, which no man may know, but God alone.

‘And therefore, daughter, I tell you truly, you have as great cause to rejoice and be merry in your soul as any lady or maiden in this world. So great is my love towards you, that I may not withdraw it from you, for, daughter, no heart may think, nor tongue tell, the great love that I have to you, and for that I take witness of my blessed mother, of my holy angels, and of all the saints in heaven, for they all worship me, for your love, in heaven. And so I shall be worshipped on earth for your love, daughter, for I will have the grace I have shown you on earth known to the world, so that people may wonder at my goodness that I have shown to you who have been sinful. And because I have been so gracious and merciful to you, they who are in the world shall not despair, be they never so sinful, for they may have mercy and grace, if they will, themselves.'

One time, as the said creature was kneeling before an altar of the Cross and saying a prayer, her eyelids kept closing together, as though she would have slept. And in the end she couldn't choose; she fell into a little slumber, and at once there appeared truly to her sight an angel, all clothed in white as if he were a little child,
bearing a huge book before him. Then this creature said to the child, or else to the angel, ‘Ah,' she said, ‘this is the Book of Life.'

And she saw in the book the Trinity, and all in gold. Then she said to the child, ‘Where is my name?'

The child answered and said, ‘Here is your name, written at the Trinity's foot,' and with that he was gone, she didn't know where.

And soon afterwards, our Lord Jesus Christ spoke to her and said, ‘Daughter, see that you are now true and steadfast, and have a good faith, for your name is written in heaven in the Book of Life, and this was an angel who gave you comfort. And therefore, daughter, you must be very merry, for I am very busy both morning and afternoon to draw your heart into my heart, for you should keep your mind altogether upon me, and you shall much increase your love towards God. For, daughter, if you will follow after God's counsel, you may not do amiss, for God's counsel is to be meek, patient in charity and in chastity.'

Another time, as this creature lay in her contemplation in a chapel of our Lady, her mind was occupied in the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and she thought truly that she saw our Lord appear to her spiritual sight in his manhood, with his wounds bleeding as freshly as though he had been scourged before her. And then she wept and cried with all the strength of her body, for, if her sorrow were great before this spiritual sight, it was yet greater afterwards than it was before, and her love was more increased towards our Lord. And then she felt great wonder that our Lord would become man, and suffer such grievous pain for her, who was so unkind a creature to him.

Another time, as she was in a church of St Margaret, in the choir, being in great sweetness and devotion, with great abundance of tears, she asked our Lord Jesus Christ how she might best please him. And he answered her soul, saying, ‘Daughter, have mind of your wickedness, and think of my goodness.'

Then she prayed these words many times and often, ‘Lord, for your great goodness, have mercy on all my wickedness, as surely as I was never so wicked as you are good, nor ever may be, even if
I would, for you are so good that you may be no better. And therefore it is a great marvel that any man should ever be parted from you without end.'

Then as she lay still in the choir, weeping and mourning for her sins, she was suddenly in a kind of sleep. And at once she saw, with her spiritual eye, our Lord's body lying before her, and his head, as she thought, close by her, with his blessed face turned upwards, the handsomest man that ever might be seen or imagined. And then, as she looked, there came someone with a dagger and cut that precious body all along the breast. And then she wept amazingly bitterly, having more thought, pity and compassion of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ than she had before. And so every day her thoughts and her love for our Lord increased, blessed may he be, and the more that her love increased, the more was her sorrow for the sins of the people.

Another time, the said creature being in a chapel of our Lady, weeping bitterly at the memory of our Lord's Passion, and such other graces and goodness as our Lord ministered to her mind, suddenly – she knew not how soon – she was in a kind of sleep.

And at once, in the sight of her soul, she saw our Lord standing right up over her, so near that she thought she took his toes in her hand and felt them, and to her feeling it was as if they had been really flesh and bones. And then she thanked God for everything, for through these spiritual sights her affection was entirely drawn into the manhood of Christ and into the memory of his Passion, until that time that it pleased our Lord to give her understanding of his incomprehensible Godhead.

As is written before, these kinds of visions and feelings she had soon after her conversion, when she was all set and fully intending to serve God with all her heart and strength, and had completely left the world, and stayed in church both morning and afternoon, and most especially in the time of Lent, when she with great insistence and much prayer had her husband's permission to live chaste and clean, and did great bodily penance before she went to Jerusalem.

But afterwards, when her husband and she with one assent had
made a vow of chastity, as is written before, and she had been to Rome and Jerusalem, and suffered much contempt and reproof for her weeping and her crying, our Lord, of his mercy, drew her affection into his Godhead, and that was more fervent in love and desire, and more subtle in understanding, than was the manhood. And nevertheless, the fire of love increased in her, and her understanding was more enlightened and her devotion more fervent than it was before, while she had her meditation and her contemplation only in his manhood. Yet she did not have that manner of proceeding with crying as she had before, but it was more subtle and more soft, and easier for her spirit to bear, and as plentiful in tears, as it ever was before.

Another time, while this creature was in a house of the Preaching Friars, in a chapel of our Lady, standing at her prayers, her eyelids went a little together in a kind of sleep, and suddenly she saw, she thought, our Lady in the fairest vision that she ever saw, holding a fair white kerchief in her hand and saying to her, ‘Daughter, would you like to see my son?'

And with that she saw forthwith our Lady hold her blessed son in her hand, and swathe him very lightly in the white kerchief, so that she could see how she did it. This creature then had a new spiritual joy and a new spiritual comfort, which was so marvellous that she could never tell of it as she felt it.