The Dialogue

How this soul grew by means of the divine response, and how her sorrows grew less, and how she prayed to God for the Holy Church, and for her own people.

" THEN that soul, thirsting and burning with the very great desire that she had conceived on learning the ineffable love of God, shewn in His great goodness, and, seeing the breadth of His charity, that, with such sweetness, He had deigned to reply to her request and to satisfy it, giving hope to the sorrow which she had conceived, on account of offences against God, and the damage of the Holy church, and through His own mercy, which she saw through self-know ledge, diminished, and yet, at the same time, increased her sorrow.

" For, the Supreme and Eternal Father, in manifesting the way of perfection, showed her anew her own guilt, and the loss of souls, as has been said more fully above. Also because in the knowledge which the soul obtains of herself, she knows more of God, and knowing the goodness of God in herself, the sweet mirror of God, she knows her own dignity and indignity. Her dignity is that of her creation, seeing that she is the image of God, and this has been given her by grace, and not as her due. In that same mirror of the goodness of God, the soul knows her own indignity, which is the consequence of her own fault. Wherefore, as a man more readily sees spots on his face when he looks in a mirror, so, the soul who, with true knowledge of self, rises with desire, and gazes with the eye of the intellect at herself in the sweet mirror of God, knows better the stains of her own face, by the purity which she sees in Him.

"Wherefore, because light and knowledge increased in that soul in the aforesaid way, a sweet sorrow grew in her, and at the same time, her sorrow was diminished by the hope which the Supreme Truth gave her, and, as fire grows when it is fed with wood, so grew the fire in that soul to such an extent that it was no longer possible for the body to endure

A TREATISE OF DISCRETION 47

it without the departure of the soul ; so that, had she not been surrounded by the strength of Him who is the Supreme Strength, it would not have been possible for her to have lived any longer. This soul then, being purified by the fire of divine love, which she found in the knowledge of herself and of God, and her hunger for the salvation of the whole world, and for the reformation of the Holy Church, having grown with her hope of obtaining the same, rose with con fidence before the Supreme Father, showing Him the leprosy of the Holy Church, and the misery of the world, saying,^ as if with the words of Moses. " My Lord, turn the eyes of Thy mercy upon Thy people, and upon the mystical body of the Holy Church, for Thou wilt be the more glori fied if Thou pardonest so many creatures, and givest to them the light of knowledge, since all will render Thee praise when they see themselves escape through Thy infinite good ness from the clouds of mortal sin, and from eternal damna tion ; and then Thou wilt not only be praised by my wretched self, who have so much offended Thee, and who am the cause and the instrument of all this evil, for which reason I pray Thy divine and eternal love to take Thy revenge on me, and to do mercy to Thy people, and never will I depart from before Thy presence until I see that thou grantest them mercy. For what is it to me if I have life, and Thy people death, and the clouds of darkness cover Thy spouse, when it is my own sins, and not those of Thy other creatures, that are the principal cause of this ? I desire, then, and beg of Thee, by Thy grace, that Thou have mercy on Thy people, and I adjure Thee that Thou do this by Thy uncreated love which moved Thee Thyself to create man in Thy image and similitude, saying, ' Let us make man in our own image,' and this Thou didst, oh eternal Trinity, that man might participate in everything belonging to Thee, the / most high and eternal Trinity."

" Wherefore Thou gavest him memory in order to re ceive Thy benefits, by which he participates in the power of the Eternal Father ; and intellect that he might know, see ing Thy goodness, and so might participate in the wisdom of Thine only-begotten Son ; and will, that he might love that

48 THE DIALOGUE OF ST. CATHERINE

which his intellect has seen and known of Thy truth, thus participating in the clemency of Thy Holy Spirit. What reason hadst Thou for creating man in such dignity? The inestimable love with which Thou sawest Thy creature in Thyself, and didst become enamoured of him, for Thou didst create him through love, and didst destine him to be such that he might taste and enjoy Thy Eternal Good. I see therefore that through his sin he lost this dignity in which Thou didst originally place him, and by his rebellion against Thee, fell into a state of war with Thy kindness, that is to say, we all became Thy enemies.

"Therefore, Thou, moved by that same fire of love with which Thou didst create him, didst willingly give man a means of reconciliation, so that after the great rebellion into which he had fallen, there should come a great peace ; and so Thou didst give him the only-begotten Word, Thy Son to be the Mediator between us and Thee. He was our Justice, for He took on Himself all our offences and in justices, and performed Thy obedience, Eternal Father, which Thou didst impose on Him, when Thou didst clothe Him with our humanity, our human nature and likeness. Oh, abyss of love ! What heart can help breaking when it sees such dignity as Thine descend to such lowliness as our humanity ? We are Thy image, and Thou hast become ours, by this union which Thou hast accomplished with man, veiling the Eternal Deity with the cloud of woe, and the corrupted clay of Adam. For what reason ? — Love. Wherefore, Thou, O God, hast become man, and man has become God. By this ineffable love of Thine, therefore, I constrain Thee, and implore Thee that Thou do mercy ta Thy creatures."

A TREATISE OF DISCRETION 49