BEATRIJS OF NAZARETH
The Power of Love:
Sometimes it happens that love is sweetly awoken in the soul and joyfully arises and moves in the heart of itself without us doing anything at all. And then the heart is so powerfully touched by love, so keenly drawn into love and so strongly seized by love, and so utterly mastered by love and so tenderly embraced by love, that it entirely yields itself to love. And in this it experiences a great proximity to God, a spiritual radiance, a marvelous bliss, a noble freedom, an ecstatic sweetness, a great overpowering by the strength of love, and an overflowing abundance of immense delight. And then she feels that all her sense are sanctified by love and her will has become love, and that she is so deeply immersed and so engulfed in the abyss of love that she herself has turned entirely into love. Then the beauty of love has bedecked her, the power of love has devoured her, the sweetness of love has submerged her, the grandeur of love has consumed her, the nobility of love has enveloped her, the purity of love has adorned her, and the sublimity of love has drawn her upward and so united herself with her that she always must be love and do nothing but the deeds of love.
HADEWIJCH OF BRABANT
The Humanity of Christ:
This is how everyone today loves themselves: they want to live with God in consolation, in wealth, and in splendor, and to share in the delight of his glory. We all wish to be God with God. But, God knows, there are few enough of us who want to live as men and women with his humanity or to bear his cross with him, and to be crucified with him in order to pay for the sins of the whole world...
Love's Maturity
In the beginning Love satisfies us,
When Love first spoke to me of love--
How I laughed at her in return!
But then she made me like the hazel trees,
Which blossom early in the season of darkness,
And bear fruit slowly.
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