AFTER this our Lord showed concerning Prayer. In which Showing I see two conditions in our Lord's signifying: one is rightfulness, another is sure trust.

But yet oftentimes our trust is not full: for we are not sure that God hears us, as we think because of our unworthiness, and because we feel truly nothing, (for we are as barren and dry oftentimes after our prayers as we were before); and this, in our feeling our folly, is cause of our weakness. For thus have I felt in myself.

And all this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind, and showed these words, and said: I am Ground of your beseeching: first it is my will that you have it; and after, I make you to will it; and after, I make you to beseech it and you beseechest it. How should it then be that you should not have your beseeching?

And thus in the first reason, with the three that follow, our good Lord shows a mighty comfort, as it may be seen in the same words. And in the first reason, where He says: And you beseechest it, there He shows [His] full great pleasance, and endless meed that He will give us for our beseeching. And in the second reason, where He says: How should it then be? etc., this was said for an impossible [thing]. For it is most impossible that we should beseech mercy and grace, and not have it. For everything that our good Lord makes us to beseech, Himself has ordained it to us from without beginning. Here may we see that our beseeching is not cause of God's goodness; and that showed He soothfastly in all these sweet words when He says: I am [the] Ground. And our good Lord wills that this be known of His lovers in earth; and the more that we know [it] the more should we beseech, if it be wisely taken; and so is our Lord's meaning.

Beseeching is a true, gracious, lasting will of the soul, united and fastened into the will of our Lord by the sweet inward work of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord Himself, He is the first receiver of our prayer, as to my sight, and takes it full thankfully and highly enjoying; and He sends it up above and setts it in the Treasure, where it shall never perish. It is there before God with all His Holy continually received, ever speeding [the help of] our needs; and when we shall receive our bliss it shall be given us for a degree of joy, with endless worshipful thanking from Him.

Full glad and merry is our Lord of our prayer; and He looks thereafter and He wills to have it because with His grace He makes us like to Himself in condition as we are in kind: and so is His blissful will. Therefore He says thus: Pray inwardly, though you thinks it savour you not: for it is profitable, though you feel not, though you see nought; yea, though you think you can not. For in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in

feebleness, then is your prayer well-pleasant to me, though you thinks it savour you nought but little. And so is all your believing prayer in my sight. For the meed and the endless thanks that He will give us, therefor He is covetous to have us pray continually in His sight. God accepts the goodwill and the travail of His servant, howsoever we feel: wherefore it pleases Him that we work both in our prayers and in good living, by His help and His grace, reasonably with discretion keeping our powers [turned] to Him, till when that we have Him that we seek, in fulness of joy: that is, Jesus. And that showed He in the Fifteenth [Revelation], farther on, in this word: You shall have me to your meed.

And also to prayer belongs thanking. Thanking is a true inward knowing, with great reverence and lovely dread turning ourselves with all our mights to the working that our good Lord stirrs us to, enjoying and thanking inwardly. And sometimes, for plenteousness it breaks out with voice, and says: Good Lord, I thank You! Blessed mayst You be! And sometime when the heart is dry and feels not, or else by temptation of our enemy, then it is driven by reason and by grace to cry upon our Lord with voice, rehearing His blessed Passion and His great Goodness; and the virtue of our Lord's word turns into the soul and quickens the heart and enters it by His grace into true working, and makes it pray right blissfully. And truly to enjoy our Lord, it is a full blissful thanking in His sight.

OUR Lord God wills that we have true understanding, and specially in three things that belong to our prayer. The first is: by whom and how that our prayer springs. By whom, He shows when He says: I am [the] Ground; and how, by His Goodness: for He says first: It is my will. The second is: in what manner and how we should use our prayer; and that is that our will be turned to the will of our Lord, enjoying: and so means He when He says: I make you to will it. The third is that we should know the fruit and the end of our prayers: that is, that we be united and like to our Lord in all things; and to this intent and for this end was all this lovely lesson showed. And He will help us, and we shall make it so as He says Himself; Blessed may He be!

For this is our Lord's will, that our prayer and our trust be both alike large. For if we trust not as much as we pray, we do not full worship to our Lord in our prayer, and also we tarry and pain our self. The cause is, as I believe, that we know not truly that our Lord is [the] Ground on whom our prayer springs; and also that we know not that it is given us by the grace of His love. For if we knew this, it would make us to trust to have, of our Lord's gift, all that we desire. For I am sure that no man asks mercy and grace with true meaning, but if mercy and grace be first given to him.

But sometimes it comes to our mind that we have prayed long time, and yet we think to ourselves that we have not our asking. But herefor should we not be in heaviness. For I am sure, by our Lord's signifying, that either we abide a better time, or more grace, or a better gift. He wills that we have true knowing in Himself that He is Being; and in this knowing He wills that our understanding be grounded, with all our mights and all our intent and all our meaning; and in this ground He wills that we take our place and our dwelling, and by the gracious light of Himself He wills that we have understanding of the things that follow. The first is our noble and excellent making; the second, our precious and dearworthy again-buying; the third, all-thing that He has made beneath us, [He has made] to serve us, and for our love keeps it. Then signifies He thus, as if He said: Behold and see that I have done all this before your prayers; and now you are, and pray me. And thus He signifies that it belongs to us to learn that the greatest deeds be [already] done, as Holy Church teaches; and in the beholding of this, with thanking, we ought to pray for the deed that is now in doing: and that is, that He rule and guide us, to His worship, in this life, and bring us to His bliss. And therefor He has done all.

Then signifies He thus: that we [should] see that He does it, and that we [should] pray therefor. For the one is not enough. For if we pray and see not that He does it, it makes us heavy and doubtful; and that is not His worship. And if we see that He does, and we pray not, we do not our debt, and so may it not be: that is to say, so is it not [the thing that is] in His beholding.

But to see that He does it, and to pray forthwithal, so is He worshiped and we sped. All-thing that our Lord has ordained to do, it is His will that we pray therefor, either in special or in general. And the joy and the bliss that it is to Him, and the thanks and the worship that we shall have therefor, it passes the understanding of creatures, as to my sight.

For prayer is a right understanding of that fulness of joy that is to come, with well-longing and sure trust. Failing of our bliss that we be kindly ordained to, makes us to long; true understanding and love, with sweet mind in our Saviour, graciously makes us to trust. And in these two workings our Lord beholds us continually : for it is our due part, and His Goodness may no less assign to us.

Thus it belongs to us to do our diligence; and when we have done it, then shall us yet think that [it] is nought, and sooth it is. But if we do as we can, and ask, in truth, for mercy and grace, all that fails us we shall find in Him. And thus signifies He where He says: I am Ground of your beseeching. And thus in this blessed word, with the Showing, I saw a full overcoming against all our weakness and all our doubtful dreads.

PRAYER unites the soul to God. For though the soul be ever like to God in kind and substance, restored by grace, it is often unlike in condition, by sin on man's part. Then is prayer a witness that the soul wills as God wills; and it comforts the conscience and enables man to grace. And thus He teaches us to pray, and mightily to trust that we shall have it. For He beholds us in love and would make us partners of His good deed, and therefore He stirs us to pray for that which it pleases him to do. For which prayer and good will, that we have of His gift, He will reward us and give us endless meed.

And this was shown in this word: And you beseechest it. In this word God showed so great pleasance and so great content, as though He were much beholden to us for every good deed that we do (and yet it is He that does it) because that we beseech Him mightily to do all things that seem to Him good: as if He said: What might then please me more than to beseech me, mightily, wisely, and earnestly, to do that thing that I shall do?

And thus the soul by prayer accords to God.

But when our courteous Lord of His grace shows Himself to our soul, we have that [which] we desire. And then we see not, for the time, what we should more pray, but all our intent with all our might is set wholly to the beholding of Him. And this is an high unperceivable prayer, as to my sight: for all the cause wherefor we pray it, it is united into the sight and beholding of Him to whom we pray; marvellously enjoying with reverent dread, and with so great sweetness and delight in Him that we can pray truly nothing but as He stirs us, for the time. And well I wish, the more the soul sees of God, the more it desires Him by His grace.

But when we see Him not so, then feel we need and cause to pray, because of failing, for enabling of our self, to Jesus. For when the soul is tempested, troubled, and left to itself by unrest, then it is time to pray, for to make itself pliable and obedient to God. (But the soul by no manner of prayer makes God pliant to it: for He is ever alike in love.)

And this I saw: that what time we see needs wherefor we pray, then our good Lord follows us, helping our desire; and when we of His special grace plainly behold Him, seeing none other needs, then we follow Him and He draws us to Him by love. For I saw and felt that His marvellous and plentiful Goodness fulfills all our powers; and therewith I saw that His continuant working in all manner of things is done so goodly, so wisely, and so mightily, that it overpasses all our imagining, and all that we can magineand think; and then we can do no more but behold Him, enjoying, with an high, mighty desire to be all united to Him, centred to His dwelling, and enjoy in His loving and delight in His goodness.

And then shall we, with His sweet grace, in our own meek continuant prayer come to Him now in this life by many privy touchings of sweet spiritual sights and feeling, measured to us as our simpleness may bear it. And this is wrought, and shall be, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, so long till we shall die in longing, for love. And then shall we all come into our Lord, our Self clearly knowing, and God fully having; and we shall endlessly be all had in God: Him truly seeing and fully feeling, Him spiritually hearing, and Him delectably in-breathing, and [of] Him sweetly drinking.

And then shall we see God face to face, homely and fully. The creature that is made shall see and endlessly behold God which is the Maker. For thus may no man see God and live after, that is to say, in this deadly life. But when He of His special grace will show Himself here, He strengthens the creature above its self, and He measures the Showing, after His own will, as it is profitable for the time.