But where Mechthild seems to strike an original note for her time is in her insistence on God’s craving for the soul, as well as the soul’s craving for God. We find the same insistence in Meister Eckhart, who followed her closely in time, and perhaps, in this respect, in thought also. “God needs man,” says Eckhart, quite simply. And again, “God can do as little without us as we without Him.” With Mechthild it is from ecstasy to ecstasy that “heart speaks to heart.” Says the soul of Mechthild: “Lord, Thou art ever sick of love for me, and that hast Thou Thyself well proved. Thou hast written me in the Book of the Godhead. Thou hast fashioned me after Thine own image. Thou hast bound me hand and foot to Thy side. O grant it to me, Beloved, to anoint Thee.”
“Where wilt thou get thine ointment, dear one?”
“Lord, I will tear my happy heart in twain, and lay Thee therein.”
“It is the most precious ointment thou couldest give Me, that I should evermore hover in thy soul.”
Further God says: “I longed for thee ere the world was. I long for thee, and thou longest for me. When two burning desires come together, then is love perfected.”
Sometimes the loving soul traverses a dark way, and cries out in desolation and despair: “Lord, since Thou hast taken from me all that I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me that gift which every dog has by nature—that in my distress I may be true to Thee, without any ill-will. This do I truly desire more than all Thy heavenly kingdom.”
And Divine Love makes answer: “Sweet Dove, now list to me. Thy secret seeking must needs find me, thy heart’s distress must needs compel me, thy loving pursuit has so wearied me, that I long to cool myself in thy pure soul in the which I am imprisoned. The throbbing sighs of thy sore heart have driven my justice from thee. All is right between me and thee. I cannot be sundered from thee. However far we are parted, never can we be separated. I cause thee extreme pain of body. If I gave myself to thee as oft as thou wouldst, I should thus deprive myself of the sweet shelter I have in thee in this world.”
Again the soul cries out—but now discomfited by the Divine Love from whose tireless quest there is no escape—“Thou hast pursued and captured and bound me, and hast wounded me so deeply that never shall I be healed. Thou hast given me many a hard blow. Tell me, shall I ever get whole from Thee? Shall I not be slain by Thee? Thus would it have been better for me if that I had never known Thee.”
Then answers Love: “That I pursued thee gave me delight. That I made thee captive was my desire. That I bound thee was my joy. When I wounded thee, then did I become one with thee. Thus I give thee hard blows so that I may be possessed of thee. I drove Almighty God from His heavenly kingdom, and took from Him His mortal life, and have restored Him with honour to His Father. How canst thou, poor worm, save thyself from me?”
Of all Mechthild’s visions, there is none that seems to reach a greater height of supreme beauty than that in which the loving soul learns the way to its Divine Lover. It is strangely reminiscent of courtly life and courtly poetry, translated into the ecstatic state, and etherealised into the very perfume of spirituality as the soul becomes one with God. Having passed the distress of repentance, the pain of confession, and the labour of penance, and having overcome the love of the World, the tempting of the Devil, and its own self-will, the soul, weary, and longing for her Divine Lover and God, cries out: “Beautiful Youth, I long for thee. Where shall I find thee?”