“Lady, thou mightst cool thyself in the martyrs’ blood.”
“I have been martyred many a day, so that I have no need to come to that now.”
“Lady, bright are the angels, and lovely in love’s hue. Wouldst thou cool thyself, be lifted up with them.”
“The bliss of the angels brings me love’s woe unless I see their Lord, my Bridegroom.”
“Lady, if thou comest there, thou wilt be blinded quite, so fiery hot is the Godhead, as thou thyself well knowest, for the fire and the glow which make heaven and all the holy ones burn and shine, all flow from His divine breath, and from His human mouth, through the wisdom of the Holy Ghost. How couldest thou endure it for an hour?”
And the soul answers: “The fish cannot drown in the water, the bird cannot sink in the air, gold cannot perish in the fire, where it gains its clear and shining worth. God has granted to each creature to cherish its own nature. How can I withstand my nature? I must go from all things to God, who is my Father by Nature, my Brother through His Humanity, my Bridegroom through Love, and I am His for ever.”
Silenced by this wondrous flight of holy passion, we bid farewell to Mechthild. She lived for her time, and she lives for us, as one of “humanity’s pioneers on the only road to rest.” “Out of the depths,” she cried to Heaven. We leave her in the music of the spheres.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] P. Gall. Morel, Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechthild von Magdeburg, oder das fliessende Licht der Gottheit, Regensburg, 1869.
[21] For the suggestive elaboration of this threefold classification, see Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism, chap. vi. p. 151 seq.