Lavender Lavender

The Five Ways in Which God Reveals Himself

The Lord appears to me in this life in five ways:

He who ascends to the fifth has scaled a great height.

The first is the state of fear, the second healing love;

The third manifestation is of tender sustenance,

Followed in turn by fatherly love

And lastly by conjugal love, the love of the bridegroom.

In the first stage the Lord God in His power

Raises my soul from the dead;

Putting to flight the demons who bound me in error,

He touches the heart with contrition.

The reawakened and still fragile soul

Is then visited by the Healer,

Who nurses and comforts

And strengthens with Sacraments.

My Love then appears as the noble companion

Who succours me and saves me from my wretchedness;

He endows me with virtues that lead to salvation.

Can 1 leave hidden, unsung, the good He has wrought?

In the fourth mode He appears as a tender father

With gifts of great largesse;

Once the soul tastes of that goodness, that love,

it exults in its inheritance,

In the fifth mode Love leads me to the conjugal bed

And I lie in the embrace of the Son of God. O my soul,

Led by grace, you are the queen of the angels,

In wondrous fusion transformed into Christ.