Chapter XXXVIII
In Heaven “the token of sin is turned to worship.”—
Examples thereof
ALSO God shewed that sin shall be no shame to man, but worship. For right as to every sin is answering a pain by truth, right so for every sin, to the same soul is given a bliss by love: right as diverse sins are punished with diverse pains according as they be grievous, right so shall they be rewarded with diverse joys in Heaven according as they have been painful and sorrowful to the soul in earth. For the soul that shall come to Heaven is precious to God, and the place so worshipful that the goodness of God suffereth never that soul to sin that shall come there without that the which sin shall be rewarded; and it is made known without end, and blissfully restored by overpassing worship.
For in this Sight mine understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and then God brought merrily to my mind David, and others in the Old Law without number; and in the New Law He brought to my mind first Mary Magdalene, Peter and Paul, and those of Inde;[1] and Saint John of Beverley[2]; and others also without number: how they are known in the Church in earth with their sins, and it is to them no shame, but all is turned for them to worship. And therefore our courteous Lord sheweth [it thus] for them here in part like as it is there in fulness: for there the token of sin is turned to worship.
And Saint John of Beverley, our Lord shewed him full highly, in comfort to us for homeliness; and brought to my mind how he is a dear neighbour,[3] and of our knowing. And God called him Saint John of Beverleyplainly as we do, and that with a most glad sweet cheer, shewing that he is a full high saint in Heaven in His sight, and a blissful. And with this he made mention that in his youth and in his tender age he was a dearworthy servant to God, greatly God loving and dreading, and yet God suffered him to fall, mercifully keeping him that he perished not, nor lost no time. And afterward God raised him to manifold more grace, and by the contrition and meekness that he had in his living, God hath given him in Heaven manifold joys, overpassing that [which] he should have had if he had not fallen. And that this is sooth, God sheweth in earth with plenteous miracles doing about his body continually.
And all this was to make us glad and merry in love.
- S. Thomas and S. Jude. According to tradition the Gospel was carried to India by these Apostles. ↵
- S. John of Beverley was consecrated Bishop of Hexham in 687, and was afterwards Archbishop of York. “He founded the monastery of Beverley in the midst of the wood called Deira, among the ruins of the deserted Roman settlement of Pentuaria. This monastery, like so many others of the Anglo-Saxons, was a double community of monks and nuns. In 718 John retired for the remaining years of his life to Beverley, where he died in 721 on the 7th of May…. He was canonised in 1037. Henschenius the Bollandist, in the second tome of May, has published books of the miracles wrought at the relicks of St John of Beverley written by eye-witnesses. His sacred bones were honourably translated into the church of Alfric, Archbishop of York, in 1037. A feast in honour of his translation was kept on the 25th of October.”—Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints, etc. Perhaps the fact that the Saint’s original Feast Day of the 7th of May occurred on the second day of Julian’s illness, had something to do with his being brought to her mind a few days after with so much vividness. ↵
- “and browte to mynd how he is an hende neybor and of our knowyng”—i.e. he was a countryman of our own. “hende” = near, urbane, gentle. ↵