[1] "ffor al thynketh him but litil in reward of His love" [in comparison with]. [2] MS. "Reward." [3] MS. "Reward." [4] See xxi., xxiii. [5] MS. "and," probably here, at in other places, with something of the force of "but." CHAPTER XXIII "The Glad Giver" "All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Jesus Christ" And in these three words: _It is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me_, were shewed three heavens, as thus: For the joy, I understood the pleasure of the Father; and for the bliss, the worship of the Son; and for the endless satisfying,[1] the Holy Ghost. The Father is pleased, the Son is worshipped, the Holy Ghost is satisfied.[2] And here saw I, for the Third Beholding in His blissful Passion: that is to say, _the Joy and the Bliss that make Him to be well-satisfied in it._ For our Courteous Lord shewed His Passion to me in five manners: of which the first is the bleeding of the head; the second is, discolouring of His face; the third is, the plenteous bleeding of the body, in seeming [as] from the scourging; the fourth is, the deep dying:--these four are aforetold for the pains of the Passion. And the fifth is [this] that was shewed for the joy and the bliss of the Passion. For it is God's will that we have true enjoying with Him in our salvation, and therein He willeth [that] we be mightily comforted and strengthened; and thus willeth He that merrily with His grace our soul be occupied. For we are His bliss: for in us He enjoyeth without end; and so shall we in Him, with His grace. And all that He hath done for us, and doeth, and ever shall, was never cost nor charge to Him, nor might be, but only that [which] He did in our manhood, beginning at the sweet Incarnation and lasting to the Blessed Uprise on Easter-morrow:[3] so long dured the cost and the charge about our redemption in _deed_: of [the] which deed He enjoyeth endlessly, as it is aforesaid. Jesus willeth that we take heed to the bliss that is in the blessed Trinity [because] of our salvation and that _we_ desire to have as much spiritual enjoying, with His grace, (as it is aforesaid): that is to say, that the enjoying of our salvation be [as] like to the joy that Christ hath of our salvation as it may be while we are here. All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Christ, ministering abundance of virtues and plenty of grace to us by Him: but only the Maiden's Son suffered: whereof all the blessed Trinity endlessly enjoyeth. All this was shewed in these words: _Art thou well pleased?_--and by that other word that Christ said: _If thou art pleased, then am I pleased;_--as if He said: _It is joy and satisfying enough to me, and I ask nought else of thee for my travail but that I might well please thee_.