SOURCE: Frances M. M. Comper, "Of the Union of the Soul with Christ: And How Perfect Love Stands in Heat and Song and Sweetness: And of the Three Degrees of This Love," in The Life of Richard Rolle, J. M. Dent & Sons Limited, 1928, pp. 98-124.

[Aside from the Office composed soon after Rolle's death, Comper's biography was the first extended account of Rolle's life. In the following excerpt, she treats in detail the pinnacle of Rolle's union with God.]

Richard nearly always speaks of mystical contemplation in terms of love. "To me it seems that contemplation is the joyful song of God's love taken into the mind with the sweetness of angels' praise." Correctly speaking love is the goal of mystical contemplation, but with Richard these two are inextricably involved, in spite of the fact that he writes a chapter on Love, and another on Contemplation, in The Mending. The Fire of Love is really a book of contemplation; his lyrics are songs of "love-longing," expressing his yearning after Union with God. Love is the keynote of all he writes, but when his feelings cannot be contained he breaks forth into lyrical rhapsodies as we often find in The Fire, but these are not in the actual form of verse as are the lyrics. To say, as M. Joly does, that "Le mysticisme, c'est l'amour de Dieu," or that the mystic is "one who has fallen in love with God," is, of course, inadequate as a definition, but is very true as a description of Richard's mysticism.

He is most akin with the Spanish mystics of a later date, and shares with them their dislike of abstractions and metaphysical subtleties. Owing but little to his immediate predecessors, he drew largely upon the Scriptures and the writings of the doctors of the early Church, as did the Spaniards.

This mystical love, although it is a personal love for the Beloved, is not selfish or merely emotional; it is supernatural. The will is its pivot, and the will must be purified and strengthened by suffering. All mystics are emphatic on this point. They teach it, if not by words, by their lives. Richard dwells but little upon pain because when he writes he has attained to the way of Union, and his book on contemplation, which he names so fittingly The Fire of Love, is-not so much a guide for others as the expression of his own intimate experience of love.

Mgr. Farges in his latest work¹ has pointed out that the chief virtue of the Unitive Way is the Union of perfect Love, or "the blending of our life with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." It is this love which Richard never tires of describing under the terms of heat, sweetness and song. He tries by these figures to convey what in the language of psychology we should call the projection of the soul into God, and her identification with God through the humanity of Christ; so that henceforth God and the soul are one. "Love truly suffers not a loving soul to bide in itself, but ravishes it out to the Lover; so that the soul is more there where it loves, than where the body is, that by it lives and feels" (The Mending, p. 230). And in The Fire he says: "A better dwelling-place nor sweeter found I never, for it has made me and my love one, and made one out of two" (p. 187).

Some have tried to convey this sense of Union in terms of light and radiance, and have told us how they have felt themselves irradiated by a supernatural brilliance which seemed to bathe their whole being in a veil of light, so that they were clothed in light "as it were with a garment." But whether the experience comes by means of light or heat, it is the same Spirit who inspires our soul, "and lightens with celestial fire":

Thy blessed unction from above
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.

The experience must take a different form according to the temperature of the one who receives it. In every case with this sense of light or of heat there flows into the heart an overwhelming sweetness and joy. And it is a generating joy, which inspires, and does not rest in its own satisfaction. As Père Laberthonnière (from whom we have already quoted) expresses it:

It is by loving that we get beyond ourselves, that we lift ourselves above our own temporal individuality. It is by loving that we find God and and other beings, that we rediscover ourselves. Nor do we find God and all the other beings and our true selves for any purpose other than to love again. And thus it is ever, without pause or ending. There is no end to love, for it is self-generating, it is eternally reborn from itself, eternally renewed and expanded. Love is at once light, heat and life.²

Love therefore to the mystic is no soft indulgence to lull the heart to rest, but a burning fire to inspire it to work out his salvation; a fire which is inflamed by the contemplation of the cross of Christ.

As Mgr. Farges says, the Union which was the object of Christ's prayer before His Passion is not that passive or mystical union in which the powers are suspended, but pure love which lives only for the glory of God; so that we try to unite our lives, as did Christ, with God, "as far as the difference in nature and substance will allow a human being to do."

This Divine Union to which Richard attained finds perhaps its fullest expression in The Fire and in the lyrics, both of which were written not so much for the instruction and help of others as to ease his heart of this consuming love. But such intimate love of a personal Christ can only be had at the price of suffering and struggle. The soul must be purged by interior trials, by calumny and misunderstanding, and consequent loneliness. By such things it is detached from the exterior world which becomes of less and less importance, and as the love for self dwindles the love for God grows. The Carthusian motto "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis" is to the mystics a great reality. Their hearts are drawn upwards by aspiration and remain fixed upon the cross, while the world revolves as a globe below.

Richard speaks of love as a mystery, which most certainly it is, for the soul "would hie the quicklier to do God's will if she should perceive any hard thing she might offer for that cause."

Pain, hardness, suffering must be where love is, but it is turned to delight when borne for love's sake. Love is the true philosopher's stone by which the dross of pain is converted to the gold of endless joy in the Beloved, for this supernatural love eliminates pain.³

In his earlier book, the Melum, we find, as we should expect, the note of suffering more in evidence, but there is none of the agonising experiences of mental and spiritual torture which is so marked a feature in the life of St. Teresa, and which leave us aghast at the needless pain which they depict. Take for example this passage:

I know not who could have invented such torture for one who felt bound to obey the counsel given her by her confessor, for she would have thought her soul was at stake had she disobeyed him.

and we know that here, as in many other such references, she is speaking of herself.

"Such torture" would have been impossible in Richard's case. Apart from the fact that, unlike Teresa, he was under no vow of religious obedience, his nature would have prohibited him from following direction which his conscience told him was mistaken. Love was alike his guide and his goal. He goes straight towards his Beloved by the urge of love. "Truly in the sweetness of high love the conscience shines."

Thus he is led by love to the source of all love. His outlook is objective rather than subjective. Although constantly harassed by temptations they seldom come to him under the veil of sanctity, as they so often seem to have done to the saintly women who have left their records behind them. We have no trace in Richard of any undue dependence upon direction. He speaks of the "shrift father," but always in connection with sin, never with direction. In our modern usage of the word "confession" when we mean "shrift," or the sacrament of penance, we have confused the issues. Richard himself became in later life "confessor" to the nuns at Hampole, but we have no certain evidence that he was a priest; for direction and absolution were then held always as two distinct things. Surely the most important virtues for a confessor are simplicity and all lack of scrupulosity, and in these Richard must have been accounted great, and perhaps we may hold this as not the least of the claims he has upon our sympathy to-day.

Though there is a gentler element in Richard than in St. John of the Cross, they are alike. St. John depicts mental agony in abundance, but as with Richard it is the suffering and thirst of the soul after God; it is not the cry of a soul tortured by the clumsy knife of an earthly surgeon, as with St. Theresa, but that of a Prometheus Bound, and his four books read like a great spiritual drama. There is no dramatic element in Richard yet he is nearer to St. John than to Teresa. Though there is little likelihood that the Spanish mystic ever read the writings of the Englishman who so long preceded him, yet the likeness to Richard in his description of love in The Living Flame is so striking as to be worth comparing.

First let us read what Richard says in his prologue to The Fire:

More have I marvelled than I showed when, forsooth, I first felt my heart wax warm, truly, and not in imagination, but as if it were burned with sensible fire. I was forsooth amazed as the burning in my soul burst up, and of an unwont solace; ofttimes, because of my ignorance of such healthful abundance, I have groped⁴ my breast seeking whether this burning were from any bodily cause outwardly. But when I knew that it was only kindled inwardly from a ghostly cause, and that this burning was nought of fleshly love or concupiscence, in this I conceived it was the gift of my Maker. Gladly therefore I am molten into the desire of greater love; and especially for the inflowing of this most sweet delight and ghostly sweetness; the which, with that ghostly flame, has pithily⁵ comforted my mind.

If he had not known it he would have thought it impossible for any man to feel such an experience in this world:

First truly before this comfortable heat, and sweetest in all devotion, was shed in me, I plainly trowed such heat could happen to no man in this exile: for truly so it enflâmes the soul as if the element of fire were burning there. Nevertheless, as some say, there are some, burning in the love of Christ, because they see them despising this world, and with busyness given only to the service of God. But as it were if thy finger were put into fire it should be clad with sensible burning, so, as beforesaid, the soul set afire with love, truly feels most very⁶ heat; but sometimes more and more intense, and sometimes less, as the frailty of the flesh suffers.

But none could suffer it for long:

O who is there in mortal body that all this life may suffer this great heat in its high degree, or may bear for long its continual existence? Truly it behoves him fail for sweetness and greatness of desire after so high an outward love; and no marvel though many, passing out of this world, full greedily would catch it and yearn after it with full hot desire; so that unto this honey-sweet flame with wonderful gifts of mind he might yield his soul, and so be taken and forthwith enter the companies of them that sing praises to their Creator withouten end. (pp. 11-12.)

And now compare St. John of'the Cross. He is speaking of the awakening of God in the soul, and the soul's consequent awakening to the realisation of God's presence within it:

Then occurs the most delicate touch of the Beloved, which the soul feels at times, even when least expecting it, and which sets the heart on fire with love, as if a spark had fallen upon it and made it burn. Then the will in an instant, like one roused from sleep, burns with the fire of love for God, praises Him and gives Him thanks, worships and honours Him, and prays to Him in the sweetness of Love. (Cant. xxv. 5.)

And again in The Living Flame, paraphrasing the stanza:

he comments:

This is an infinite Fire of Love, so when God touches the soul somewhat sharply, the burning heat within it becomes so extreme as to surpass all the fires of the world. This is why the touch of God is said to "burn," for the fire there is more intense and more concentrated, and the effect of it surpasses that of all other fires…the burning of fire does not distress (the soul) but gladdens it, does not weary but delights it and renders it glorious and rich. This is the reason why it is said to be sweet, (ii. 3-4.)

And this again recalls Richard:

When a soul is on fire with love…it will feel as if a seraph with a burning brand of love had struck it, and penetrated it, already on fire, as glowing coal, or rather as a flame, and burns it utterly. And then in that burn the flame rushes forth and surges vehemently, as in a glowing furnace or forge…. Then the soul feels that the wound it has received is delicious beyond all imaginatin…. It feels its love to glow, strengthen, and refine itself to such a degree as to seem to itself as if seas of fire were in it, filling it with love…. In this state of life, so perfect, the soul is as it were keeping a perpetual feast with the praises of God in its mouth, with a new song of joy and love….⁷ (ii. 10-11.)

The heat of love is, of course, a common simile with many mystical writers, more especially with St. Bernard; and sweetness is also often employed as descriptive of mystical states, but in his use of song and of music to express his union with God Richard is almost unique. With him the "inshedding and receiving of this heavenly and ghostly sound" followed his first experience of "the heat of everlasting love" which rested with him for about nine months.⁸ It is possible that he may have borrowed this simile from Augustine who also uses it,⁹ but that seems doubtful. It seems too spontaneous and too much a part of Richard's nature to be borrowed. It is a theme upon which he most constantly dwells, and he also speaks of contemplation as musica spiritualis, invisibilis melodia, canticum spirituale, sonus coelestis, iubilatio, canorus iubilus, clamor; and in his English works there are many references to this heavenly "myrth" and "mélodie," and "soun of heaven"; and, as we have already seen, he identifies contemplation with this divine melody.

In chapter xiv. of The Fire he explains what he means by this calor ox fervor, canor and dulcor. Yet, before we begin to read what may appear to be a definition, let us guard ourselves against thinking that any statement which Richard seems upon some sudden impulse to give is complete. We seize upon it with delight as upon a plank in a morass, only to find our hopes shattered; for he has turned aside to another thought, or breaks out into some rhapsody of love. He must be free of any such trammel as an exact and comprehensive definition, and to try to formulate one from anything he says is as difficult and impossible a task as it would be to imprison into musical notation the song of the nightingale; to which bird he compares himself:

In the beginning of my conversion… I thought I would be like the little bird that languishes for the love of his beloved, but is gladdened in his longing, when he that it loves comes, and sings with joy, and in its song also languishes, but in sweetness and heat. (p. 190.)

He seldom goes back upon what he has said, but he often modifies or enlarges upon it, so as to make his meaning obscure.

A modern French writer who has recently translated The Mending of Life describes Richard's style by this apt simile: "Nous dirions volontiers qu'il est clair par places, comme est claire l'eau de la petite rivière que les arbres surplombent et qui est tachée par le soleil de larges plages lumineuses."¹⁰

Dr. Horstman, who always thinks of Richard Rolle as a typical "Saxon," gives this interesting and true account of the workings of his mind:

The Saxon, kept from satisfaction, is in perpetual unrest, perpetually consumed by the trieb which he resists; a prey to confused feelings and conceits which throng upon him and rapidly succeed each other; of unbounded imagination; his mind is too full, too embarrassed to find expression, to sift, arrange, and lay clear its conceptions; too restless to follow and develop a particular object until it is properly brought out and perfected. His ideas, born in the immediate truth of his own sensation and experience, are right enough; he is an original thinker and has plenty of common sense; his difficulty lies in the forming.¹¹

Therefore for our own enjoyment of Richard we had better steer as clear of definitions as he did, but such as he has given us I shall now try to set forth.

He tells us that "seeking in Scripture" he found "the high love of Christ soothly stands in three things: in heat, and song, and sweetness," and that

in these three that are tokens of most perfect love, the highest perfection of Christian religion without all doubt is found; and I have now, Jesu granting, received these three after the littleness of my capacity. Nevertheless I dare not make myself even to the saints that have shone in them, for they peradventure have received them more perfectly. Yet shall I be busy in virtue that I may more burningly love, more sweetly sing, and more plenteously feel the sweetness of love, (p. 66.)

And then he goes on to define these three:

Soothly, heat I call it when the mind is truly kindled in love everlasting; and the heart in the same manner, not hopingly but verily, is felt to burn. For the heart turned into fire gives the feeling of burning love. Song I call it when in a soul the sweetness of everlasting praise is received with plenteous burning, and thought is turned into song; and the mind is changed¹² into full sweet sound.

These two are not gotten in idleness, but in high devotion; to the which the third is near, that is to say sweetness untrowed. For heat and song truly cause a marvellous sweetness in the soul; and also they may be caused by full great sweetness, (p. 67.)

And in his commentary on the Canticles he thus expresses how this gift of song acts upon him who receives it:

Now he does not say his prayers but, in a condition of mental exaltation and a rapture of love, he is carried away beyond himself with a marvellous sweetness and is enabled in a wonderful manner to sing to God with a spiritual instrument.

But for the enjoyment of these three gifts rest is essential. In many places he stresses this point, e.g. in the chapter from which we have cited (see p. 94).

And in The Form he asks:

In what state may men love God most? I answer in such state as it be that men are in most rest of body and soul, and least occupied with any needs or business of this world. For the thought of the love of Jesus Christ and of the joy that lasts aye seeks outward rest, so that it be not hindered by comers and goers, and occupation of worldly things; and it seeks within great silence from the annoyances of desires, and of vanities and of earthly thoughts. And especially all who love contemplative life, they seek rest in body and soul. For a great Doctor says: "They are God's throne who dwell still in one place, and are not running about but in sweetness of Christ's love are fixed."

He gives his own experience:

And I have loved for to sit, for no penance nor fantasy, nor that I wished men to talk of me, nor for no such thing, but only because I knew that I loved God more, and longer lasted within the comfort of love, than going, standing or kneeling. For sitting am I in most rest and my heart most upward.

It is curious how often he refers to "sitting," and yet he seems conscious that it is his own idiosyncrasy, for he adds: "But therefore, peradventure, it is not best that another should sit, as I did and will do till my death, save he were disposed in his soul as I was."¹³

From the passage which we have just cited sweetness seems to be always the concomitant of heat and song; at once the cause and the effect, and can therefore hardly be thought of as existing apart, per se.

We shall find this note of song and melody in the joy of love in all Richard says or sings, beside it the progress of the soul is of minor importance. It is God rather than the soul which is the theme of all he writes; even when he speaks of actual sin it is from the objective point of view, and with no morbid dwelling upon or analysis of self. The more we read his works the more noticeable this seems, especially in comparison with contemporary continental writers, and with later English mystics. He appears to be one of the most objective mystical writers of whom we have knowledge.

Love, according to Richard, is possessed of three de grees, which correspond to those given us by Richard of St. Victor in De gradibus caritatis; to which the Victorine has added a fourth, viz. "Love Insatiable." Between the two Richards there is great similarity of thought, and to that we must return in the following chapter, on the sources upon which Rolle drew. We find these degrees described most clearly in The Mending, The Form, and more briefly in The Commandment of Love to God. These passages I shall now cite in full.

(I) The Mending.¹⁴

There are soothly three degrees of Christ's love, by one or another of which he that is chosen to love profits. The first is called, unable to be overcome; the second, unable to be parted; the third is called singular.¹⁵

Then truly is love unovercomeable when it can not be overcome by any other desire. When it casts away lettings, and slakes all tempatations and fleshly desires; and when it patiently suffers all griefs for Christ, and is overcome by no flattery nor delight. All labour is light to a lover, nor can a man better overcome labour than by love.

Love truly is undeparted when the mind is kindled with great love, and cleaves to Christ with undeparted thought. Forsooth it suffers Him not to pass from the mind a minute, but as if he were bound in heart to Him it thinks and sighs after Him, and it cries to be holden with His love that He may loose him from the fetters of mortality, and may lead him to Him Whom only he desires to see. And most this name JESU he in so mickle worships and loves that It continually rests in his mind.

When therefore the love of Christ is set so mickle in the heart of God's lover and the world's despiser that it may not be overcome by other desire of love, it is called high. But when he holds undepartedly to Christ, ever thinking of Christ, by no occasion forgetting Him, it is called everlasting and undeparted. And if this be high and everlasting, what love can be higher or more?

Yet there is the third degree that is called singular. It is one thing to be high, and another to be alone; as it is one thing to be ever presiding, and another to have to fellow. Truly we may have many fellows and yet have a place before all.

Truly if thou seekest or receivest any comfort other than of thy God, and if peradventure thou lovest the highest, yet it is not singular. Thou seest therefore to what the greatness of worthiness must increase, that when thou art high thou mayest be alone.

Therefore love ascends to the singular degree when it excludes all comfort but the one that is in Jesu; when nothing but Jesu may suffice it. The soul set in this degree loves Him alone; she yearns only for Christ, and Christ desires; only in His desire she abides, and after Him she sighs; in Him she burns; she rests in His warmth. Nothing is sweet to her, nothing she savours, except it be made sweet in Jesu; whose memory is as a song of music in a feast of wine. Whatever the self offers to her [besides] it or comes into mind, is straightway cast back and suddenly despised if it serve not His desire or accord not with His will. She suppresses all customs that she sees serve not to the love of Christ. Whatever she does seems unprofitable and intolerable unless it runs and leads to Christ, the End of her desire. When she can love Christ she trows she has all things that she wills to have, and withouten Him all things are abhorrent to her and wax foul. But because she trows to love Him endlessly she steadfastly abides, and wearies not in body nor heart but loves perseveringly and suffers all things gladly. And the more she thus lives in Him the more she is kindled in love, and the liker she is to Him.

No marvel loneliness accords with such a one that grants no fellow among men. For the more he is ravished inwardly by joys, the less is he occupied in outward things; nor is he let by heaviness or the cares¹⁶ of this life. And now it seems as if the soul were unable to suffer pain, so that not being let by anguish, she ever joys in God.

(2) The Form of Living¹⁷

Three degrees of love I shall tell thee, for I would that thou mightest win to the highest. The first degree is called Insuperable. The second Insuperable. The third is Singular.

(1) Thy love is Insuperable when nothing that is contrary to God's love overcomes it, but it is stalwart against all temptations, and stable, whether thou beest in ease or in anguish, or in health or sickness; so that men think that thou wouldest not, even to have all the world without end, make God angry at any time; and thou wert liefer if so it should be, to suffer all the pain and woe that might come to any creature, before thou wouldest do any the thing that should displease him. In this manner shall thy love be Insuperable, that nothing can bring it down, but it may aye spring on high….

(2) Inseparable is thy love when all thine heart and thy thought and thy might is so wholly, so entirely and so perfectly fastened, set and established in Jesus Christ that thy thought comes never from Him, never departs from Him, sleeping excepted; and as soon as thou awakest thine heart is on Him; saying Ave Maria or Gloria Tibi Domine or Pater Noster or Miserere mei Deus, if thou hast been tempted in thy sleep; or thinking on His love and His praise as thou didst waking. When thou canst at no time forget Him, waking or sleeping, whatso thou dost or sayst, then is thy love Inseparable….

(3) The third degree is highest and most wondrous to win. That is called Singular, for it has no peer. Singular love is when all comfort and solace is closed out of thine heart, but of Jesus Christ alone. Other joy it delights not in. For the sweetness of him that is in this degree is so comforting, and lasting in His love, so burning and gladdening, that he or she who is in this degree can as well feel the fire of love burning in their soul, as thou canst feel thy finger burn if thou puttest it in the fire. But that fire, if it be hot, is so delectable and so wonderful that I cannot tell it.

Then thy soul is Jesu loving: Jesu thinking: Jesu desiring: only in the desire of Him breathing: to Him singing: of Him burning: in Him resting. Then the song of loving and of love has come; then thy thought turns into song and into melody; then it behoves thee to sing the psalms which before thou saidst. Then thou must be long about few psalms; thou wilt think death sweeter than honey for then thou art full sicker¹⁸ to see Him whom thou lovest. Then mayest thou boldly say: "I languish for love"; then mayest thou say: "I sleep and my heart wakes."

In the first degree men may say: "I languish for love," or "I long in love"; and in the second degree also; for languishing is when men fail for sickness, and they who are in these two degrees (fall) from all covetousness of this world, and from lust and liking of sinful life, and set their will and their heart to the love of God—therefore they may say "I languish for love"; and much more that are in the second degree than in the first.

But the soul that is in the third degree is all burning fire, and like the nightingale that loves song and melody, and falls (dies) for great love; so that the soul is only comforted in loving and praising of God, and till death come, is singing ghostly to IHESU, and in IHESU, and IHESU, not bodily crying with the mouth—of that manner of singing I speak not, for both good and evil have that song.

And this manner of song have none unless they be in this third degree of love, to the which degree it is impossible to come but in a great multitude of love. Therefore if thou wilt wot what kind of joy that song has, I tell thee that no man wots, save he or she who feels it, who has it, and who loves God singing therewith. One thing I tell thee, it is of heaven and God gives it to whom He will, but not without great grace coming before. Who has it, he thinks all the song and all the minstrelsy of earth naught but sorrow and woe (compared) thereto. In sovereign rest are they that may get it….

In the first degree are many; in the second degree are full few; but in the third degree are scarcely any; for ay the greater that the perfection is the fewer followers it has.

In the first degree men are likened to the stars; in the second to the moon; in the third to the sun. Therefore says S. Paul: "Others of the sun, others of the moon, others of the stars"; so it is of the lovers of God. In this third degree, if thou mayst win thereto, thou shalt know more joy than I have told thee yet.

And there follows, as a specimen of the songs of love, the lyric which is given on p. 224, "When wilt thou come to comfort me?" We notice that the song of the third degree of love is of heaven, and "God gives it to whom He will, but not without great grace coming before" Richard has many a time shown that this grace is the result of painful discipline; but when the soul has attained to the third degree then it seems as if she were unable to suffer pain. All pain is now turned to joy by her love.

Is it surprising that to savour love like this the soul must cease from the love of this world?

O my soul, cease from the love of this world and melt in Christ's love, that always it may be sweet to thee to speak, read, write, and think of Him; to pray to Him and ever to praise Him. O God, my soul, to Thee devoted, desires to see Thee! She cries to Thee from afar. She burns in Thee and languishes in Thy love. O Love that fails not, Thou hast overcome me! O everlasting Sweetness and Fairness, Thou hast wounded my heart, and now overcome and wounded I fall. For joy scarcely I live, and nearly I die; for I may not suffer the sweetness of so great a Majesty in this flesh that shall rot.

All my heart truly, fastened in desire for JESU, is turned into heat of love, and it is swallowed into another joy and another form. Therefore O good Jesu have mercy upon a wretch. Show Thyself to me that longs; give medicine to me hurt. I feel myself not sick, but languishing in Thy love. He that loves Thee not altogether loses all; he that follows Thee not is mad. Meanwhile therefore be Thou my Joy, my Love, and Desire, until I may see Thee, O God of Gods, in Syon.

In The Commandment of Love he puts it more briefly:

And that thou mayst come to the sweetness of God's love I set here three degrees of love in the which thou be waxing.¹⁹

The first degree is called Insuperable, the tother Inseparable, the third Singular.

Thy love is insuperable when no thing may overcome it; that is neither weal nor woe, ease nor anguish, love of flesh nor liking of this world; but ay it lasteth in God though it were tempted greatly; and it hateth all sin, so that no thing may slake that love.

Thy love is inseparable when all thy thoughts and all thy wills are gathered together and fastened wholly in Jhesu Christ, so that thou may no time forget Him, but ay thou thinkest on Him; and therefore it is cleped inseparable for it may not be departed from thought of Jhesu Christ.

That love is singular when all thy delight is in Jhesu Christ, and in none other thing findest comfort or joy. In this degree is love stalwart as death, and hard as hell; for as death slays all living things in this world, so perfect love slays in a man's soul all fleshly desires and earthly covetousness. And as hell spareth not to dead men, but tormenteth all that come thereto, so a man that is in this degree of love, not only he forsaketh the wretched solace of this life, but also coveteth to suffer pain for God's love.²⁰

In The Fire yet another definition is given of the strength of love:

Love forsooth has a diffusive, unitive and transformative strength.²¹ In Diffusion²² truly: for it spreads the beams of its goodness not only to friends and neighbours, but also to enemies and strangers. In Union" truly: for it makes lovers one in deed and will; and Christ and every holy soul it makes one. He truly that draws to God is one spirit, not in nature but in grace, and in onehood of will. Love has also a Transforming¹¹¹ strength, for it turns the loving into the loved, and ingrafts him. Wherefore the heart that truly receives the fire of the Holy Ghost is burned all wholly and turns as it were into fire; and it leads it into that form that is likest to God. Else had it not been said: Ego dixi dii estis et filii Excelsi omnes; that is to say: "I have said ye are gods, and are all the children of the high God." Forsooth some men have so loved each other that they nearly trowed there were but one soul in them both. (pp. 80-1).

These three degrees of love, viz. insuperable, inseparable—or to use the English words: unovercomable, undeparted—and singular, and singular, are the same as the degrees which Mgr. Farges differentiates as belonging to the Unitive Way,²⁵ viz.:

(i.) Habitual forgetfulness of self in order to think only of the glory of God.

(ii.) Habitual pursuit of the greater glory of God.

(iii.) A constant state of indifference to anything else.

And he adds another:

(iv.) The choice between two things, which are equally pleasing to God, of that one which will be more crucifying to self.

This last degree is really included in what Richard calls Singular love; for in that degree the soul desireth to suffer pain for love of God; though he would hardly, being of an objective turn of mind, have stopped to weigh which of two things would be most crucifying to self. Indeed one questions whether his love of God was not of too wholesome a nature to imagine that what would be most crucifying and painful to self would, for that reason, be the more pleasing to Christ who was crucified for man; though Richard's love for God causes him to embrace pain which comes naturally, with a true delight, for through pain we grow in love. Singular love means simply that there is no delight for him save in Christ. All earthly comfort is as naught, "and now it seems as if the soul were unable to suffer pain," and death will seem "sweeter than honey."

In The Form (chap, x.) he gives seven experiments by which we may know if we have attained to Singular love. These are:

(i.) When all desire of earthly things is slaked in him.

(ii.) A burning yearning for heaven. For when men have felt aught of that savour, the more they have the more they covet; and he that nought has felt, nought he desires. Therefore when anyone is so much given till the love thereof, that he can find no joy in this life, he has token that he is in charity.

(iii.) If his tongue be changed, and he that was wont to speak of earthly things, now speaks of God and of the life that lasts ay.

(iv.) He gives himself entirely to God's business and not to earthly.

(v.) When the thing that is hard in itself, seems light for to do; the which love makes. For as Austin says: "Love it is which brings the thing that is far near-to-hand, and the impossible to the openly possible."

(vi.) Hardness of thought to suffer all anguish and noys that come; without this all the other suffices not. For whatso befalls him shall not make a righteous man sorry. For he that is righteous he hates nought but sin, he loves nought but God and for God; he dreads nought but to wrath God.

(vii.) Delight in soul when he is in tribulation, and he makes praise to God in the anger (pain) that he suffers. And this shews well that he loves God, when no sorrow may bring him down. For many love God while they are in ease, and in adversity they grumble and fall into such mickle sorryness, that scarcely any may comfort them, and so slander they God striving and fighting against His judgements. And that is a caitiff praise that any wealth of the world makes; but that praise is of mickle price that no violence of sorrow can do away.²⁶

This chapter of The Form should be read in full.²⁷ It begins thus:

Thou speakest so much of love tell me: What is love? and Where is love? And how shall I love God verily? And how may I know that I love Him? And in what state can I love Him most?

And he answers:

Thy first asking is: What is Love?

And I answer: Love is a burning yearning after God with a wonderful delight and certainty. God is light and burning; light clarifies our reason, burning kindles our desires, that we desire naught but Him. Love is a life, coupling together the loving and the loved. For Meekness makes us sweet to God; Purity joins us to God; Love makes us one with God. Love is the beauty of all virtues. Love is the thing through which God loves us and we God, and each one of us another. Love is the desire of the heart ay thinking til him that it loves; and when it has that it loves, then it joys and nothing can make it sorry. Love is yearning between two, with lastingness of thought. Love is a stirring of the soul for to love God for Himself, and all other things for God; the which love when it is ordained in God, it does away all inordinate love in anything that is not good. But all deadly sin is inordinate love for a thing that is naught; then love puts out all deadly sin. Love is a virtue which is the rightest affection of man's soul. Truth may be without love, but it cannot help without it. Love is perfection of letters, virtue of prophecy; fruit of truth, help of sacraments; stabiling of wit and knowledge; riches of poor men, life of dying men. See how good love is!

And his similes are remarkable, and remind us of the Sadhù Sundar Singh.

We shall afforce us to clothe us in love, as iron or coal does in the fire; as the air does in the sun; as wool does in the dye. The coal so clothes itself in fire that it is fire. The air so clothes itself in the sun that it is light. And the wool so substantially takes the dye that it is like it. In this manner shall a true lover of Jesus Christ do: His heart shall so burn in love that it shall be turned into the fire of love, and be as it were all fire; and he shall so shine in virtues that no part of him shall be murky in vices.

The second asking is: Where is Love?

And I answer: Love is in the heart, and in the will of man; not in his hand nor in his mouth, that is to say, not in his work but in his soul…. when he forsakes the world only for God's love, and sets all his thought on God, and loves all men as himself. And all the good deeds that he may do, he does them with intent to please Jhesu Christ, and to come to the rest of heaven. Then he loves God; and that love is in his soul, and so his deeds shew without…. No thing that I do without proves that I love God; for a wicked man might do as much penance in body, as much waking and fasting as I do. How may I then ween that I love, or hold myself better for that that ilk man may do? Certes, whether my heart loves God or not wots none but God, for aught that they may see me do. Wherefore love is verily in will, not in work save as a sign of love. For he that says he loves God, and will not do in act what is in him to show love, tell him that he lies.

The third asking is: How shall I verily love God?

I answer: Verray love is to love Him with all thy might stahvartly; In all thy heart, wisely; In all thy soul, devoutly and sweetly.

Stalwartly can no man love Him, but he be stalwart. He is stalwart that is meek, for all ghostly strength comes of meekness. On whom rests the Holy Ghost? In a meek soul…. And he that loves God perfectly, it grieves him not what shame or anguish he suffers, but he has delight, and desires that he were worthy for to suffer torment and pain for Christ's love; and he has joy that men reprove him and speak ill of him.²⁸

As a dead man, whatsoever men do or say, he answers nought; right so, whoso loves God perfectly, they are not stirred by any word that man may say. For he or she cannot love that may not suffer pain and anger for their friend's love. For whoso loves, they have no pain.… In nothing may men sooner overcome the devil than in meekness, which he mickle hates….

Also it behoves thee to love God wisely; and that thou canst not do but if thou be wise. Thou art wise when thou art poor and without covetousness of this world, and despisest thyself for the love of Ihesu Christ, and expendest all thy wit and all thy might in His service.

And here is another of Richard's similes which are not unlike those of the Sadhù:

If thou saw a man have precious stones, that he might buy a kingdom with, if he gave them for an apple as a child will do, rightwisely might thou say that he was not wise, but a great fool. Just so, if we will, we have precious stones; poverty, and penance, and ghostly travail; with the which we may buy the kingdom of heaven.

And if thou have sorrow for thy sins, and for thou art so long in exile, out of thy country, and forsakest the solace of this life; thou shalt have for this sorrow the joy of heaven. And if thou be in travail and punishest thy body reasonably and wisely…for the love of Ihesu Christ, for this travail thou shalt come to rest that lasts ay, and sit in a settle of joy with angels. But some are that love not wisely; like til children that love more an apple than a castle.

And if thou wilt love Ihesu verily thou shalt also love devoutly and sweetly. Sweet love is when thy body is chaste and thy thought clean. Devout love is when thou offerest thy prayers and thy thoughts to God with ghostly joy, and burning heart, in the heat of the Holy Ghost, so that men think that thy soul is as it were drunken for delight and solace of the sweetness of Ihesu, and thy heart conceives so mickle of God's help, that thee thinks that thou mayest never be from Him departed. And then thou comest into such rest and peace in soul, and quiet, without thoughts of vanity or of vice, as if thou wert in silence and sleep, and set in Noe's ship, so that nothing may hinder thee from devotion and burning of sweet love. From (the time) thou hast gotten this love, all thy life, till death come, is joy and comfort; and thou art verily Christ's lover, and He rests in thee, whose stead is made in peace.

The fourth asking was: How thou might know that thou were in love and charity?

I answer: That no man wots on earth that they are in charity, save it be through any privilege or special grace that God has given to any man or woman, that all others may take ensample by…. A man wots not whether he be worthy hatred or love, but all is reserved uncertain till another world. Nevertheless, if any had grace that he might win to the third degree of love which is called Singular, he should know that he were in love. But in such manner is his knowing that he might never bear himself the higher, nor be in the less care to love God; but so much the more that he is sure of love, will he be busy to love Him and dread Him that has made him swilk (like this), and done that goodness to him. And he that is thus high, he will not hold himself wortheir than the sinfullest man that walks on earth.

Then there follow the seven experiments by which to test whether we have this singular love, which we have cited; as also the answer to the question: And in what state can I love Him most?

The soul that has attained to this highest degree of love Richard likens to a "pipe of love." "The which soul knowing the mystery of love, with a great cry ascends to his love." Here indeed we have what he elsewhere speaks of as Love entering boldly into "the bedchamber of the Everlasting King,"²⁹ where is the espousal bed of Christ and the soul. That "settle of love" of which Richard so often sings in the lyrics:

This is the mystery of the kingdom which is the supreme quest of the mystic. Here alone, in Christ, can the soul find rest. "Nothing is sweet to her, nothing she savours, except it be made sweet in Ihesu, whose memory is as a song of music in a feast of wine." A truly haunting phrase and worthy to be placed beside the Canticles.

Nor do I know of anyone outside the writer of Solomon's Song who has more beautifully expressed this inexpressible love of the thirsting soul:

O sweet Ihesu, I bind Thy love in me with a knot unable to be loosed, seeking the treasure that I desire, and longing I find, because I cease not to thirst for Thee. Therefore my sorrow vanishes as the wind, and my meed is ghostly song that no man sees. Mine inward nature is turned into sweet song, and I long to die for love. The greatness of the gifts delights me with light, and the tarrying of love punishes me with joy, whiles they come that receive me, and in receiving refresh.

But those things want that my Beloved shall show to me, longing: they wound me, so that I languish, and they heal not yet my languor fully, but rather increase it; for love growing, languor is also increased, (p. 165.)

And again:

Alas what shall I do? How long shall I suffer delay? To whom shall I flee that I may happily enjoy that I desire? Needy am I and hungry, noyed and diseased, wounded and dis-coloured for the absence of my love; for love hurts me, and hope that is put back chastises my soul. Therefore the cry of the heart goes up, and amongst the heavenly citizens a songly thought runs desiring to be lifted up to the ear of the most High. And when it comes there it proffers its errand and says;

O my love! O my honey! O my harp! O my psaltry and daily song! When shalt Thou help my heaviness? O my heart's rose, when shalt Thou come to me and take with Thee my spirit? Truly Thou seest that I am wounded to the quick with Thy fair beauty, and the longng relaxes not but grows more and more, and the penalties here present cast me down, and prick me to go to Thee, of whom only I trow I shall see solace and remedy. But who [meanwhile] shall sing me the end of my grief and the end of mine un-rest? And who shall show to me the greatness of my joy and the fulfilling of my song, that from this I might take comfort and sing with gladness, for I should know that the end of mine unhappiness and that joy were near? (p. 150.)

And here he actually breaks into verse; it is the only place in The Fire where he does so:

O deus meus,
O amor meus
Illabere mihi,
Tua caritate perforato,
Tua pulcritudine vulnerato,
Illabere, inquam,
Et languentem.

which Misyn thus translates:

and the original Latin continues in prose³¹:

…Come into me, my Beloved! All that I had I gave for Thee, and that I should have, for Thee I have forsaken, that Thou in my soul mightest have a mansion for to comfort it. Never forsake Thou him that Thou feelest so sweetly glow with desire for Thee; so that with most burning desire I desire, to be ever within Thy halsing.³² So grant me grace to love Thee, and in Thee to rest, that in Thy kingdom I may be worthy for to see Thee withouten end…. (p. 21.)

And again in The Mending he cries:

O sweet and true Joy, I pray Thee come! Come, O sweet and most desired! Come, my Love, that art all my comfort! Glide down into a soul longing for Thee and after Thee with sweet heat. Kindle with Thy heat the wholeness of my heart. With Thy light enlighten my inmost parts. Feed me with honeyed songs of love, as far I may receive them by my powers of body and soul, (p. 230.)

In the chapter (xi.) from which we have already quoted, he gives perhaps his most complete description of his burning love, of which he never tires of singing. In it he rises to an ecstasy, and cannot find words by which to express what this love is which seems to wound and tear his heart. Like the lark, he soars and sings; and every now and again, also like the lark, when singing, he drops down into fields of prose. The whole chapter should be read in order to understand this curious medley of prose and poetry; of common sense and rhapsody, which is one of his special characteristics. Here only the most striking passages can be quoted:

Charity truly is the noblest of virtues, the most excellent and sweetest, that joins the Beloved to the lover, and everlastingly couples Christ with the chosen soul. It re-forms in us the image of the high Trinity, and makes the creature most like to the Maker.

O gift of love, what is it worth before all other things, that challenges³³ the highest degree with the angels! Truly the more of love a man receives in this life, the greater and higher in heaven shall he be. O singular joy of everlasting love that ravishes all His to the heavens above all worldly things, binding them with the bands of virtue.

O dear charity, he is not wrought on earth that—whatever else he may have—has not thee. He truly that is busy to joy in thee, is forthwith lift above earthly things. Thou enterest boldly the bedchamber of the Everlasting King. Thou only art not ashamed to receive Christ. He it is that thou hast sought and loved. Christ is thine: hold Him, for He cannot but receive thee, whom only thou desirest to obey. For withouten thee plainly no work pleases Him.³⁴ Thou makest all things savoury. Thou art a heavenly seat; angels' fellowship; a marvellous holiness; a blissful sight; and life that lasts endlessly.

O holy charity, how sweet thou art and comfortable; that remakest that that was broken. The fallen thou restorest; the bond thou deliverest; man thou makest even with angels. Thou raisest up those sitting and resting, and the raised thou makest sweet.

And the following passage explains why every mystic finds it impossible to give any clear account of his progress in the experience of God's love:

Thus truly Christ's lover keeps no order in his loving nor covets no degree, because however fervent and joyful he be in the love of God in this life, yet he thinks to love God more and more. Yea, though he might live here evermore yet he should not trow at any time to stand still and not progress in love, but rather the longer he shall live the more he should burn in love. God truly is of infinite greatness, better than we can think; of unreckoned sweetness; inconceivable of all natures wrought; and can never be comprehended by us as He is in Himself in eternity.

And he again breaks forth into a rhapsody of love:

O merry love, strong, ravishing, burning, wilful, stalwart, unslakened,³⁵ that brings all my soul to Thy service, and suffers it to think of nothing but Thee. Thou challengest for Thyself all that we live; all that we savour; all that we are.³⁶

Thus therefore let Christ be the beginning of our love, whom we love for Himself. And so we love whatever is to be loved ordinately for Him that is the Well of love, and in whose hands we put all that we love and are loved by. Here soothly is perfect love shown; when all the intent of the mind, all the secret working of the heart, is lifted up into God's love, so that the strength and mirth of true love is so great that no worldly joy…is lawful or delights it.

And here we have the same selfless love as St. Francis Xavier expresses in his well-known hymn.

Although there were no torments for the wicked, nor no meed in heaven, should be trowed for chosen souls, yet shouldst thou never the sooner loose thee from thy Love. More tolerable it were to thee to suffer an untrowed grief than once to sin deadly. Therefore thou truly lovest God for Himself and for no other thing, nor thyself except for God; and thereof it follows that nothing but God is loved in thee. How else should God be all in ilk thing if there be any love of man in man?

And compare this passage from The Fire:

For truly if we love God rightly we would sooner lose great meed in heaven than once sin venially; for most righteous is it to ask no meed of righteousness but the friendship of God, that is Himself. Therefore it is better ever to suffer tormentry than once, wilfully and knowingly, to be led from righteousness to wickedness, (p. 39.)

Then again he soars upward, singing thus of love:

O clear charity, come into me, and take me into thee, and so present me before Thy Maker. Thou art savour well tasting; sweetness well smelling; and pleasant odour; a cleansing heat, and a comfort endlessly lasting. Thou makest men contemplative; heaven's gate thou openest; the mouths of accusers thou sparrest; thou makest God be seen, and thou hidest a multitude of sins. We praise thee; we preach thee; by the which we overcome the world; in whom we rejoice, and by whom we ascend the ladder of heaven. In thy sweetness glide into me: and I commend me and mine unto thee without end.

And in The Fire he gives us this prayer for love:

Lord Ihesu, I ask Thee, give unto me movement in Thy love withouten measure; desire withouten limit; longing with outen order; burning withouten discretion. Truly the better the love of Thee is, the greedier it is; for neither by reason is it restrained, nor by dread thronged, nor by doom tempted. No man shall ever be more blest than he that for greatness of love can die. No creature truly can love too mickle. In all other things all that is too mickle turns to vice, but the more the strength of love surpasses, the more glorious it shall be. (p. 78.)

This perfect love embraces the love of our neighbour, for Richard, though carried away by excess of love, never forgets the earth from which he has taken flight, and constantly breaks off from his most impassioned utterances to give us some homely advice or warning. He is emphatic that all true love of God must include the love of man, since we dwell in God and God in us.

Therefore [he says], if our love be pure and perfect, whatever our heart loves it is God. Truly if we love ourself, and all other creatures that are to be loved, only in God and for God, what other in us and in them love we but Him? For when our God truly is loved by us with a whole heart and all virtue, then, without doubt, our neighbour and all that is to be loved, is most rightly loved. If therefore we shed forth our heart before God and in the love of God being bound with Him, and holden with God, what more is there by which we can love any other thing? Truly in the love of God is the love of my neighbour. Therefore as he that loves God knows not but to love man, so he that truly knows to love Christ is proved to love nothing in himself but God. Also all that we are loved or love—all to God the Well of love we yield: because He commands that all the heart of man be given to Himself. All desires also, and all movings of the mind, He desires be fastened in Him. He forsooth that truly loves God feels nothing in his heart but God, and if he feel none other thing nought else has he; but whatso he has he loves for God, and he loves nought but that God wills he should love: wherefore nothing but God he loves and so all his love is God. (p. 87).

And he thus sums up all that he has said of heat and song and sweetness, in this account of a man who is perfectly turned to Christ:

He despises all passing things, and he fastens himself immovably to the desire only of his Maker, as far as he is let by mortality, because of the corruption of the flesh. Then no marvel, manly using his might, first, the heaven as it were being opened, with the eye of his understanding he beholds the citizens of heaven; and afterward he feels sweetest heat as it were a burning fire. Then he is imbued with marvellous sweetness, and henceforth he is joyed by a songly noise.

This therefore is perfect charity, which no man knows but he that receives it; and he that has received never leaves it: sweetly he lives, and sickerly shall he die. (p. 89.)

Naturally, and like all true mystics, he longs for death—that lowly door through which we must pass to reach the Hall of Everlasting Love.

And I spake thus to death:

O Death, where dwellest thou? Why comest thou so late to me, living but yet mortal? Why halsest thou not him that desires thee?

Who is enough to think thy sweetness, that art the end of sighing, the beginning of desire, the gate of unfailing yearning? Thou art the end of heaviness, the mark of labours, the beginning of fruits, the gate of joys. Behold I grow hot and desire after thee: if thou come I shall forthwith be safe. Ravished, truly, because of love, I cannot fully love what I desire after, until I taste the joy that Thou shalt give to me.

…. .

Therefore truly I long after love the fairest of flowers, and I am inwardly burnt by the flame of fire. Would God I might go from the dwelling of this exile…. Now, grant my best Beloved, that I may cease; for death, that many dread, shall be to me as heavenly music. Although I am sitting in wilderness yet I am now as it were set stable in Paradise, and there sweetly is sounding a loving song in the delights that my Love has given me. (p. 74-6.)

Here again we note the blending of the three: the burning of the flame; the heavenly music; and the sweet sound of the song of love.

Notes

¹Les Voies Ordinaires de la Vie Spirituelles (trans. 1927; Burns, Oates & Washbourne)….

² Cf. Life of Fogazzaro, p. 290.

³ We have a striking witness to this in the life of Sadhù Sundar Singh. Cf. The Gospel of Sadhù Sundar Singh, by Dr. Friedrich Heiler. See especially pp. 171 sqq. Abridged translation by Olive Wyon (Allen & Unwin, 1927).

⁴ i.e. searched.

⁵ To the core=Lat. medullitus.

⁶ Real.

⁷ Cf. The Living Flame, edited by Lewis and Zimmerman, pp. 33, 55 (Baker, 1912).

⁸ See The Fire, chap, xv., as quoted on p. 83.

⁹ "Abbot Butler says: The imagery of music to express the mystic experience occurs (so far as I know) only here in Augustine [i.e. Enarration on Psalm xli. 4], though it is employed by other mystics, as Richard Rolle"; and he cites the well-known passage from cap. xv. of the Incendium. Cf. Western Mysticism, p. 29. We shall refer to this later in speaking of Richard's debt to Augustine—see p. 134.

¹⁰ See Du Péché à l'Amour Divin, ou l'Amendement du Pécheur (p. 41), par Léopold Denis, S.J. (Desclée, 30 rue Saint-Sulpice, Paris, 1927).

¹¹ Vol. i., p. v.

¹² Some MSS. read immovatur = tarries or dwells in.

¹³ I quote from Dr. Geraldine Hodgson's edition of The Form of Living, etc., pp. 70-1 (Baker, 1910).

¹⁴ Chap, xi., pp. 230 sqq.

¹⁵ Cf. The Form of Living, where these degrees are called "Insuperable, Inseparable, and Singular"

¹⁶ i.e. charges.

¹⁷ Chap, viii., pp. 46 sqq. In my quotations from Dr. Hodgson's edition of The Form I have allowed myself license occasionally to retain the word in the original, and in some places to punctuate differently; I have also inserted numbers—or used italics—when it seemed advisable for the sake of clearness.

¹⁸ Dr. Hodgson translates syker=of sighs. I take it to be the northern form, sicker=sure.

¹⁹ i.e. growing.

²⁰ I have modernised this from MS. Rawl. A. 384, printed by Horstman, vol. i., pp. 62 sqq.

²¹ MS. C. "lufe forsoth has strength in spreding, in knytynge and turnynge."

²² Spreading.

²³ Knitting.

²⁴ Turning.

²⁵ See Ordinary Ways of the Spiritual Life, p. 77.

²⁶ This is modernised from the version given in MS. Dd. 5.64, printed by Dr. Horstman, vol. i., pp. 43 sqq.

²⁷ Chap, x., p. 55.

²⁸ Cf. this from Douce MS. 322, Bodleian: "Through two things principally may a man know whether he be meek or no: Let his heart be not moved though his own will be contraried or againsaid, and when he is despused and falsely challenged and dislandered, yet his will stand unmovable from desiring of wrath, and his mouth be shut from unmeek answer." …

²⁹ Cf. The Fire, p. 233.

³⁰ i.e. long.

³¹ "Consolare medicina tu miseri; ostende te amanti; ecce in te est omne desiderium meum, omne quod querit cor meum," etc. Dr. Horstman takes this absence of rhythm as one of the proofs of the later date of the Incendium, since the Melum Contemplativorum, a much earlier work, is constantly broken up into verse.

³² i.e. embrace.

³³ i.e. claims.

³⁴ Cf. I Cor. xiii.

³⁵ Inextinguishable.

³⁶ Cf. Rom. xiv. 8.