CHAPTER XXVI

O MY God and my Lord, my hope and the joy of my heart, tell my soul if this be the joy whereof Thou sayest unto us by Thy Son, Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.⁶⁴⁶⁴   John xvi. 24. For I have found a joy that is full and more than full. For when heart and mind and soul and the whole man are full of that joy, yet shall the joy abound yet more beyond measure. Therefore that joy shall not wholly enter into them that rejoice therein; but they that rejoice shall wholly enter into that joy. Tell, O Lord, tell Thy servant inwardly in his heart, if this be the joy whereunto Thy servants shall enter, who shall enter into the joy of their Lord.⁶⁵⁶⁵   Matt. xxv. 21, 23. But assuredly that joy, wherein Thine elect shall rejoice, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man.⁶⁶⁶⁶   1 Cor. ii. 9. And so I have not yet uttered or conceived, O Lord, 45the greatness of the joy of Thy blessed ones. For their joy shall be as great as their love and their love as their knowledge. How great shall be their knowledge of Thee, O Lord, and how great their love of Thee! Surely in this life eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man⁶⁷⁶⁷   1 Cor. ii. 9. to conceive the greatness of their knowledge and love of Thee in the life to come. I pray Thee, O God, let me know Thee and love Thee so that I may rejoice in Thee. And if I cannot know Thee, love Thee, rejoice in Thee fully in this life, let me go forward from day to day, until that knowledge, love and joy at last may be full. Let the knowledge of Thee grow in me here, and there be made full; let the love of Thee increase in me here and there be full; so that my joy may here be great in hope and there full in fruition. O Lord, by Thy Son Thou dost command, nay counsel us to seek and dost promise to accept us that our joy may be full! I seek, O Lord, that which by Thy wonderful Counsellor⁶⁸⁶⁸   Isa. ix. 6. Thou counsellest us to seek; I will accept that which Thou dost promise by Thy Truth, that my joy may be full. O Thou faithful God, I seek; grant that I may receive that my joy may be full. Meanwhile may my mind meditate thereon; may my tongue talk hereof; may my heart love it, my mouth utter it, my soul hunger after it, my flesh thirst after it, my whole substance long for it, until I enter 46into the joy of my Lord, three persons in one God, blessed for evermore. Amen.