sight, or what softer thing may be felt?  Sikerly, none; and that woteth Rachel full well.  For why, reason saith that, in comparison of this sweetness, all other sweetness is sorrow, and bitter as gall before honey.  Nevertheless, yet may a man never come to such a grace by his own slight.[111] For why, it is the gift of God without desert of man.  But without doubt, though it be not the desert of man, yet no man may take such grace without great study and brenning desires coming before; and that woteth Rachel full well, and therefore she multiplieth her study, and whetteth her desires, seeking desire upon desire;[112] so that at the last, in great abundance of brenning desires and sorrow of the delaying of her desire, Benjamin is born, and his mother Rachel dieth;[113] for why, in what time that a soul is ravished above itself by abundance of desires and a great multitude of love, so that it is inflamed with the light of the Godhead, sikerly then dieth all man’s reason.

And therefore, what so thou be that covetest to come to contemplation of God, that is to say, to bring forth such a child that men clepen in the story Benjamin (that is to say, sight of God), then shalt thou use thee in this manner.  Thou shalt call together thy thoughts and thy desires, and make thee of them a church, and learn thee therein for to love only this good word Jesu, so that all thy desires and all thy thoughts are only set for to love Jesu, and that unceasingly as it may be here; so that thou fulfill that is said in the psalm:  “Lord, I shall bless Thee in churches";[114] that is, in thoughts and desires of the love of Jesu.  And then, in this church of thoughts and desires, and in this onehead of studies and of wills, look that all thy thoughts, and all thy desires, and all thy studies, and all thy wills be only set in the love and the praising of this Lord Jesu, without forgetting, as far forth as thou mayst by grace, and as thy frailty will suffer; evermore meeking thee to prayer and to counsel, patiently abiding the will of our Lord, unto the time that thy mind be ravished above itself, to be fed with the fair food of angels in the beholding of God and ghostly things:[115] so that it be fulfilled in thee that is written in the psalm:  Ibi Benjamin adolesentulus in mentis excessu;[116] that is:  “There is Benjamin, the young child, in ravishing of mind.”  The grace of Jesu keep thee evermore.[117] Amen

DEO GRATIAS

II.

Here followeth divers doctrines devout and fruitful, taken out of
the life of that glorious virgin and spouse of our lord, saint
Katherin of Seenes.  And first those which our lord taught and shewed
to herself, and sith those which she taught and shewed unto others