The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe Page B

soul. It is a great grace and miracle that you still have your wits, considering the vexation that you have had from them in the past.
    â€˜I have also, daughter, chastised you with the fear of my Godhead, and many times I have frightened you with great winds and storms, so that you thought vengeance would have fallen on you for sin. I have tested you by many tribulations, many great griefs and many grievous sicknesses, so that you have been anointed for death, and entirely through my grace you have escaped. Therefore don’t be at all afraid, daughter, for with my own hands which were nailed to the cross I shall take your soul from your body with great joy and melody, with sweet smells and fragrances, and offer it to my father in heaven, where you shall see him face to face, dwelling with him without end.
    â€˜Daughter, you will be very welcome to my father, and to my mother, and to all my saints in heaven, for you have given them drink very many times with the tears of your eyes. All my holy saints shall rejoice at your coming home. You shall be fulfilled with every kind of love that you desire. Then you will bless the time that you were made and the body that has [dearly] redeemed you. He shall rejoice in you and you in him without end.
    â€˜Daughter, I promise you the same grace that I promised St Katherine, St Margaret, St Barbara, 1 and St Paul, in that if any person on earth until the Day of Judgement asks any boon of you and believes that God loves you, he shall have his boon or else something better. Therefore those who believe that God loves youshall be blessed without end. The souls in purgatory shall rejoice at your coming home, for they well know that God loves you specially. And men on earth shall rejoice in God for you, for he shall work much grace for you and make all the world to know that God loves you. You have been despised for my love, and therefore you shall be honoured for my love.
    â€˜Daughter, when you are in heaven you will be able to ask what you wish, and I shall grant you all your desire. I have told you before that you are a singular lover of God, and therefore you shall have a singular love in heaven, a singular reward and a singular honour. And because you are a maiden in your soul, I shall take you by the one hand in heaven, and my mother by the other, and so you shall dance in heaven with other holy maidens and virgins, for I may call you dearly bought and my own beloved darling. I shall say to you, my own blessed spouse, “Welcome to me, with every kind of joy and gladness, here to dwell with me and never to depart from me without end, but ever to dwell with me in joy and bliss, which no eye may see, nor ear hear, nor tongue tell, nor heart think, that I have ordained for you and for all my servants who desire to love and please me as you do.” ’

Chapter 23
    There once came a vicar to this creature, asking her to pray for him and discover whether he would please God more by leaving his cure of souls and his benefice or by keeping it, because he thought he was of no use among his parishioners. The creature being in her prayers and having this matter in mind, Christ said to her spirit, ‘Tell the vicar to keep his cure and his benefice, and be diligent in preaching and teaching to them in person, and sometimes to procure others to teach them my laws and my commandments, so that there is no fault on his part, and if they don’t do any better, his reward shall be none the less for it.’
    And so she gave her message as she was commanded, and the vicar still kept his cure.
    As this creature was once in the Church of St Margaret in the choir, where a corpse was present, and he who was the husband of the dead woman while she was alive was there in good health to make an offering at mass, according to the custom of the place, our Lord said to this creature, ‘Lo, daughter, the soul of this body is in purgatory, and he who was her husband is now in good health,