"... I understood that in our Lord's intention we are now on his cross with him in our pains, and in our sufferings we are dying, and with his help and his grace we willingly endure on that same cross until the last moment of life. Suddenly he will change his appearance for us, and we shall be with him in heaven. Between the one and the other all will be a single era; and then all will be brought into joy. And this was what he meant in this revelation: 'Where is there now any instant of your pain or of your grief?' And we shall be full of joy. And here I saw truly that if he revealed to us now his countenance of joy, there is not pain on earth or anywhere else which could trouble us, but everything would be joy and bliss for us. But because he shows us his suffering countenance, as he was in this life as he carried his cross, we are therefore in suffering and labour with him as our nature requires."--Julian of Norwich, Showings (long text), ch.21 (p.215 in the Colledge and Walsh trans., Paulist, 1978--quotation marks added).
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