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The Nature of Sanctity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 September 2024
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In her autobiography Margery Kempe reports our Lord as saying to ‘this creature’ (herself): ‘Fasting, Daughter, is good for young beginners, and discreet penance, and for to bid many beads, it is good for them that can no better do, and yet it is not perfect. But it is a good way to perfectionward. For I tell thee, Daughter, that they that are great fasters and great doers of penance they would that it should be held the best life; also they that give themselves to say many devotions, they would have it that that is the best life; and they that give much alms, they would that there held the best life. And I have oftentimes, Daughter, told thee that thinking, weeping and high contemplation is best life in earth. And thou shalt have more merit in heaven for one year of thinking in thy mind, than for an hundred year of praying with thy mouth, and yet thou wilt not believe me, for thou wilt many beads whether I will or not.'
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- Copyright © 1953 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Adapted from a paper read at the Conference of Ecclesiastical Studies, Easter, 1953.
2 Quoted from The Coasts of the Country, an Anthology of Prayer drawn from the Early English Spiritual Writers, edited by Clare Kirchberger, P.34.
3 ‘Et quia id quod est simpliciter est principium et maximum respectu aliorum, inde est quod perfectio caritatis est principalissima respectu perfectionis quae attenditur secundum alias virtutes.’
4 Perfection chrétienne et contemplation (1923), vol. I, p. 170.
5 De Statibus Hominum in 11-11, q. 184, a. 1.
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