HERE BEGINNETH THE SIXTIETH CHAPTER
That the high and the next way to heaven is run by desires, and not by paces of
feet.
BUT now peradventure thou sayest, that how should it then be? For thee thinkest
that thou hast very evidence that heaven is upwards; for Christ ascended the air
bodily upwards, and sent the Holy Ghost as He promised coming from above bodily,
seen of all His disciples; and this is our belief. And therefore thee thinkest
since thou hast thus very evidence, why shalt thou not direct thy mind upward
bodily in the time of thy prayer?
And to this will I answer thee so feebly as I can, and say: since it so was,
that Christ should ascend bodily and thereafter send the Holy Ghost
bodily, then it was more seemly that it was upwards and from above than either
downwards and from beneath, behind, or before, on one side or on other. But else
than for this seemliness, Him needed never the more to have went upwards than
downwards; I mean for nearness of the way. For heaven ghostly is as nigh down as
up, and up as down: behind as before, before as behind, on one side as other.
Insomuch, that whoso had a true desire for to be at heaven, then that same time
he were in heaven ghostly. For the high and the next way thither is run by
desires, and not by paces of feet. And therefore saith Saint Paul of himself and
many other thus; although our bodies be presently here in earth, nevertheless
yet our living is in heaven. He meant their love and their desire, the which is
ghostly their life. And surely as verily is a soul there where it loveth, as in
the body that Doeth by it and to the which it giveth life. And
therefore if we will go to heaven ghostly, it needeth not to strain our spirit
neither up nor down, nor on one side nor on other.
our kind sponsors.
