Chapter 22: Of the wounds of Divine love with which the Saint was transfixed

The Saint heard a brother who preached in the chapel saying, amongst other things, that love was a golden arrow, which obtained all that it touched ; and that he was a fool who used this arrow to hunt after earthly pleasures, when he might use it to obtain eternal joys. Then Gertrude ex claimed, in an ardour of love : " Oh, how happy I should be if I possessed this golden arrow ! for I would transfix Thee with it, my Beloved, that I might possess Thee eternally." As she said these words, she beheld our Lord holding a golden arrow in His hand, and He said to her : " You desire to wound Me j but I will to pierce you, so that your wound may never be healed." As He said this, the arrow appeared bent in three places. By this she understood that the arrow of Divine love wounds in three ways : first, by ren dering all earthly pleasures distasteful, so that nothing in this world can afford the soul pleasure or consolation; secondly, by exciting an ardent desire in the soul to be united to God, finding that it cannot breathe or live apart from Him ; thirdly, the soul is so transfixed as to be almost separate from the body, and overwhelmed with the torrent of Divine delights.

After this revelation St. Gertrude desired, with a merely human desire, to die then in the church where this favour had been vouchsafed to her ; as if the holiness of the place where the body ceased to live would have profited the soul. And as she repeatedly asked to obtain this grace, our Lord said to her : " When your soul goes forth from your body, I will hide you under My paternal care, as a mother would cover and caress her beloved child when terrified by fear of shipwreck. And as the mother would rejoice in the joy of her child when they had reached land in safety, so will I rejoice in your joy when you are safe in paradise."

Then the Saint gave thanks to God for all His love, and renounced her former desires, confiding herself entirely to His Divine Providence.