Look up now, thou weak wretch, and see what thou art. What art thou, and how hast thou merited thus to be called by our Lord? What weary wretched heart and sleeping in sloth is that, the which is not wakened with the drawing of this love and the voice of this calling? Beware now in this while of thine enemy; and hold thyself never the holier nor the better, for the worthiness of this calling and for the singular form of living that thou art in; but the more wretched and cursed, unless thou do that in thee is goodly, by grace and by counsel, to live according to thy calling. And insomuch thou shouldst be more meek and loving to thy ghostly Spouse, in that he, that is the Almighty God, King of kings and Lord of lords, would meek himself so low unto thee, and, among all the flock of his sheep, so graciously would choose thee to be one of his specials, and then set thee in the place of pasture, where thou mayest be fed with the sweetness of his love, in earnest of thine heritage the kingdom of heaven.
-Marguerite Porette, Cloud of Unknowing
(via useless-girlrage)
And therefore swink and sweat in all that thou canst, for to get thee a true knowing and a feeling of thyself as thou art; and then I trow that, soon after that, thou shalt have a true knowing and a feeling of God as he is.
-Marguerite Porette, Cloud of Unknowing
(via useless-girlrage)