Mechthild of Madeberg, Part 3

This sounds like a serial.

I wasn't able to take as good of notes on this part, due to riding the bus, so I'm really dredging the memory here.

There is more description here than before. We get descriptions of the Kingdoms of Heaven and Hell. She emphasizes order a lot, that the angels and seraphim are below the levels of the honored humans, the apostles, the saints, the Lady, and so on. The Kingdom of Heaven has an end to its statutes as Hell has an end to its order, but there is no end to its being. There is an ordering of the procession into heaven - first maidens, then widows, then the married couples who dare not take away spiritual grace with bodily indulgence. There is even an ordering to the virtues of the choirs that sing, mercy given to the unbaptized children, and so on.

Also, there are more visions of Hell, like 3.15 and 3.21. It is upside down, and the punishments of the sinful are ordered based on what Lucifer does with them, normally some variation of being ground, gnawed, eaten, or kissed foully. The Jews are lower than the mere ignorant. 

There are also a couple of interesting narrative moments. Mary's life story is told, and flowers emphasized again as giving birth to Jesus was like dew through the flowers "so that thy purity was never touched" (3.4). Then in 3.9, she describes the beginning, when the Trinity differentiates, when the Bride is created, when she sins and brings God sorrow, and how Jesus chooses to love her anyhow. Then, as in part 1, the passion of Christ is told again, except this time in terms of what the loving soul would experience, in third person feminine. His suffering is hers, and must be, when a soul is penetrated by the love of God (3.11).

There is more going on here than I can know. More on the Harrowing of Hell by the prophets (3.21)...  What love is good to God. The only other thing I recall is how, when describing the loves in this part, they seem a (hah) mirror image of the ones in part one. Now at one point she has a hot desire that God cools, rather than vice versa. Is the switch intentional, a necessary part of union being this sharing of sensation? I'm not sure.