Editor's note: Chapter Fifty-Two is 47 paragraphs long! We will be publishing this 10 paragraphs (approximately, depending on content) and posting over the next 5 days (including today). We will link to the next ten paragraphs at the end of the page.
This is the third section of a revelation sent to the holy spouse of Christ, Saint Bridget, in which our
Lady Saint Mary reproached the pride of women in their stance, bearing, speech,
dress, and other behavior, with the example of three wretched women: of which one
was in Hell, another in Purgatory, and the third, alive.
Then said this dead mother to the spouse of Christ, Saint Bridget: "You", she
said, "who see me, see me not but by bodily likeness. For if you should see me in
that form in which I am, you would die from fear; and all my members are devils.
And therefore the Scripture is true which says that as rightful men are members of
God, so sinners are members of the devil. Right so I now experience the devil's
arms fastened into my soul; for the will of my heart has disposed me to so much
filth, deformity and misshapenness.
But hear now more. It seems to you that my feet are toads. That is because I
stood firmly in sin; therefore now fiends stand firmly in me. And always biting and
gnawing at me, they are never full. My legs and my thighs are as staves full of
prickly thorns, for I had a will after fleshly delight and my own lust.
That each chine of my back is loose, and each of them moves against the
other; that is therefore because the joy of my lust sometimes went too much upward
for worldly solace and comfort, and sometimes too much downward because of too
much depression, grouching, and wrath because of the adversity and disease of the
world. And there as the back is moved and stirred after the motions of the head, so
ought I to have been stable and moveable according to God's will, who is the head
of all good. But because I did not do so, therefore I justly suffer these pains which
you now see.
That a serpent creeps forth from the lower parts of my stomach to the higher
parts, and standing like a bow turned about as a wheel, is because my lust and
delight were inordinate; and my will would have had all the world's goods in its
possession; and in many ways to have spent them, and indiscreetly. Therefore the
serpent now searches about in my entrails without comfort, gnawing and biting
without mercy.
That my breast is open and altogether gnawn with worms, shows the true
justice of God, for I loved foul and rotten things more than God; and the love of my
heart was all given to transitory and passing things of the flesh and of the world.
And therefore as from small worms are brought longer worms, right so is my soul;
for the foul stinking things which I loved are filled with devils. My arms seem as if
they are beams; that is because I had my desire like two arms; that is to say,
because I desired a long life, that I might have lived longer in sin.
I would also and desired that the Judgement of God had been easier than the
Scripture said. Nevertheless, my conscience told me very well that my time was
short and the Judgement of God insufferable. But again my desire and delight that I
had in sinning stirred me to think that my life should be long and the Judgement of
God bearable. And of such suggestions my conscience was subverted and turned
upside down, and my will and reason followed lust and delectation. And therefore
the devil is now lodged in my soul against my will, and my conscience understands
and feels that the Judgement of God is right.
My hands are like long keys. And that is because the precepts and
commandments were not pleasing to me; and therefore my hands are now to me a
great burden, and lack any use. My neck is turned like wood which is placed
against a sharp blade; that is because the words of God were not sweet to me to
swallow and taste them in the charity and love of my heart; but they were too bitter,
for they argued and criticized the delight and will of my heart; and therefore now a
sharp blade stands at my throat.
My lips are cut off, for they were ready with vain, joking, and dishonest words
of pride; but they failed and found it irksome to speak the words of God. My chin
appears to be trembling, and my teeth grind and beat together; that is because I was
wilfull in giving food to my body, so that I might seem fair and desirable, whole
and strong to all the delights and pleasures of the body. And therefore now my chin
trembles and quakes without comfort, and my teeth beat together; for all that they
wasted was but unprofitable work as far as being fruit for the soul.
My nose is cut off; because amongst you it is done to them who trespass in
such a case to their greater shaming, right so is the mark of my shame set upon me
for ever. That my eyes hang down by sinews upon my cheeks is correct for, just as
the eyes joyed in the fairness of my cheeks for ostentation and showing-off from
pride, so now from much weeping they are put out and hang down to my cheeks
with shame and confusion. And right so is my forehead hollow, and instead of it
there is a great darkness. For about my forehead was set the veil and array of pride;
and I would appear glorious, and be seen of fairness, and seem fair. And therefore
is my forehead now dark and foul, deformed and misshapen. That my brain boils up
and flows out like lead and pitch, is well deserved. For as lead is soft and may be
bent according to the will of him who uses it, so was my conscience, which lay in
my brain, bowed to the will of my heart, although I understood well the things that
I should have done.
And the Passion also of the Son of God was in no way fastened in my heart,
but it flowed out like a thing that I knew well and took no heed of. And
furthermore, of that holy blood which flowed out of the members of the Son of
God, I took no more heed than of pitch, and fled, as if they were pitch, from the
words of charity and of the love of God, lest they should convert me or trouble me
from the delights of the body. Nevertheless, sometimes I heard the words of God to
the shame of man; but as quickly as they entered, so quickly went they out of my
heart again. And therefore now my brain flows out like burning pitch, with
extremely hot boiling. My ears are stopped with hard stones, for words of pride
entered in them joyfully, and softly and sweetly they went down into the heart, for
the charity of God was closed out of my heart. And because I did all that I could for
pride and for the world, therefore now joyful words have been shut out from my
ears.
But you may ask if I did any meritorious or good deeds. And I answer you I
did as does a money changer, who clips and cuts the money; and then reassigns or
takes it again to the lord to whom it belongs. So I fasted and made alms and such
other good works; but I did them for fear of Hell, and to escape the adversities and
disease of the body. But because the charity and the love of God was cut off from
my deeds, therefore such deeds were not valuable to me for obtaining Heaven,
although they were not without reward. You might also ask how I am within in my
will, when so much foulness and distortion is without. I answer: My will is as the
will of a manslayer or of him who would gladly slay his own mother. So I covet
and desire the worst evil to God, my Creator, who has been to me the best and most
sweet".
Revelations and Prophecies Imparted to St. Bridget
