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Chapter 24

The same Mother of the Lord also said to me: ”My daughter, know that when the three magi kings came into the stable to adore my Son, I had foreknown their coming well in advance. And when they entered and adored him, then my Son exulted, and for joy he had then a more cheerful face. I too rejoiced exceedingly; and I was gladdened by the wonderful joy of exultation in my mind, while being attentive to their words and actions, keeping those things and reflecting on them in my heart.”

The Mother of God, speaking to Lady Bridget, tells her some things about her own humility and that of her Son; and she says that just as she and her Son were humble while they were in the world, so too are they humble now although they are in heaven.

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The Mother speaks: ”There is the same humility in my Son now in the power of his Godhead as there was then, when he was laid in the manger. Although he knew all things in accordance with his Godhead, nevertheless, while lying between two animals, he spoke nothing at all, in accordance with his humanity. So too now, sitting at the right hand of the Father, he hears all who speak to him with love; and he answers through infusions of the Holy Spirit. To some he speaks with words and thoughts, to others as if from mouth to mouth, just as it pleases him.

Similarly, I, who am his Mother, am, in my body which has been raised on high above all things created, now as humble as I then was when I was betrothed to Joseph. Moreover, you ought to know for very certain that before Joseph betrothed me, he understood, in the Holy Spirit, that I had vowed my virginity to God and that I was immaculate in thought, word, and deed. He betrothed me with the intention that he might serve me, treating me as his lady, not as his wife.
I too in the Holy Spirit knew for very certain that my virginity would remain forever unharmed even though, as a result of God's hidden plan, I was being betrothed to a husband. But after I gave my consent to the messenger of God, Joseph, seeing my womb swell by virtue of the Holy Spirit, feared very greatly. Not suspecting me of anything sinister, but mindful of the sayings of the prophets who had foretold that the Son of God would be born of a virgin, he reckoned himself unworthy to serve such a mother until the angel instructed him in his sleep not to be afraid but to serve me with charity.
But of our riches, Joseph and I reserved nothing for ourselves except the necessities of life, for the honor of God. The rest we let go, for the love of God. When my Son's hour of birth was at hand - an hour that I very well knew beforehand - I came, in accord with God's foreknowledge, to Bethlehem, bringing with me, for my Son, clean clothing and cloths that no one had ever used before. In them I wrapped, for the firs time, him who was born from me in all purity.
And even though from eternity it was foreseen that I would sit in honor on a most sublime seat above all creatures and above all human beings, yet nonetheless, in my humility, I did not disdain to prepare and serve the things that were necessary for Joseph and myself. Similarly also, my Son was subject to Joseph and to me. Therefore, just as I was humble in the world - known to God alone and to Joseph - so too am I humble now as I sit on a most sublime throne, ready to present to God the rational prayers of all. But some I answer by means of divine outpourings. To others, however, I speak more secretly as is well pleasing to God.”

When Lady Bridget now wished to return from Jerusalem to Rome, she went on the birthday of the Virgin Mary to visit her sepulchre and the other shrines that are there near the city of Jerusalem. As she prayed at the said sepulchre, that same Virgin appeared to her, assuring her about the time of her death and assumption and testifying that this was literally her sepulchre.

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When I was in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, praying at the sepulchre of the glorious Virgin, that same Virgin appeared to me, shining with exceeding splendor, and said: ”Be attentive, daughter! After my Son ascended to heaven, I lived in the world for fifteen years and as much time more as there is from the feast of the ascension of that same Son of mine until my death. And then I lay dead in this sepulchre for fifteen days.

Thereupon I was assumed into heaven with infinite honor and joy. However, my garments with which I was buried then remained in this sepulchre; and I was then clothed in such garments as those that clothe my Son and my Lord, Jesus Christ. Know also that there is no human body in heaven except the glorious body of my Son and my own body. ”Therefore go now, all of you, back to the lands of Christians; ever amend your lives for the better; and in future, live with the greatest of care and attention now that you have visited these holy places, where my Son and I lived in the body and died and were buried.”

When Lady Bridget, in returning from Jerusalem, passed through the city of Naples, at the request of the lady queen and of the archbishop of the said city she prayed to God for that same city's inhabitants. And Christ, speaking to her, reproved the aforesaid inhabitants for their too many sins, showing to them the means by which sinners might reconcile themselves to him, promising them mercy if they would be reconciled and would amend their lives. He also threatens them with the severity of justice if they will not correct themselves but rather persevere in sin. Lady Bridget published this revelation herself in the presence of the said Lord Bernard the archbishop and three masters of theology and two doctors of canon and civil law and some knights and citizens of the said city.

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To a person who was wide awake at prayer and absorbed in contemplation - and while she was in a rapture of mental elevation - Jesus Christ appeared; and he said to her this: ”Hear, O you to whom it has been given to hear and see spiritual things; and be diligently attentive; and in your mind beware in regard to those things that you now will hear and that in my behalf you will announce to the nations, lest you speak them to acquire for yourself honor or human praise. Nor indeed are you to be silent about these things from any fear of human reproach and contempt; for these things that you are now going to hear are being shown to you not only for your own sake, but also because of the prayers of my friends.

For some of my chosen friends in the Neapolitan citizenry have for many years asked me with their whole heart - in their prayers and in their labors on behalf of my enemies living in the same city - to show them some grace through which they could be withdrawn and savingly recalled from their sins and abuses. Swayed by their prayers, I give to you now these words of mine; and therefore diligently hear the things that I speak.
I am the Creator of all and Lord over the devils as well as over the angels, and no one will escape my judgment. The devil, in fact, sinned in a threefold manner against me: namely, through pride; through envy; and through arrogance, i.e., through love of his own will. He was so proud indeed that he wished to be lord over me and that I should be subject to him. He also envied me so much that if it were possible, he would gladly have killed me in order to be lord himself and sit on my throne. Indeed, his own will was so dear to him that he cared nothing at all about my will so long as he could perform his own will. Because of this, he fell from heaven; and, no longer an angel, he became a devil in the depth of hell.
Afterward, however, I, seeing his malice and the great envy that he had toward humankind, showed my will and gave my commandments to human beings that by doing them they could please me and displease the devil. Finally, because of the charity that I have toward human beings, I came into the world and took flesh of a virgin. Indeed, I personally taught them the true way of salvation by work and by word; and to show them perfect charity and love, I opened heaven for them by my own blood.
But what are those human beings who are my enemies doing to me now? In truth, they have contempt for my precepts; they cast me out of their hearts like a loathsome poison; indeed, they spit me out of their mouths like something rotten; and they abhor the sight of me as if I were a leper with the worst of stenches. But the devil and his works they embrace in their every affection and deed. For they bring him into their hearts, doing his will with delight and gladness and following his evil suggestions. Therefore, by my just judgment they shall have their reward in hell with the devil eternally without end.
For in place of the pride that they practice, they will have confusion and eternal shame to such a degree that angels and demons will say of them: 'They are filled with confusion to the very utmost!' And for their insatiable greed, each devil in hell will so fill them with his deadly venom that in their souls there will remain no place that is not filled with diabolic venom. And for the lust with which they burn like senseless animals, they will never be admitted to the sight of my face but will be separated from me and deprived of their inordinate will.
Moreover, know that just as all mortal sins are very serious, so too a venial sin is made mortal if a human being delights in it with the intention of persevering. Wherefore, know that two sins, which I now name to you, are being practiced and that they draw after them other sins that all seem as if venial. But because the people delight in them with the intention of persevering, they are therefore made mortal, and the people in the city of Naples commit many other abominable sins that I do not wish to name to you.
The first of the two sins is that the faces of rational human creatures are being painted with the various colors with which insensible images and statues of idols are colored so that to others, these faces may seem more beautiful than I made them. The second sin is that the bodies of men and women are being deformed from their natural state by the unseemly forms of clothing that the people are using. And the people are doing this because of pride and so that in their bodies they may seem more beautiful and more lascivious than I, God, created them.
And indeed they do this so that those who thus see them may be more quickly provoked and inflamed toward carnal desire. Therefore, know for very certain that as often as they daub their faces with antimony and other extraneous coloring, some of the infusion of the Holy Spirit is diminished in them and the devil draws nearer to them. In fact, as often as they adorn themselves in disorderly and indecent clothing and so deform their bodies, the adornment of their souls is diminished and the devil's power is increased.
O my enemies, who do such things and with effrontery commit other sins contrary to my will, why have you neglected my passion; and why do you not attend in your hearts to how I stood naked at the pillar, bound and cruelly scourged with hard whips, and to how I stood naked on the cross and cried out, full of wounds and clothed in blood? And when you paint and anoint your faces, why do you not look at my face and see how it was full of blood? You are not even attentive to my eyes and how they grew dark and were covered with blood and tears, and how my eyelids turned blue.
Why too do you, not look at my mouth or gaze at my ears and my beard and see how they were aggrieved and were stained with blood? You do not look at the rest of my limbs, monstrously wounded by various punishments, and see how I hung black and blue on the cross and dead for your sake. And there, derided and rejected, I was despised by all in order that, by recalling these things and attentively remembering them, you might love me, your God, and thus escape the devil's snares, in which you have been horribly bound.
However, in your eyes and hearts, all these things have been forgotten and neglected. And so you behave like prostitutes, who love the pleasure and delight of the flesh, but not its offspring. For when they feel a living infant in their womb, at once they procure an abortion by means of herbs and other things so that without losing their fleshly pleasure and further wicked delight, they may thus be always absorbed in their lust and their foul carnal intercourse. This is how you behave. For I, God, your Creator and Redeemer, visit all with my grace, knocking, namely, at your hearts, because I love all.
But when you feel, in your hearts, any knock of an inpouring - namely of my Spirit - or any compunction; or when, through hearing my words, you conceive any good intention, at once you procure spiritually, as it were, an abortion, namely, by excusing your sins and by delighting in them and even by damnably willing to persevere in them. For that reason, you do the devil's will, enclosing him in your hearts and expelling me in this contemptible way. Therefore, you are without me, and I am not with you. And you are not in me but in the devil, for it is his will and his suggestions that you obey.
And so, because I have just spoken my judgment, I shall also now speak my mercy. My mercy, however, is this: namely, that none of my very enemies is so thorough or so great a sinner that my mercy would be denied him if he were to ask for it humbly and wholeheartedly. Wherefore, my enemies must do three things if they wish reconcile themselves to my grace and friendship. The first is that with all their heart they repent and have contrition because they have offended me, their Creator and Redeemer. The second thing is confession - clean, frequent, and humble - which they must make before their confessor.
And thus let them amend all their sins by doing penance and making satisfaction in accord with that same confessor's council and discretion. For then I shall draw close to them, and the devil will be kept far away from them. The third thing is that after they have thus performed these things with devotion and perfect charity, they are to go to communion and receive and consume my Body with the intention of never falling back into former sins but of persevering in good even to the end.
If anyone, therefore, amends his life in this manner, at once I will run out to meet him as a loving father runs to meet his wayward son; and I will receive him into my grace more gladly than he himself could have asked or thought. And then I will be in him, and he in me; and he shall live with me and rejoice forever. But upon him who perseveres in his sins and malice my justice shall indubitably come. For when the fisherman sees the fish in the water playing in their delight and merriment, even then he drops his hook into the sea and draws it out, catching the fish in turn and then putting them to death - not all at once, but a few at a time - until he has taken them all.
This is indeed what I shall do to my enemies who persevere in sin. For I shall bring them a few at a time to the consummation of the worldly life of this age in which they take temporal and carnal delight. And at an hour that they do not believe and are living in even greater delight, I shall then snatch them away from earthly life and put them to eternal death in a place where they will nevermore see my face because they loved to do and accomplish their inordinate and corrupted will rather than perform my will and my commandments.” However, after these things had thus been seen and heard, this vision disappeared.

A revelation of the Virgin Mary which Lady Bridget had in the city of Naples. And she directs it to Lord Bernard, the Neapolitan archbishop. The revelation reproaches those who do not instruct their servants or infidel slaves, newly converted to the faith, in that same Catholic faith and Christian law. The Virgin Mary also reproves those masters who maltreat these said servants of theirs and exasperate them beyond measure. She also threatens with great punishment fortune-tellers and enchanters and diviners and also those who support them and put faith in them.

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