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Chapter 29

Blessed be God forever for all his bounties! Amen. My Lord, most reverend Father, first of all I humbly recommend myself to you. You have written to me with humility that I, a woman unknown to you, should humbly pray to God for you. To this I reply and tell you truthfully, according to my conscience, that I am inadequate for such a task: being a sinner, alas, and unworthy. You have also written to me that I should write to you some spiritual advice for the salvation of your soul. And therefore God, attending to your faith and humility, willed with devoted fatherly love to satisfy your desires and faith and was attentive, not to my sins, but to the heartfelt affection of his humble petitioner.

For when I, a sinner unworthy of doing so, was praying for you on the preceding day to my Lord Jesus Christ, he then appeared to me in spirit and spoke with me, using a similitude and saying this: ”O you, to whom it has been given to hear spiritually and to see, be attentive now and know for very certain that all bishops and abbots and also all the other ecclesiastical prelates and benefice-holders who have the care of souls and who leave their churches and my sheep, which have been entrusted to them, and who receive and hold other offices and positions of rulership with the intention and purpose that in these offices they may be more honored by human beings and may be exalted and raised to a higher status in the world, then, even though in those offices these rulers neither steal nor plunder anything nor commit any other injustice, nevertheless, because they glory and delight in those offices and honors and, for this reason, leave my sheep and their churches, they are, in doing such things, to my eyes like pigs dressed in pontifical or sacerdotal ornaments.
This situation might be expressed by means of the following similitude: There was a great lord who had invited his friends to supper. And at the hour of the supper, those pigs - dressed as above - entered into the palace in the sight of that lord and in the sight of the banqueters who sat at the table. The lord, however, wished to give to them some of those precious foods on his table; but then the aforesaid pigs cried out with a loud sound, grunting their opposition with their pig voices and refusing to eat those precious foods, although they were avidly eager to eat, in their usual way, the cheap husks meant for pigs.
Then, however, when that lord saw and understood this, he loathed their vileness and filth; and at once he said to his servants with great wrath and indignation: 'Expel them from my palace and cast them forth to be refreshed and sordidly sated with the pigs' husks of which they are worthy! For they are neither willing nor worthy to eat of my foods, which have been prepared for my friends.' ”
By these things, my most reverend Father and Lord, I then understood in spirit that this is what you must do: namely, that you must decide in your own conscience whether or not those sheep of Christ, namely, those entrusted to you in your bishopric, are being well and spiritually ruled in your absence. If in your absence they are being well ruled in accord with what is spiritually appropriate to their souls' advantage and benefit, and if furthermore you see that by ruling the March you can do God greater honor and be more useful to souls than in your own bishopric, then indeed I say that you can quite lawfully stay in your office as ruler of the March in accord with the will of God, provided that it is neither desire for honor nor empty glorying in that office that seduces you into staying there.
If, in fact, your conscience dictates to you the contrary, then I advise you to leave that office of the marquisate and go back to reside personally in your own church and in the bishopric entrusted to you: namely, in order to rule those sheep of yours, or rather, of Christ, specially entrusted to you and to feed them by word, example, and work, not negligently and faultily like a wicked hireling, but carefully and virtuously like a true and good shepherd.
Be forbearing with me, my Lord, in that I, although an ignorant woman and an unworthy sinner, write such things to you. I ask of him, our true and good Shepherd, who deigned to die for his sheep, that he may bestow on you the Holy Spirit's grace, by which you may worthily rule his sheep and always do his glorious and most holy will, even till death.

The Judge complains to the bride about the universal number of sinners of all states and conditions, narrating the good deeds that he did for them and their ingratitude. He also threatens them with the terrible sentence of his wrath. Nevertheless, he admonishes them to be converted to him; and he will receive them with mercy, like a father.

332. Chapter 30

I saw a grand palace like the serene sky. In it was the host of the heavenly army, innumerable as the atoms of the sun and having a gleam as of the sun's rays. But in the palace, on a wonderful throne there sat, as it were, the person of a human being, a Lord of incomprehensible beauty and immense power; his clothes were wonderful and of inexpressible brightness. And before him who sat on the throne there stood a Virgin who was more radiant than the sun.

All those of the heavenly host, who stood nearby, reverently honored her as the queen of heaven. But then he who sat on the throne opened his mouth and said: ”Hearken, all you my enemies who live in the world; for to my friends who follow my will, I am not speaking. Hearken, all you clerics: archbishops and bishops and all of lower rank in the Church! Hearken, all you religious, of whatever order you are! Hearken, you kings and princes and judges of the earth and all you who serve!
Hearken, you women: princesses and all ladies and maidservants! All you inhabitants of the world, of whatever condition or rank you are, whether great or small, hearken to these words that I myself, who created you, now speak to you! I complain because you have withdrawn from me and have put faith in the devil, my enemy. You have abandoned my commandments and you follow the will of the devil and you obey his suggestions.
You do not attend to the fact that I, the unchanging and eternal God, your Creator, came down from heaven to a Virgin and took flesh from her and lived with you. Through my own self, I opened the way for you and showed the counsels by which you might go to heaven. I was stripped and scourged and crowned with thorns and so forcefully extended on the cross that, as it were, all the sinews and joints of my body were being undone. I heard all insults and endured a most contemptible death and most bitter heartache for the sake of your salvation.
To all these things, O my enemies, you are not attentive because you have been deceived. Therefore you bear the yoke and burden of the devil with false sweetness and neither know nor feel them before the approach of sorrow over the interminable burden. Nor is this enough for you; for your pride is so great that if you could ascend above me, you would gladly do it. And the pleasure of the flesh is so important to you that you would more gladly forfeit me than give up your inordinate delight.
Moreover, your greed is as insatiable as a sack with a hole in it; for there is nothing that can satisfy your greed. Therefore, I swear by my Godhead that if you are to die in the state in which you now are, you shall never see my face; but for your pride you shall sink so deeply into hell that all the devils will be above you, afflicting you beyond all consolation. Indeed, for your lust you shall be filled with horrible diabolic venom; and for your greed you shall be filled with sorrow and anguish; and you shall be partakers of all the evil that there is in hell.
O my enemies - abominable and ungrateful and degenerate - I seem to you, as it were, a worm dead in winter. Therefore, you do whatever things you will, and you prosper. Therefore, I will arise in summer and then you shall be silent, and you shall not escape my hand. But nevertheless, O my enemies, because I have redeemed you with my blood and because I am in quest of naught but your souls, therefore return to me even now with humility and I will gladly receive you as my children. Shake off from you the devil's heavy yoke and recall my charity and you shall see in your conscience that I am sweet and meek.”

In Rome Christ speaks to his bride, blessed Bridget, foretelling to her the day and manner of her death and ordering what should be done with the books of revelations. He also says that when he so pleases, there will be many in the world who will receive them with devotion and who will obtain his grace. The Lord also makes arrangements concerning the body of his bride and where it ought to be buried.

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