VISIO QUARTA, cap. XX
A Cry for Divine Shelter
The soul pleads for God's protection from wicked spirits and deceitful desires, resting in His faithful defense.
"Protect me under the shadow of your wings, from the face of the wicked who have afflicted me.✦ This is clear to the understanding: You who are the defender of all the faithful, defend me under the rest of your mightiest powers, who am under your power, adoring you, worshiping you, and not looking toward a foreign and deceitful god; and free me from the worst and most shameful desires of the wicked spirits, which afflict me in the delight of the flesh.
The Soul's Joy and Lament in the Body
The soul speaks in triumphant joy when the body consents to virtue, then turns to grief when dragged toward death by fleshly delight.
And so the soul, in the perfection of this victory, says: "O flesh, and O members, in which I dwell, I rejoice greatly, because I have been sent into you, since when you consent to me, you send me toward eternal rewards. But the soul that feels that wicked works touch her, speaks thus in grief: "Alas! because I have been sent into a dwelling of this kind, which drags me into the shadow of death, since its delight, like a mill, makes me run, and work the works of death.1 "
Reason as the Soul's Governing Power
The body is governed through the head and senses, just as the cosmos is ordered through the firmament, with reason as the soul's principal power reaching toward heavenly things.
Just as the work of the earth is fulfilled through the firmament and the various qualities of its circles, so too the whole body is governed through the head and the senses, which thrive especially in it; and because according to these things there is a principal something—that is, reason—by which it reaches for heavenly things, and other powers by which it manages the body are assigned to the soul.
Read the original Latin
« Sub umbra alarum tuarum protege me a facie impiorum qui me afflixerunt . » Quod sic intellectui patet: Tu qui defensor omnium fidelium es, sub quiete fortissimarum virium tuarum defende me, qui sub potentia tua sum te adorans, te colens, et non ad alienum et illusorem deum respiciens; et libera me a pessimis et turpissimis concupiscentiis malignorum spirituum, quae in delectatione carnis me affligunt. Unde et anima in perfectione hujus victoriae dicit: « O caro, et o membra, in quibus habito, quamplurimum gaudeo, quoniam in vos missa sum, quia cum mihi consentitis, ad aeterna praemia me mittitis. » Anima autem quae sentit quod prava opera ipsam tangant, sic dicit moerendo: « Ach! quia in hujusmodi habitaculum missa sum, quod in umbram mortis me trahit, quoniam delectatio ejus quemadmodum molendinum me currere facit, et opera mortis operari. »
Quod sicut per firmamentum et varias circulorum ejus qualitates terrae officia complentur, ita et per caput et sensus qui in eo maxime vigent totum corpus regatur; et quia etiam secundum ista principale quiddam, id est ratio, quo coelestia appetat et vires aliae quibus corpus administret animae attributae sunt.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.17.8 — Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.
Notes
- 1 ↩The mill simile (quemadmodum molendinum) conveys how carnal delight drives the soul relentlessly, as a millstone grinds without rest.
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