VISIO QUARTA, cap. XL
The Soul's Rising Waters of Prayer
The soul's longing for God is likened to rising waters and fiery breath, driving it toward constant prayer and divine knowledge.
In the tongue, the rising up of waters — by which they are lifted toward a flood — is shown, because just as words are formed through the tongue, so through that rising the waters themselves are produced into waves. By this is signified that the soul, longing to be present to heavenly desires, drives its vessel toward the praises of its Creator, and makes it bring forth constant prayers with devotion of mind. And the soul is moved by moisture and sounds forth from a fiery noise, and through this — that it is fiery — it knows God, and through this — that it is breath — it pants toward God, who is spirit.
The Pure Path and the Flood of Sin
The soul walks a just path in goodness like clear air, but sin overturns that path like a flood of waters.
When it accomplishes what is good, it has a just path, like pure air that lacks dark clouds; but when it works the rottenness of sinners, it is like a flood of waters that overturns the pure path of air.
Turning from Sin to Mercy and New Life
Withdrawing from sins, the soul seeks God's grace like raising Lazarus, weaving correction into a firm hedge and stable repentance.
But when it then withdraws itself from sins, just as it is written in the Gospel about the steward who, leaving sins behind and diminishing debts, turned to mercy, and when after sins it seeks the grace of God so that it may raise her up like four-day Lazarus, drawing deep sighs and weaving its correction like a firm hedge and persisting in good works lest it again draw near to the custom of sinners, it works stable repentance like a firmament, lest anew through a beginning of sinning it do evil things.
The Mystery of Hollow Teeth
A question is posed about what virtue or strength may be expressed through hollow teeth lacking marrow.
What virtue or strength can be expressed in us through teeth that are hollow and have no marrow.1
Read the original Latin
In lingua vero elevatio aquarum, qua ad inundationem sustolluntur, ostenditur, quia ut per linguam verba formantur, ita per elevationem ipsae aquae in undas procreantur. Per quod designatur quod anima coelestibus desideriis inesse desiderans, vas suum ad laudes Creatoris sui impellit, illudque assiduas orationes cum devotione mentis proferre facit. Et anima de humiditate movetur, et de igneo strepitu sonat, atque per hoc quod ignea est Deum cognoscit, et per hoc quod spiraculum est, ad Deum, qui spiritus est, anhelat. Quae cum ea quae bona sunt perficit, justum iter habet, velut purus aer qui tenebrosis nubibus caret; cum autem putredinem peccatorum operatur, quasi inundatio aquarum est, quae purum iter aeris evertunt. Sed cum deinde a peccatis se amoverit, sicut in Evangelio scriptum est de villico qui, peccata relinquendo et debita minuendo, ad misericordiam se convertit, et cum post peccata gratiam Dei quaerit, ut eam velut quatriduanum Lazarum exsuscitet, intima suspiria trahens, et correctionem sui quasi firmam sepem nectens, atque bonis operibus insistens, ne consuetudini peccatorum iterum appropinquet, poenitentiam stabilem velut firmamentum operatur, ne denuo per incoeptionem peccandi mala faciat.
Quid virtutis vel fortitudinis per dentes, qui cavernosi sunt, nec medullam habent, in nobis exprimatur.
Notes
- 1 ↩The subjunctive exprimatur may carry a potential nuance ('may be expressed') or a deliberative rhetorical force. Rendered as potential to preserve the mood without foreclosing the rhetorical question reading.
Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works) companion
Don't stop at Day 30
All 317 chapters live in the free Chosen Portion app, paced for daily reading
Hildegard's practice of daily attention to God's work in creation becomes a paced daily devotional through all ten visions in the Chosen Portion app
- One vision passage a day, readable in under 10 minutes
- The complete Book of Divine Works plus Hildegard's other major works, free
- Progress tracking so a 317-chapter classic actually gets finished