VISIO QUARTA, cap. LVIII
Birds and Fish: Nature's Lesson for the Soul
Strong birds are strengthened by the summer air, and large fish are sustained when that same air descends into rivers, showing how creatures are nourished by invisible elements.
Some birds too, remarkably strong ones, fly into the same air in summer while aloft and are strengthened by the air itself; and that same air, at times descending into rivers, strengthens certain large fish, so that they can go without food for a while.1
The Soul Lifts the Body Like Air Lifts a Bird
When the soul draws the body to consent, it soars into heaven like a bird in the air, and just as a bird cannot fly without air, the body cannot move apart from the soul.
In the same way, when the soul has drawn the body to its consent, it flies into the height of heaven, like a bird into the air; and just as a bird cannot fly without air, so neither can the body move by itself, but only through the soul.2
Burning with Love and Fed by Scripture
One who consents to the soul's desires burns with love for God, delights in contemplative faith and Holy Scripture, and is invisibly nourished like a fish sustained by air and flowing water.
But when a person has at times consented to the soul's desires, he burns entirely with the love of God, and so, flying from day to day in the joy of eternal happiness, he delights in contemplative faith and in the wisdom of the Holy Scriptures; he is invisibly fed and strengthened by their sweetness, like a fish that is strengthened through the air and through the flow of waters, and sometimes lives in the waters without food.34
The Hidden Currents That Bring Forth Good Works
As the sea and rivers are moved by air, the body by blood-filled veins, and the soul by its powers, so the soul — like earth watered by streams — brings forth the good shoots of good works.
Because the sea and the rivers are moved through the air, and the body through veins infused with blood, and the soul through its powers — through which, like earth watered by streams, it may bring forth the good shoots of good works.
Read the original Latin
Quaedam etiam volatilia, quae magnae fortitudinis sunt, in aestate in eumdem aerem volantia ab ipso confortantur, ipseque aer aliquando in flumina descendens quosdam magnos pisces confortat, ita ut aliquandiu sine pastu esse possint. Similiter cum anima corpus ad consensum suum traxerit, in altitudinem coeli, velut avis in aerem, volat, et sicut avis sine aere volare non valet, sic nec corpus per se, sed per animam movetur. Sed cum homo desideriis animae aliquando consenserit, in charitate Dei totus ardet, sicque de die in diem in jucunditate aeternae laetitiae volans, in speculativa fide et in sapientia sanctarum Scripturarum delectatur, quarum suavitate invisibiliter pascitur et confortatur, velut piscis qui per aerem et per fluxum aquarum confortatus, in aquis sine pastu interdum vivit.
Quod et mare et flumina per aerem, et per venas sanguine infusas corpus, et per virtutes anima moveantur, quibus sicut terra rivulis irrigata bonorum germina operum proferat.
Notes
- 1 ↩The participial phrase volantia is read as agreeing with volatilia (nominative) rather than as an ablative absolute; either way the sense is that the birds are strengthened by the air while in flight.
- 2 ↩Traxerit could be perfect indicative or future perfect; the temporal clause is read as 'when the soul has drawn,' pointing to the soul's formative authority over the body.
- 3 ↩Consenserit is ambiguous between perfect indicative and future perfect; read here as 'has consented' to express the completed interior assent that precedes the soul's burning love.
- 4 ↩Charitate is rendered 'love of God' rather than 'charity' to keep the devotional register natural; the theological sense of charity as divine love is preserved by context.
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