VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXXXIV
The Body's Waters and the Soul's Discipline
The body's watery channels become an image of the soul's struggle to restrain restless thoughts, trust in grace, and rise in humble repentance until heaven itself yields to the victorious soul.
But the bladder of a person, which takes in and gives out the flood of waters that pour this way and across the land, shows that just as it receives and releases the flowing streams of the belly, so too the rivers now grow and now shrink, and yet they water the whole land. Therefore the soul, to whom the nature of flesh and blood is opposed, teaches the person both to hold back from restless thoughts and, for their sins, never to lose hope in God's grace, but to prostrate themselves in true humility at the Lord's feet for those sins, so that almighty God may mercifully grant them forgiveness in the bitterness of repentance. For when the soul has so overcome the person in their lowly nature that heaven yields to them in everything, it passes through victoriously by this very word.
Desire for God's Law Amid Fleshly Resistance
A psalm verse kindles longing for God's salvation, and grace pours in like swift water so that the soul meditates on God's commands against the flesh's resistance, as a mill grinds grain by water.
'I have desired your salvation, Lord, and your law is my meditation.'✦ This is plain to understanding: that I, in my flesh — which by itself does not consent to your commands for the good — have desired and understood you, and through the power of your salvation, like swift water, it so poured in that I would meditate on your commands in the midst of my powers and in the midst of my heart, against the will of that same flesh. And just as a mill crushes grain for food by means of water, so I, who am the channel for the water's course in the body, carefully observe all your commands by seeking them out from my own nature.
The Victorious Soul Governs the Body
The victorious soul governs the body by receiving good and releasing evil, and the hidden passages of digestion signify both the soul's lament and its hope breathed into God through repentance and Christ's passion.
For just as a person's bladder receives and releases the watery moisture of the body, and as rivers, growing and shrinking, soak the whole land, so the victorious soul governs the whole body by receiving good and releasing evil, through the commands of God, whose powers grow in good works and shrink in evil ones. That the hidden, winding paths of rivers might be signified by those places in the body through which food and drink are digested, and the lament of a soul stained by foul and filthy deeds, yet breathing toward God through the hope of repentance and the passion of Christ — a verse from Psalm 41 being brought forward as testimony, fitting in this way.
Read the original Latin
Sed vesica hominis inundationem fluminum quae hac et illac per terram diffunduntur, ostendit, quoniam ut illa fluenta ventris recipit et emittit, sic etiam et flumina nunc crescunt, nunc vero decrescunt, totamque terram irrigant. Anima itaque, cui natura carnis et sanguinis contraria est, hominem ut ab inquietis cogitationibus se abstineat, et pro peccatis suis de gratia Dei non desperet, sed ut in vera humilitate ad pedes Domini pro illis se prosternat, docet, quatenus omnipotens Deus in amara poenitentia ei peccata sua misericorditer ignoscere dignetur. Cum enim ipsa hominem in humili natura sua ita superavit, ut ei in omnibus consentiat, coelum sic dicendo victoriose pertransit. « Concupivi salutare tuum, Domine, et lex tua meditatio mea est . » Quod sic intellectui patet: Ego in carne mea, quae praeceptis tuis per se in bono non consentit, te desideravi et intellexi, et per vim salutaris tui quasi veloci aqua ita infundebat, ut in medio virium mearum et in medio cordis mei, mandata tua contra voluntatem ejusdem carnis meditarer. Et quemadmodum molendinum grana ad edendum per aquas conterit, sic ego, quae torrens iter aquae in corpore sum, omnia praecepta tua ex natura mea requirendo diligenter observo. Sicut enim vesica hominis aquosam humiditatem corporis recipit et emittit, et ut flumina crescendo et decrescendo totam terram perfundunt, sic victoriosa anima totum corpus, bonum recipiendo et malum emittendo, praeceptis Dei regit, cujus vires in bonis crescunt et in malis decrescunt.
Quod ex locis corporis per quae digestio ciborum et potuum fit, secreti et sub erranei meatus fluminum designentur, et querela animae lutulentis et fetidis operibus pollutae, et per spem poenitentiae et passionem Christi in Deum respirantis, adducto in testimonium versu psalmi XLI in hoc convenienti.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.119.128 — Therefore I esteem all your precepts concerning everything as right; I hate every false way.
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