VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXXXV
The Body's Hidden Passages and the Soul's Filth
The body's hidden digestive passages are used as a metaphor for how what is concealed in the soul must eventually be brought into the open.
In the places where the digestion of food and drink is discharged, the secret and underground passages of those rivers are marked out, because just as digestion in the human body cannot remain but, once expelled, becomes visible, so too those passages discharge the fluids and bring them into the open.
The Soul's Lament and Turn to Hope
The soul grieves over its sins in despair, then turns back to God in trust, finding consolation and hope through grace.
But when the soul, hidden from the light in its filthy sins, can't hold itself back, it says with a lament of grief: 'Ah, ah, wretched me — I who breathe the breath of life, wrapped in the stench of so many sins that no joy is strong enough for me to look up to heaven.' 'Oh — where have I come from, or where am I going, and what good is every good thing God created, when I'm being plunged into hell?' But afterward, turning back into itself, it says again: 'I trust in my God, because in true penitence, through his mercy, I can be set free from the infernal torments I have deserved.' And so, consoled and strengthened by God's grace, it says again: 'Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me?' Hope in God, for I will still confess to him — the salvation of my countenance and my God.
Healing Through Christ's Wounds and Bitter Penance
The penitent soul finds hope in Christ's wounds and lays bare all evil works in bitter penitence, just as the body expels waste.
This is plain to understanding: when a person, compelled by the nature of the soul, has resolved to amend his sins, in the joy that has flowed into him from the streams of living water he says, 'Why am I so deeply troubled and disturbed in my soul, when through God's grace I can wipe away the wounds of my sins with sighs and tears — those same wounds that through the wounds of my Lord, who endured the nails and the lance for my sins, I trust will set me free?' All evil works, too, he afterward lays bare in bitter penitence, just as the discharge of food and drink is expelled.
Good Works Breaking Forth Like Light from Water
Just as underground waters break through to the surface, a sinner's good works become visible and spread a good reputation across the earth.
And just as lights break through from underground waters onto the earth's surface, so the finest reputation for these things spreads across the earth, because someone who was extinguished in sin is revealed through good works.
The Body's Members as the Landscape of the Soul
The body's parts allegorically signify the earth's terrain, and the soul's powers restrain the flesh's softness so that adorned with virtues it may enkindle the angels to praise God.
That through the back and sides of man the level plain of earth is signified, while through the thighs, indeed, and the places of sitting, the hills and ruggedness of the same earth below — hard and impenetrable — and the upper part, which is soft, of the constraining one is insinuated; and that likewise by the powers of the soul the softness of the flesh is restrained by vices, so that adorned with the pearls of virtues, it may enkindle the holy angels toward admiration of itself and toward the praise of God.12
Read the original Latin
In locis autem ubi digestio ciborum et potuum emittitur, secreti et subterranei meatus praedictorum fluminum designantur, quia, ut digestio in corpore hominis permanere non potest, sed ejecta apparet, ita quoque et meatus isti flumina ejiciunt, illaque ad apertam manifestationem perducunt. Cum vero anima in lutulentis peccatis a luce abscondita est, se abstinere non potest quin lamentabili voce dicat: « Ach, ach, ego infelix quae vivens spiraculum adeo sum, tanto fetore peccatorum involuta sum, ut nulla laetitia coelum respicere valeam. Ach, unde veni, aut quo vadam, et quid prosunt mihi omnia bona quae Deus creavit, cum in infernum dimergar? » Sed postea in se reversa iterum dicit: « Confido in Deo meo, quia in vera poenitentia per misericordiam ipsius de infernalibus tormentis quae promerui liberari possim. Et sic per gratiam Dei consolata et confortata iterum dicit: « Quare tristis es, anima mea, et quare conturbas me? Spera in Deo, quoniam adhuc confitebor illi salutare vultus mei et Deus meus . » Quod sic intellectui patet: Cum homo peccata sua per naturam animae coactus emendare cogitaverit, in gaudio quod ex rivulis aquae vivae ei influxit dicit: « Quare tantum contristor et perturbor in anima mea, cum per gratiam Dei vulnera peccatorum meorum cum suspiriis et lacrymis delere possim, quae per vulnera Domini mei, qui clavos et lanceam pro peccatis meis sustinuit, me liberandam confido? » Omnia vero mala opera in amara poenitentia postea manifestat, sicut etiam egestio ciborum et potuum emittitur.
Sed et sicut de subterraneis aquis lumina super terram producunt, sic de his rebus optima fama super terram volat, quoniam qui in peccatis exstinctus erat, in bonis operibus revelatur.
Quod per dorsum et latera hominis planities terrae, per femora vero et loca sessionis colles et asperitas ejusdem terrae inferius durae et impenetrabilis, et superiorem partem, quae mollis est, constringentis insinnetur; et quod similiter viribus animae mollities carnis a vitiis restringatur, ut virtutum margaritis decorata angelos sanctos et ad admirationem sui et ad laudem Dei accendat.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin is dense and the syntax compressed; 'constringentis insinnetur' is morphologically ambiguous and the clause likely carries allegorical sense tied to the vision's symbolic geography rather than straightforward doctrinal assertion.
- 2 ↩The relation between 'mollities carnis a vitiis restringatur' and the soul's virtues is compressed; the translation preserves the ambiguity of whether vice restrains or drives the flesh's softness, as the Latin itself leaves unclear.
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