VISIO DECIMA, cap. XXXIV
The Son's Weary Plea
The Son laments the fleshly burden of wayward members seduced by the son of perdition, and pleads with the Father to show mercy and preserve the redeemed in the book of life.
« Now I am weary, because by your ordinance I am clothed in flesh — because my members, that is, those who had joined themselves to me through the Sacrament of Baptism, do not withdraw from me, and because they are heading into the mockery of diabolic illusion, when they listen to and worship the son of perdition. Yet from among them I gather back those who have fallen, but the rebellious and those who persevere in evil I cast away.✦ Father, since I am your Son, see the love with which you sent me into the world, and consider my wounds, by which at your command I redeemed humanity — and I show them to you, so that you too may have mercy on those whom I redeemed, and do not allow them to be erased from the book of life; but through the blood of my wounds, gather them back to yourself in repentance, so that the one who mocks both my Incarnation and my Passion may not lord it over them in perdition.✦✦
A Call to Repentance
The Son shows his wounds to the Father on behalf of sinners, urging the people to abandon the ancient serpent, bend their knees in repentance, and confess their sins to receive deliverance.
Therefore now, all you people who desire to abandon the ancient serpent and return to your Creator — take note that I, the Son of God and of man, show my wounds to my Father for your sake.✦ Therefore you too — bend your knees, which so many times you inclined toward the vanity of wicked opposition, to your Father who created you and who gave you the breath of life in the purity of faith. Confess your sins from the heart fully, so that to you who are in affliction of both body and soul, he may stretch out his strong and invincible hand, to deliver you from the devil and from every evil.✦
The Enduring Power of the Wounds
The Son commends his members to the Father while warning them against betrayal, and his perpetually open wounds continually intercede to spare humanity and deliver them from evil.
» So the Son speaks to the Father, and commends his members to him, and rebukes them, so that they may truly cling to their head, lest the perdition of the first and last betrayer swallow them up. Whenever the almighty Father is provoked by the wicked works of humanity, his Son shows him his wounds — that is, so that because of them he may spare those people, since he himself did not spare his own body, in order that the sheep that had been taken from him might be drawn back by his blood. And therefore those same wounds of his will remain open as long as a human being, remaining in the world, goes on sinning.✦ And therefore the same Son of God also asks of people that they bend their knees to his almighty Father whenever they have earned his judgments, so that, on account of his wounds which he suffered in the flesh and which his Father always beholds, he may deliver them from every evil.
The Final Fury of the Serpent
The resurrection of Enoch and Elijah will confirm the dead's rising, provoking the ancient serpent, through the son of perdition, to his greatest fury against God and the saints.
When Enoch and Elijah are raised from the dead before everyone's eyes and lifted up to the clouds, the resurrection of the dead will be confirmed beyond all doubt, and the ancient serpent, through the son of perdition, will be roused to the greatest fury against God and the saints.✦✦
Read the original Latin
« Jam me fatigat, quia ordinatione tua carne indutus sum, quod membra mea, videlicet illi qui sacramento baptismatis mihi adhaeserant, nec a me recedunt, et quod in irrisionem diabolicae illusionem vadunt, cum filium perditionis audientes colunt, ex quibus tamen lapsos recolligo, rebelles autem et in malo perseverantes abjicio. Pater, quoniam ego Filius tuus sum, vide ea charitate, qua me in mundum misisti, et considera vulnera mea, quibus praecepto tuo hominem redemi, illaque tibi ostendo, quatenus et tu illorum miserearis quos redemi, neque permittas eos de libro vitae deleri; sed per sanguinem vulnerum meorum ipsos in poenitentia ad te recollige, ne ille qui et incarnationem ac passionem meam illudit, eis in perditione dominetur. Ergo nunc, omnes homines, qui antiquum serpentem deserere, et ad Creatorem vestrum redire desideratis, attendite quod ego Filius Dei et hominis Patri meo vulnera mea ostendo pro vobis. Unde etiam vos genua vestra quae multoties ad vanitatem iniquae contrarietatis inclinastis, ad Patrem vestrum qui vos creavit, et qui vobis spiraculum vitae dedit, in puritate fidei flectite, peccata vestra ex corde pleniter confitentes, ut vobis qui in afflictione tam corporis quam animae estis, manum suam fortem et invincibilem porrigat, quatenus a diabolo et ab omni malo vos eripiat. » Sic Filius ad Patrem loquitur, membraque sua illi commendat, ac illa castigat, ut vero capiti suo adhaereant, ne perditio primi et novissimi proditoris ea absorbeat. Quotiescunque enim omnipotens Pater pravis operibus hominum irritatur, Filius ejus ipsi vulnera sua ostendit, videlicet ut propter illa hominibus parcat, quoniam ipse corpori suo non pepercit, quatenus ovis quae ei ablata fuerat, in sanguine suo retraheretur; ideoque etiam eadem vulnera ipsius tandiu aperta permanebunt, quandiu homo in mundo manens peccat. Quapropter et idem Filius Dei ab hominibus requirit ut genua sua ad omnipotentem Patrem suum flectant, quoties judicia ejus promerentur, quatenus propter vulnera sua quae in carne passus est, et quae Pater ipsius semper inspicit, eos ab omni malo liberet.
Quod Enoch et Elia in oculis omnium a morte suscitatis et ad nubes sublatis, et resurrectio mortuorum omnimodis confirmabitur, et antiquus serpens per filium perditionis adversus Deum et sanctos in maximum furorem excitabitur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩2Thess.2.3 — Let no one deceive you in any way, because the rebellion must come first, and the man of lawlessness must be revealed—the son of destruction.
- ↩Rev.3.5 — The one who conquers will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
- ↩John.3.16 — For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.
- ↩Rev.12.9 — And the great dragon was thrown down—the ancient serpent, the one called the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
- ↩Gen.2.7 — Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
- ↩Rom.8.32 — He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
- ↩Rev.13.1-Rev.13.2 — And I stood upon the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns ten crowns, and upon its heads names of blasphemy. Rev.13.2 — And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, and its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority.
- ↩2Thess.2.3-2Thess.2.4 — Let no one deceive you in any way, because the rebellion must come first, and the man of lawlessness must be revealed—the son of destruction. 2Thess.2.4 — He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.
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