Regula, caput XXIX
Papal Confirmation Commanded
Christ commands that the rule be presented to the pope for confirmation and commands the pope to confirm it.
Christ commands the spouse that this aforementioned rule be presented to the lord pope for confirmation, and he commands the pope that he confirm it altogether.1
A Voice from the Vision
After years of suffering, the visionary hears Christ identify himself, declare the pope's binding power, and affirm the rule's divine origin.
Then several years passed, after which the same person—with the strength of her watchful body, as it were, returning to her and renewed by a great consolation—was caught up into a spiritual vision. A voice at once spoke to her, saying: 'I am the Son of the living God.' This rule that you heard through my vicar—who in the world is called the pope—must be confirmed, because on my behalf he holds the power to bind and to loose, rendering account to me with my whole heavenly host listening. I am the very one who, according to the Scripture of Moses, answered the one asking my name, saying: 'I am who I am.' Then, when it pleased me, I took on a human body from the Virgin. I also, just as I spoke with a bodily voice in the world declaring that I had not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, so I say now too: this rule was dictated by no human understanding. Rather, it must be confirmed through the pope by the same spirit in which you heard it, just as other rules that were first composed from human understanding were confirmed by that same inspiring spirit.
Admission of Other Communities
The pope is to allow members of other religious communities to adopt the rule, but only with their consent and within their existing communities.
Once the rule has been confirmed, let the pope grant that persons from other religious communities who held their own rule with divine charity may take up this rule alongside it, and those who pledge themselves to it will remain with them until death. They will not, however, accept more than is pleasing to them, nor any others unless they choose to associate them with their community.
The First Monastery and the Hours
The pope is to authorize building a monastery at the place shown during the revelation and to grant the sisters permission to sing the Hours of Christ's Mother.
Let the pope also grant that a monastery be built in the place shown to you as you listened to the rule; for this rule is to be begun there first. Likewise, let him also grant the sisters permission to sing the Hours of my Mother daily, which were completed by the same Spirit by which the rule also was.
Humility, Faith, and Total Surrender
The visionary marvels at Christ's humility, professes faith in the Church, affirms confidence in divine mercy, and offers complete self-sacrifice for Christ's comfort.
But hearing this, I answered: "O bodiless Power, O how great your humility is!" O worker of all virtues and virtue itself, one God almighty in three persons! I believe all that holy Church commands to be believed. I also know most certainly that no one is so undeserving that your mercy would be denied to them, if with true humility and a perfect willingness to make amends for what they've done wrong they ask you for mercy. By your grace, then, I have the will to do your will, as long as I live, with you as my witness. You know that, if it were possible that greater joy and greater comfort would come to you from this—that as far as my body is concerned I would endure all weaknesses, scandals, pains, hardships, and all troubles, and even eternal torments in my very soul—I would rather embrace these adversities than have both body and soul attain eternal happiness, if only your comfort were the less.
Prayer from the Depths
The visionary prays for faith, hope, and love, confesses unworthiness, and wonders how the pope could believe God would work through so small a creature.
O Lord God, who created me and redeemed me with your precious blood, if you see that I am lacking in any of these three—that is, faith, hope, and love—please supply what I lack, because of your great grace.✦ You are in the deepest place of my heart's blood, and deepest within my soul. And although I am unworthy to be visited and consoled by your blessed Spirit, nevertheless I commit myself wholly to the protection of your great power, so that you may do with me whatever pleases you. And although you see all thoughts, nevertheless my tongue speaks to you at the bidding of my soul. O most worthy Lord, my Jesus Christ, I, an unworthy person, am among your faithful servants like the smallest ant among strong camels, who carry great burdens for their lord's profit and honor. And how can the pope believe that you, the God and Lord of all, would deign to do such things with an ant like this, or how will this rule reach his presence?
Read the original Latin
Christus precipit sponse, quod ista supradicta regula presentetur domino pape confirmanda, et precipit pape, quod eam omnino confirmet.
Deinde plures preterierunt anni, post quos eadem persona, vigilantis corporis sui viribus quasi ad se redeuntibus et ex magna consolacione fortificatis, in spiritualem rapta est visionem. Cui continuo vox quedam loquebatur dicens: "Ego sum Filius Dei viui. Regula ista, quam audisti, per vicarium meum, qui in mundo papa dicitur, confirmari debet, quoniam ex parte mea ligandi atque soluendi potestatem habet racionem michi facturus toto meo celesti exercitu audiente. Ego ille idem sum, qui secundum scripturam Moysi nomen meum sciscitanti respondi dicens: 'Ego sum qui sum.' Deinde, dum michi placuit, corpus humanum accepi de Virgine. Ego eciam, sicut corporali ore loquebar in mundo affirmans me non venisse legem soluere sed adimplere, ita et modo dico hanc regulam ex nullius hominis sensu dictatam fuisse, quam in spiritu audisti, per papam confirmari debere sicut alias regulas, que ex humano sensu prius composite fuerant eodem spiritu inspirante. Deinde regula confirmata concedat papa ipsam incipere volentibus personas de aliis religionibus, que regulam suam cum diuina caritate tenuerant, in istam regulam secum assumere, que vsque ad mortem se cum eis promittunt permansuras. Non tamen plures, quam ipsis placuerit, nec alias, nisi quas suo collegio associare voluerint, acceptabunt.
Admittat insuper papa, vt in loco, qui tibi regulam audienti demonstratus est, monasterium construatur; ibi enim primum hec regula inchoanda est. Similiter eciam licenciam det sororibus cantandi cottidie horas Matris mee, que eodem spiritu, quo et regula, sunt complete." Ego autem hoc audiens respondi: "O incorporalis potencia, o quam magna tua humilitas est! O virtutum omnium operator et ipsa virtus, vnus Deus omnipotens in tribus personis! Ego omnia credo que credi precipit sancta Ecclesia. Ego eciam certissime scio, quod nullus ita indignus est, quod denegetur ei misericordia tua, si cum vera humilitate et perfecta voluntate emendandi commissa misericordiam a te postulat. Ex gracia igitur tua voluntatem habeo faciendi tuam voluntatem, quamdiu vixero, te testante. Tu scis, quod, si possibile esset, quod maius gaudium maiorque consolacio ex hoc tibi proueniret, quod ego quo ad corpus meum omnes infirmitates, scandala, dolores, paupertates et omnes tribulaciones et adhuc in ipsa anima mea eterna supplicia sustinerem, istas aduersitates pocius amplecterer quam vtrumque ad corpus et animam eternam felicitatem ad hoc, vt consolacio tua minor esset.
O Domine Deus, qui me creasti et precioso sanguine redemisti, si in istis tribus, scilicet fide, spe et caritate, defectum aliquem habere me videris, propter magnam graciam tuam tu eum supplere digneris. Tu es in intimo cordis mei sanguine et intimus in anima mea. Et quamuis indigna persona sum visitacione et consolacione benedicti spiritus tui, tutele tamen tue magne potencie me totaliter committo, vt, quicquid tibi placuerit, mecum facias. Et quamuis omnium vides cogitaciones, tamen ex precepto anime mee ad te loquitur lingua mea. O dignissime Domine mi, Ihesu Christe, ego indigna persona inter tuos fideles seruitores sum sicut minima formica inter fortes camelos, qui magnas sarcinas portant ad domini sui commodum et honorem. Et quomodo poterit papa credere, quod tu, omnium Deus et Dominus, cum tali formica talia digneris facere, aut quomodo regula ista ante conspectum eius perueniet?"
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.13.13 — And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'sponse' is ambiguous between vocative and dative; context suggests dative of addressee ('to the spouse'). 'Domino pape' is rendered as 'to the lord pope' (dative), though a purely dative reading 'to the lord, to the pope' is syntactically possible.
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