Verba ammonicionis Domini ad sponsam de vera et falsa sapiencia et qualiter boni angeli bonis sapientibus et diaboli malis sapientibus assistunt.
True Wisdom vs. Worldly Ambition
The Lord contrasts the divine wisdom given to his friends with the prideful, worldly learning sought by those who reject his humble example.
Some of my friends are like my students, and they possess three things: first, a conscience that understands beyond the natural capacity of the brain; second, wisdom without a human teacher, because I personally instruct them from within; third, they are filled with sweetness and divine love, by which they overcome the devil. But people today learn for the opposite reason. First, they want to be knowledgeable out of arrogance, so they can be called good scholars. Second, they want to be knowledgeable so they can acquire and hold onto wealth. Third, they want to be knowledgeable so they can obtain honors and high positions. That is why, when they go off to their schools and enter them, I withdraw from them, because they learn out of pride, while I taught them humility. They enter in out of greed, and I had nowhere to lay my head. They enter in to gain status, envying others who are superior to them, whereas I was judged by Pilate and mocked by Herod. That’s why I withdraw from them, because they don't learn my teaching. Yet, because I am gentle and good, I give everyone what they ask for. For whoever asks me for bread will receive it. But whoever asks for straw, straw will be given to them.
The Bread of Life and the Straw of Vanity
Divine wisdom is compared to life-giving bread, while worldly knowledge is dismissed as useless straw that provides no nourishment for the soul.
My friends, however, ask for bread, because they seek and learn divine wisdom, in which my love resides. But others ask for straw—that is, worldly wisdom. Just as straw is useless and serves only as food for irrational animals, the worldly wisdom they seek is also useless; it offers no nourishment for the soul, but only a hollow name and empty labor. When a person dies, all their wisdom is wiped out, and it cannot be seen by those who once praised it.
Angelic Influence and the Soul's Formation
The Lord explains how angels attend to the wise and the worldly, concluding with an exhortation for the bride to mold her soul into the likeness of virtue.
In this way, I am like a great lord who has many servants to distribute, on my behalf, whatever is necessary for everyone. Likewise, both good and evil angels stand ready at my command.1 But those who learn my wisdom—which is to serve me—are attended by good angels, who refresh them with consolation and delightful labor. The worldly-wise, however, are attended by evil angels who inspire them with whatever they desire, instruct them according to their own will, and stir up their thoughts with great labor. Yet if they would look to me, I would be enough to provide them bread without labor, and a world to their satisfaction—a world from which they are never satisfied, because they turn what is sweet into bitterness for themselves. But you, my bride, must be like cheese, and your body like the mold in which the cheese is shaped until it takes on the form of the mold. In the same way, your soul—which is sweet and delightful to me, like cheese—must be tested and purified in the body for as long as it takes for body and soul to agree as one, and for both to hold to a single form of self-control, so that the flesh obeys the spirit and the spirit directs the flesh toward every virtue.
Read the original Latin
"Amici mei aliqui sunt quasi scolares mei, qui habent tria: primo conscienciam intelligentem supra naturam cerebri, secundo sapienciam sine homine, quia personaliter doceo eos intus; tercio pleni sunt dulcedine et diuina dileccione, qua vincent diabolum.
Sed econtrario nunc addiscunt homines. Primo volunt esse scientes propter iactanciam, ut dicantur boni clerici. Secundo volunt esse scientes, ut habeant et optineant diuicias. Tercio volunt esse scientes, ut optineant honores et dignitates.
Propterea, cum adeunt scolas suas et ingrediuntur, ego exeo ab eis, quia ipsi addiscunt propter superbiam, et ego eos docui humilitatem. Ipsi ingrediuntur propter cupiditatem, et ego non habui, ubi caput meum reclinarem. Ipsi ingrediuntur, ut habeant dignitates, inuidentes aliis esse se superiores, et ego iudicabar a Pilato et ab Herode deridebar.
Ideo ego exeo ab eis, quia non addiscunt doctrinam meam. Sed tamen, quia mitis sum et bonus, do unicuique, quod petit. Qui enim petit a me panem, ipse habebit. Qui autem stramen, dabitur ei.
Amici autem mei ipsi petunt panem, quia sapienciam diuinam, in qua est caritas mea, querunt et addiscunt. Sed alii petunt stramen, idest mundialem sapienciam. Quia, sicut in stramine nulla est utilitas et cibus animalium irracionabilium est, sic in mundi sapiencia, quam ipsi querunt, nulla est utilitas, nulla anime refeccio nisi tantum nomen modicum et labor vacuus, quia, cum homo moritur, omnis sapiencia eius annichilatur et a quibus laudabatur non potest videri.
Unde ego sum quasi magnus dominus, multos habens seruos, qui dispensant ex parte domini, que omnibus necessaria sunt. Sic angeli boni et mali stant ad imperium meam.
Qui autem sapienciam meam, idest seruire michi, addiscunt, hiis administrant boni angeli, reficientes eos consolacione et delectabili labore. Sapientibus autem mundi assistunt angeli mali, qui eis, quod volunt, inspirant et informant eos iuxta voluntatem eorum et inspirant cogitacionem cum labore magno.
Verumptamen si ad me respicerent, ego sufficerem dare eis panem absque labore et mundum ad sacietatem, de quo numquam saciantur, quia dulce vertunt sibi in amarum.
Tu autem, sponsa mea, debes esse quasi caseus, corpus tuum quasi formella, in qua caseus, donec figuram formelle habuerit, formabitur. Sic anima tua, que est michi dulcis et delectabilis sicut caseus, tam diu probari et purgari debet in corpore, donec corpus et anima in unum concordent et unam formam continencie ambo tenuerint, ut caro obediat spiritui et spiritus carnem regat ad omnem virtutem."
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'imperium meam' contains a grammatical mismatch (neuter noun with feminine adjective). The intended meaning is clearly 'my command'.
Revelationes (Heavenly Revelations) companion
Keep going — one revelation a day
The full 496-chapter Revelationes lives in the Chosen Portion app, served as free daily portions.
Birgitta's revelations arrived over three decades of daily attentiveness, and the Chosen Portion app lets readers receive them the same way — one portion per day.
- Finish the guided path in 8 weeks at roughly 15 minutes a day
- All 8 books, 496 chapters, in modern English — the complete transmitted text
- Daily delivery so a 30-year masterwork becomes a sustainable habit