De tribus mirabilibus, que Christus fecit cum sponsa, et quomodo visio angelorum propter pulchritudinem et visio demonum propter turpitudinem est intolerabilis in sua essencia et quare dignatus est Christus talem viduam hospitari.
The Nature of Spiritual Vision
Christ explains that spiritual realities are veiled in metaphorical forms to protect the human vessel from the overwhelming intensity of angelic beauty or demonic terror.
"I have done three wonderful things with you." For you see with spiritual eyes, you also hear with spiritual ears, and you feel my Spirit with a physical hand within your living heart.1 The vision you see doesn't appear to you as it truly is. If you were to see the spiritual beauty of the angels and the holy souls, your body couldn't endure the sight; instead, it would shatter like a corrupt and rotting vessel because of the joy your soul would feel from the vision. If, however, you were to see the demons as they really are, you would either live in extreme agony or die of a sudden death because of the terror of that sight. That’s why spiritual things seem to you as if they were physical. Angels and souls appear to you in the likeness of humans who possess life and a soul, because angels live by their own spirit. Demons appear to you in mortal forms that lead to death, such as the shapes of animals or other creatures. They have a mortal spirit, because when the flesh dies, the spirit dies with it. The devils, however, do not die in spirit; for they die without end, and yet they live without end. Spiritual truths are spoken to you through metaphors, because your spirit cannot grasp them in any other way.2 But above all these things, the most marvelous is that my Spirit is felt moving within your heart.
The Grace of Renewal
In response to the visionary's self-abasement, Christ offers a promise of transformation, using the allegory of the phoenix to describe the purification of the heart through divine love.
Then she replied, "O my Lord and Son of the Virgin, why have you deigned to take in such a worthless widow—one who is poor in every good work, dull in the understanding of conscience, and worn out by a lifetime of every kind of sin?" He answered her, "I have three things." First, I can make the poor rich, and I can make the foolish and those of limited understanding both capable and wise. I am enough to renew even the old to youth. For just as the phoenix gathers dry straw into a valley, and among it places the branches of a tree that is naturally dry on the outside but hot within—upon which the sun’s rays first fall and ignite it, and then from that fire all the straw is set ablaze—so you must gather the virtues by which you can be renewed from your sins. Among these, you must have a piece of wood that is warm on the inside and dry on the outside—that is, your heart—so that it may be pure and dried out externally from every worldly pleasure, and internally filled with all charity, so that you want nothing and desire nothing but me. Then, in this first moment, the fire of my love will come, and you'll be set ablaze with all the virtues; consumed by them and cleansed of your sins, you'll rise again like a renewed bird, having shed the skin of worldly pleasure."
Read the original Latin
"Tria mirabilia tecum feci. Vides enim spiritualibus oculis, tu eciam audis spiritualibus auribus, tu sentis corporali manu spiritum meum in tuo viuenti pectore.
Visio, quam vides, non tibi videtur, sicut est. Si enim videres spiritualem pulchritudinem angelorum et animarum sanctarum, corpus tuum non sufficeret videre sed rumperetur quasi vas corruptum et putridum propter gaudium anime ex visione.
Si autem videres demones, sicut sunt, aut viueres cum nimio dolore aut morereris per subitaneam mortem propter terribilem visionem eorum.
Ideo videntur tibi spiritualia quasi corporalia. Angeli et anime videntur tibi in similitudine hominum, qui habent vitam et animam, quia angeli viuunt cum spiritu suo.
Demones videntur tibi in forma, que est ad mortem et mortalis, ut in forma animalium vel aliarum creaturarum.
Illa enim habent mortalem spiritum, quia moriente carne moritur spiritus. Diaboli autem non moriuntur in spiritu; sine fine enim moriuntur et sine fine viuunt.
Spiritualia vero verba cum similitudine tibi dicuntur; spiritus enim tuus aliter non potest capere.
Inter omnia autem est istud mirabilius, quod spiritus meus in corde tuo sentitur moueri."
Tunc illa respondit: "O Domine mi et filius Virginis, quare dignatus es tu tam vilem viduam hospitari, que sum pauper in omnibus bonis operibus et modica in consciencie intellectu et consumpta in omni peccato longiturnitate temporis?"
Cui ille respondit: "Ego habeo tria. Primo ego possum pauperem ditare, insipientem et modici intellectus facere sufficientem et intelligentem.
Ego sufficio eciam antiquum renouare ad iuuentutem. Sicut enim Fenix comportat in vallem stipulas siccas, inter quas comportat stipulas unius arboris, que exterius est sicca ex natura et intus calida, in quam primo venit calor radii solis et incenditur, deinde ex ipsa omnes stipule accenduntur, sic oportet te congregare virtutes, quibus a peccatis renouari possis.
Inter quas unum lignum habere debes, quod interius est calidum et exterius siccum, idest cor, quod purum sit et siccatum exterius ab omni mundi delectacione et interius plenum omni caritate, ut nichil velis, nichil desideres nisi me.
Tunc in hoc primo veniet ignis caritatis mee, et sic incenderis omnibus virtutibus, in quibus concremata et a peccatis purgata resurges quasi auis renouata, deposita pelle delectacionis."
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'viuenti pectore' is rendered as 'living heart' to capture the sense of an interior, vital, and receptive space for the Spirit's presence.
- 2 ↩The Latin 'spiritualia verba' refers to spiritual realities or truths, and 'similitudine' refers to the use of imagery or metaphor to convey divine things to the human mind.
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