Verba filij ad sponsam, quod Deo non placet animarum damnatio, et de mirabilibus questionibus episcopi iunioris ad senem et de responsionibus senis ad iuniorem.
The Mystery of Divine Patience
God allows the disgrace of the wicked not out of pleasure, but to manifest His patience and call others to fear His judgment.
The Son speaks to the bride, saying, "Why do you think these two are shown to you?" Is it because their disgrace and loss are pleasing to God? Certainly not. Instead, it happens so that God's patience and honor might be made more manifest, and so that those who hear might fear the judgment of God.
The Elder's Confession
A younger bishop questions an elder about his abandonment of religious life and his pursuit of the episcopacy for worldly comfort.
But come and hear something wonderful! And look, a younger bishop sought out an elder, saying, "Listen, brother, and answer me." Since you were bound to the yoke of obedience, why did you abandon it? Since you chose poverty and the religious life, why have you abandoned them? Since you showed by entering the religious life that you were dead to the world, why did you desire the episcopacy? The elder replied, "The obedience that taught me to be subject was a burden to me." That is why I pursued my own freedom. The yoke that God calls easy felt bitter to me. So I sought out and chose comfort for my body. My humility was a pretense. That is why I craved honor. And because it's better to drive than to be driven, I desired the bishopric.1
The Deception of Appearance
The elder admits to feigning humility and spiritual devotion to gain the praise of others while secretly craving worldly honor.
The younger man asked a second time, "Why didn't you honor your position with worldly honors?" Why didn't you acquire wealth through worldly wisdom? Why didn't you manage what you had according to the world's standards of honor? Why did you humble yourself so much on the outside, and why didn't you pursue worldly ambition instead?" The elder replied, "The reason I didn't decorate my position with worldly honor is that I hoped to be honored more by appearing humble and spiritual than by being seen as someone focused on temporal things." And so, to be praised by worldly people, I acted as if I despised everything; but to be loved by spiritual people, I appeared humble and devout. That’s why I didn’t acquire wealth along with worldly wisdom, so that spiritual men wouldn’t notice me and look down on me because of temporal things. And that’s why I didn’t give away gifts generously, because I preferred being with fewer people for the sake of my own peace rather than with many. And I took more pleasure in having something in my chest than if I had given something away with my own hand.'
The Burden of Hypocrisy
The elder explains his contradictory actions, where he taught others the path to holiness while binding himself in the very sins they confessed.
The younger man asked again, "Tell me, why did you give the donkey a sweet and delightful drink from an unclean vessel?" Why did you feed the bishop husks from the pigs' trough? Why did you cast your crown under your feet? Why did you spit out the wheat and chew on the weeds? Why did you free others from their ropes, yet bind yourself with shackles? Why did you apply healing remedies to the wounds of others, but deadly ones to your own? The elder answered: 'I gave the donkey a sweet drink from an unclean and despised vessel because, while I was a man of learning, it pleased me for the sake of worldly honor to handle the divine Sacraments of the altar rather than to attend to secular duties.' And because my hidden things were unknown to men, but to God I took on vows with excessive presumption, I increased for myself the more severe justice of a terrible judgment. To the second point, I say that I gave the bishop husks from the pigs' trough, because I was fulfilling the incentives of my nature by indulging them, and I did not remain steadfast in restraining them. Regarding the third point. That is why I cast my episcopal crown under my feet: because I found it more pleasing to show mercy for the sake of human favor than to uphold justice for the honor and love of God. Regarding the fourth point. That is why I was spitting out the wheat and chewing on straw: I wasn't speaking the words of God out of a love for God, and I took no pleasure in doing the things I was proposing to others. Regarding the fifth point. That is why I was setting others free while binding myself: I would absolve those who came to me with compunction, and I took pleasure in fulfilling the very things they were weeping over in their repentance and leaving behind through their tears. Sixth. That’s why I anointed others with a healing ointment while using a deadly one on myself: by teaching a life of purity, I corrected others, but I only made myself worse. For I wouldn’t lift a finger to do the very things I commanded others to do.✦ And where I saw others making progress, I myself was wasting away by falling back, because I found more pleasure in adding to the burden of my committed sins than in lightening it by correcting them.
A Final Warning
A voice warns the listener to be grateful for mercy, followed by the sudden death of one of the figures discussed.
After this, a voice was heard saying, "Give thanks to God that you aren't among those poisonous vessels which, when they are broken, go to the very poison itself." And just like that, word came that one of them had died.
Read the original Latin
Filius loquitur ad sponsam dicens: "Quid credis, quare isti duo ostenduntur tibi? Numquid, quia vituperium eorum et damnum placet Deo? Absit. Sed ideo fit, ut patientia et honor Dei manifestior fiat et audientes timeant iudicium Dei.
Sed veni et audi mirabile! Et ecce quidam iunior episcopus quesiuit seniorem dicens: 'Audi frater et responde michi. Cum ad iugum obedientie fuisti obligatus, cur deseruisti illud?
Cum paupertatem et religionem elegisti, cur reliquisti illas? Cum per religionis ingressum ostendisti te mortuum seculo, cur desiderasti episcopatum?' Respondit senior: 'Obedientia, que me subesse docuit, erat michi onerosa.
Ideo assectaui libertatem. Iugum, quod Deus dicit suaue, erat michi amarum. Ideo quesiui et elegi corporis quietem. Humilitas erat in me ficta. Ideo concupiui honorem. Et, quia melius est minare quam trahere, ideo desideraui episcopatum.'
Quesiuit secundo iunior: 'Cur non honorabas sedem tuam mundi honore? Cur non acquisisti diuitias per mundanam sapientiam? Cur non dispensasti ea, que habebas, secundum honorem mundi? Cur tantum te exterius deiecisti et non magis iuxta mundialem ambitionem processisti?'
Respondit senior: 'Ideo non straui sedem meam cum mundi honore, quia sperabam amplius honorari, si apparerem humilis et spiritualis quam si viderer temporalis.
Et propterea, ut a mundanis hominibus laudarer, videbar quasi omnia contemnere, ut vero diligerer a spiritualibus, humilis et deuotus apparebam.
Ideo vero non acquisiui diuitias cum mundana sapientia, ne spirituales viri notarent me et contemnerent propter temporale. Ideo vero non dedi largiter dona, quia magis placebat michi esse cum paucioribus propter quietem meam quam cum pluribus. Et plus delectabar, si aliquid habebam in arca, quam si tribuissem aliquid manu mea.'
Item quesiuit iunior: 'Dic michi, cur dedisti asino dulcem et delectabilem potum de immundo vase? Cur tribuisti episcopo siliquas de ara porcorum? Cur coronam tuam strauisti sub pedibus? Cur expuisti triticum et masticasti zizaniam?
Cur soluisti alios de funibus, teipsum vero ligasti compedibus? Cur alienis vulneribus apposuisti sanatiua et tuis proprijs mortifitatiua.' Respondit senior: 'Ideo dedi asino dulcem potum de immundo et despecto vase, quia, cum essem litteratus, placuit michi propter mundi honorem magis tractare sacramenta diuina altaris, quam vacare cure seculari.
Et quia occulta mea erant hominibus incognita Deo vero vota assumpsi presumptionem nimiam et auxi michi iudicij terribilis grauiorem equitatem. Ad secundum dico, quod dedi episcopo siliquas de ara porcorum, quia nature mee incentiua effundendo perficiebam nec in cohercendo stabilis permanebam.
Ad tercium. Ideo posui coronam episcopalem sub pedibus, quia placuit michi magis facere misericordiam propter fauorem hominum, quam iusticiam pro honore et amore Dei. Ad quartum.
Ideo expuens triticum masticabam stramina, quia verba Dei non loquebar ex amore Dei nec delectabat me illa facere, que alijs proponebam. Ad quintum. Ideo alios soluens meipsum ligabam, quia venientes ad me cum contritione absoluebam et illa, que illi penitendo deflebant et deflendo relinquebant, hec me delectabat adimplere.
Ad sextum. Ideo alios unxi ungento sanatiuo et meipsum mortifero, quia docendo vite puritatem alios emendaui et meipsum deterioraui. Nam illa, que precepi alijs, hec ipse nolui mouere digito.
Et unde alios vidi proficere, inde ipse deficiendo tabescebam, quia me delectabat magis commissis peccatis sarcinam addere quam ea emendando alleuiare.'
Post hec audita est vox quedam dicens: "Regratiare Deo, quod non es cum illis venenosis vasis, que cum dissoluentur, vadunt ad ipsum venenum." Et sic statim alter istorum mortuus nunciabatur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.23.4 — They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with their finger.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'minare' (to drive/lead) vs 'trahere' (to drag/be led) reflects a contrast between exercising authority and being subject to it.
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