Informatio Virginis ad sponsam de modo sciendi diligere et quatuor ciuitatibus, in quibus quatuor caritates inueniuntur, et que istarum debeat proprie caritas nuncupari perfecta.
The Call to True Love
The Mother invites the bride to learn the true nature of love.
The Mother speaks to the bride, saying, "Do you love me, daughter?" She answers, "Teach me, Lady, how to love, for my soul is defiled by false reading and seduced by deadly poison, and because of this, it cannot grasp true love." And the Mother says, "I will teach you."
The Four Cities of the Soul
The Mother describes the four states of existence—testing, purgation, sorrow, and glory—and how love manifests in each.
There are four cities where four kinds of love are found—assuming they all deserve to be called love, since nothing should properly be called love unless it exists where God and the soul are united in the true unity of the virtues.1 The first city, then, is the city of testing—this world where humanity is placed so we can be proven as to whether we love God or not, so we can experience our own weakness, so we can acquire virtues by which to return to glory, and so that, having been purified on earth, we might be crowned more gloriously in heaven. In this city, disordered love is found: when the flesh is loved more than the soul, when temporal things are desired more fervently than spiritual ones, when vice is honored and virtue is despised, when this pilgrimage feels sweeter than our true home, and when a dying mortal is feared and honored more than God, who reigns forever. The second city is the city of purgation, where the filth of the soul is washed away. It pleased God to ordain such places where the one who is to be crowned might be purged—the one who, while in freedom, had grown negligent and arrogant, yet still possessed some fear.2 In this city, you find an imperfect love, because God is loved out of a hope for release from captivity rather than from a fervor of affection, all due to the weariness and bitterness of having to make amends for one's sin. The third city is the city of sorrow, where hell is. In it is found a love for all malice and impurity, for all envy and hardness of heart. Yet even in this city, God reigns through His ordered justice, through the measure of punishment that is due, through the restraint of malice, and through an equity balanced according to the merits of all. Just as some who are condemned sin more and others less, the limits of their punishment and retribution are justly established accordingly. For even if all who are condemned are enclosed in darkness, they are not all in one and the same way. For one darkness differs from another, one horror from another, and one burning from another. In the end, God arranges everything in justice and mercy, even in hell, so that those who sinned deliberately are punished in one way, those who sinned out of weakness in another, and those who are darkened only by the stain of original sin in yet another; their suffering, even if it consists in the lack of the divine vision and the light of the elect, Yet they draw near to mercy and joy in this: that they don't reach the horror of punishments, since they didn't have the effect of wicked deeds. Otherwise, if God didn't arrange all things by number and measure, the devil would never have a limit to his punishing.
The Fourfold Path of Charity
The Mother defines the four qualities of charity—ordered, pure, true, and perfect—necessary for reaching the city of glory.
The fourth city is the city of glory. In it is found perfect love and ordered charity, through which nothing is desired except God and all things for the sake of God. So, to reach the perfection of this city, you must possess a fourfold charity: namely, ordered, pure, true, and perfect. Ordered love is when we cherish the body only to sustain life, use the world without excess, love our neighbor for God's sake, love a friend for the purity of their life, and love an enemy for the sake of the reward. Pure love is when we don't cherish vice alongside virtue, when we despise corrupt habits, and when we don't downplay sin. True love, however, is when God is loved with all your heart and affection; when the honor and fear of God are kept in mind in every action; when, out of confidence in good works, you don't commit even the smallest sin; when you wisely moderate yourself so you don't collapse from excessive fervor; and when, through faint-heartedness or ignorance of temptations, you aren't turned aside into sin. True charity is perfect when nothing tastes as sweet to a person as God. It begins in this life, but it's brought to completion in heaven. Therefore, love this perfect and true charity, because everyone who doesn't have it will be purified—provided they are faithful, fervent, a little one, or reborn—otherwise, they'll pass on to the city of horror.
The Unity of the Divine Will
The Mother concludes by emphasizing that the soul must align its will with God's to attain the perfection of heaven.
For just as God is one, so there is one faith in the Church of Peter, one baptism, and one perfection of glory and reward. Therefore, anyone who wants to reach the one God must share one will and one love with that one God. Those people are miserable who say, 'It's enough if I'm the least in heaven; I don't want to be perfect.' Oh, what a senseless thought! How could anyone be imperfect there, where everyone is perfect—some through the innocence of their lives, some through the innocence of their childhood, some through purification, and others through faith and a good will?
Read the original Latin
Mater loquitur ad sponsam dicens: "Numquid, filia, diligis me?" Respondit illa: "Doce me, domina, diligere, quia anima mea fedata est lectione falsa, seducta veneno mortifero, pro quo non valet apprehendere dilectionem veram." Et mater: "Ego", inquiens, "docebo te.
Nam quatuor sunt ciuitates, in quibus quatuor inueniuntur caritates, si tamen omnes caritates nuncupari debent, quia non est proprie dicenda caritas, nisi ubi Deus et anima in vera virtutum unitate confederantur.
Prima igitur ciuitas est ciuitas probationis, que est mundus in quo ponitur homo, ut probetur si diligat Deum an non, ut experiatur infirmitatem suam, ut acquirat sibi virtutes, quibus redeat ad gloriam, ut purgatus in terra gloriosius in celis coronetur.
In hac ciuitate inuenitur dilectio inordinata, cum diligitur caro plus quam anima, cum desideretur temporale feruentius quam spirituale, cum honoratur vicium et despicitur virtus, cum plus dulcessit peregrinatio quam patria, cum plus timetur et honoratur moriturus homunculus, quam in eternum regnaturus Deus.
Secunda ciuitas est ciuitas purgationis, in qua abluuntur sordes anime. Placuit enim Deo talia loca ordinare in quibus coronandus purgaretur, qui in libertate negligens insolescebat sed tamen cum timore.
In hac ciuitate inuenitur imperfecta dilectio, quia diligitur Deus ex spe soluende captiuitatis sed non ex feruore affectionis propter tedium et amaritudinem satisfaciende culpe.
Tercia ciuitas est ciuitas doloris, ubi est infernus. In hac inuenitur dilectio omnis malicie et immundicie, omnis inuidie et obdurationis. In hac quoque ciuitate regnat eciam Deus per ordinatam suam iusticiam, per mensuram suppliciorum debitam, per malicie refrenantiam, per libratam pro meritis omnium equitatem.
Nam sicut alij damnandorum peccant plus, alij minus, ita et pene et retributionis condigne constituti sunt termini. Nam et si omnes damnandi includuntur tenebris non tamen omnes uno eodemque modo.
Differunt enim tenebre a tenebris, horror ab horrore, ardor ab ardore. Ubique denique disponit Deus in iusticia et misericordia eciam in inferno ut aliter puniantur hij, qui peccauerunt ex industria, aliter qui ex infirmitate, aliter qui ex sola originalis peccati noxa tenebrantur, quorum plaga et si in carentia diuine visionis et lucis electorum consistit,
misericordie tamen et gaudio per hoc appropinquant, quod ad horrorem suppliciorum non perueniunt, cum prauorum operum effectum non habebant. Alioquin, nisi Deus omnia disponeret in numero et mensura, diabolus numquam mensuram haberet in puniendo.
Quarta ciuitas est ciuitas glorie. In hac est dilectio perfecta et caritas ordinata, qua nichil desideratur nisi Deus et propter Deum. Ut ergo ad istius ciuitatis perfectionem peruenias, quadruplicem oportet te habere caritatem, scilicet ordinatam, mundam, veram et perfectam.
Ordinata vero caritas est, qua caro diligitur ad solam sustentationem, mundus ad nullam superfluitatem, proximus propter Deum, amicus propter vite puritatem, inimicus propter remunerationem. Munda vero caritas est, qua vicium non diligitur cum virtute, qua consuetudo praua contemnitur, qua peccatum non leuigatur.
Vera autem est dilectio, quando Deus toto affectu et corde diligitur, quando honor et timor Dei precogitatur in omnibus actibus, quando ex fiducia bonorum operum minimum peccatum non committitur, quando sapienter moderat quis seipsum, ne ex nimio feruore deficiat, quando ex pusillanimitate et ignorantia temptationum non declinatur ad peccatum.
Perfecta vero est caritas, quando nichil dulcessit homini sicut Deus. Hec in presenti inchoatur sed in celo consumatur. Ergo dilige istam perfectam caritatem et veram, quia omnis qui eam non habuerit purgabitur, si tamen fidelis, si feruens, si paruulus, si renatus fuerit, alioquin transiet ad ciuitatem horroris.
Nam sicut unus est Deus, sic una est fides in ecclesia Petri, unum baptisma, una glorie et remunerationis perfectio. Propterea, qui ad unum Deum peruenire desiderat, debet unam voluntatem et unam caritatem cum uno Deo habere.
Ideo miseri sunt illi, qui sic dicunt: 'Sufficit, si ero in celo minimus; nolo esse perfectus.' O, insensata cogitatio! Quomodo erit ibi imperfectus, ubi sunt perfecti omnes, alij ex innocentia vite, alij ex innocentia puericie, alij ex purgatione, alij ex fide et bona voluntate?"
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'caritates' (plural) suggests distinct modes or levels of love, which the author then qualifies by asserting that only the highest form, characterized by the union of God and the soul, truly merits the name.
- 2 ↩The phrase 'sed tamen cum timore' is syntactically challenging; it implies that even in their state of negligent arrogance, the soul retained a remnant of fear that made them eligible for purgation rather than final condemnation.
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