Qualiter videbat sponsa quendam demonem cum confusione fugere a quodam viro deuote oranti, quem ipse demon fortiter temptando diu turbauerat, et qualiter angelus bonus declarat visionem sponse.
The Defeat of the Tempter
A vision reveals that persistent prayer and resistance against temptation bind the demon's power over the faithful.
The bride saw a demon standing next to someone who was praying, with his hands bound. After standing there for a while, the demon suddenly let out a terrible, piercing cry with a great roar, and then retreated in confusion. Regarding this, the good angel said to the bride, "This demon had troubled that man for a time, and that's why he's now bound by the hands, because he can't prevail against him as he would like." Because this man had resisted the demon so bravely from the moment he was attacked, it is God’s judgment that the demon cannot do to him what he would like. The demon still hopes he can prevail against him, but in this hour he was easily defeated, and he'll never prevail against him again. The grace of God will increase in this man day by day, and so the demon doesn't cry out without cause, for he has lost the one he had so often attacked in order to defeat him. For twelve years, this brother had been tempted regarding the Sacrament of the Body of Christ and the name of the Blessed Mary—which he could never speak without some filthy thought—but through the prayers of Lady Birgitta, he was set free to such a degree that he couldn't find joy except on the day he received the Body of Christ, and the name of the most blessed Mary became most sweet to him in his heart and on his lips.
The Inconsistency of the Will
The angel explains how human instability invites demonic influence, illustrated by the tragic end of a sorceress and the conversion of a priest.
A priest, who had been bewitched by a sorceress into sexual incontinence, asked Lady Birgitta to pray for him. Caught up in spirit, she heard: You're wondering, daughter, why the devil has power over a person. It's the inconsistency of the human will that causes this, as you can see in that priest who was bewitched by a woman. You should know, then, that this woman has three evils: infidelity, a hardened heart, and a craving for money and the flesh; that is why the devil approaches her and offers her a drink from the dregs of his own bitterness. Know, then, that this woman's tongue will be her undoing, her own hands will be her death, and the demon himself is the author of her testament.1 Everything happened exactly like that. For on the third night, that sorceress went into a frenzy, grabbed a knife, wounded herself in the groin, and cried out for everyone to hear: "Come, devil, follow me!" And immediately, with a horrible cry, he ended his life. The priest, however, once freed from the temptation of the flesh, immediately entered religious life, where he bore gracious fruit for God until the end of his life.
Read the original Latin
Videbatur a sponsa quidam demon astare ligatis manibus cuidam oranti. Cumque ad horam astaret, subito demon terribilem et altissimam vocem emisit cum magno rugitu et sic confusus recessit.
De quo ait angelus bonus ad sponsam: "Iste demon ad tempus virum illum turbauerat et ideo vinctus est manibus, quia non potest preualere in eum, sicut habet voluntatem.
Quia ex quo homo iste a demone impugnatus viriliter restiterat, Dei iudicium est, vt non possit ei demon facere, sicut vellet.
Adhuc tamen habet spem demon, vt possit preualere in eum, sed in ista hora victus est de facili et numquam in eum amplius preualebit.
Gracia autem Dei de die in diem augmentabitur isti homini et ideo demon non immerito clamat, quia amisit eum, quem tociens impugnabat, vt vinceretur."
Hic frater duodecim annis temptatus de sacramento corporis Christi et nomine beate Marie, quod sine sordida cogitacione numquam poterat nominare, per preces domine Birgitte liberatus est in tantum, quod numquam poterat letari nisi die, quo corpus Christi sumeret, et nomen beatissime Marie suauissimum sibi in corde et ore fuit.
Item quidam sacerdos fascinatus ab incantatrice de incontinencia carnis rogabat dominam Birgittam pro se orare. Que rapta in spiritu audiuit:
"Miraris, filia, quare dyabolus dominatur in homine. Hoc facit inconstancia voluntatis hominum, sicut perpendere poteris in sacerdote isto a muliere fascinato.
Scias igitur, quod mulier illa habet tria mala, scilicet infidelitatem, obduracionem, cupiditatem pecunie et carnis; ideo appropinquans ei dyabolus propinat ei de fece amaritudinis sue.
Scias igitur, quod lingua mulieris huius erit finis eius et manus eius mors eius et ipse demon conditor testamenti eius."
Hec omnia sic euenerunt. Nam tercia nocte illa incantatrix facta est furiosa et arrepto cultro lesit se in inguine clamansque cunctis audientibus dixit:
"Veni, dyabole, sequere me!" Et statim cum horribili clamore finiuit vitam. Sacerdos vero predictus a temptacione carnis liberatus statim intrauit religionem, in qua Deo vsque in finem vite fructum fecit graciosum.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'finis' here carries the sense of a final end or destruction, while 'testamentum' refers to her final will and testament, implying the demon has orchestrated her ruin.
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