Deus Pater loquitur Filio, qualiter ipse est similis sponso, qui tantum dilexit sponsam, quod propter eam crucifixus est, ipsa vero dilexit adulterum et interfecit sponsum. Et qualiter anime per sponsam, thalamus per Ecclesiam, porte thalami per voluntatem, adulter vero per corporis delectaciones designantur. Predicit eciam de futura sponsa sponsanda Christo.
The Bridegroom and the Adulteress
The Father describes the Son's sacrificial love for his bride, the Church, and the tragic betrayal by those who have turned to adultery.
The Father speaks to the Son: "You are like a bridegroom who has betrothed to himself a bride beautiful in appearance and honest in character, and has brought her into his bridal chamber and loved her as himself." It's the same with you, my Son. You betrothed a new bride when you burned with such love for the souls of men that you willed to be torn and stretched out upon the cross for them. You have brought them into your holy Church, which you dedicated with your own blood, as if into a bridal chamber. But in truth, your bride has now become an adulteress; the doors of the bridal chamber are shut, and in the place of the bride lies a most wicked adulteress, who thinks to herself: When my husband is asleep and lying exposed, I'll draw a sharp sword against him and kill him, because he doesn't please me.
The Closed Door of the Will
The Father explains that the bride represents redeemed souls, and the closed doors of the bridal chamber signify a will turned toward worldly pleasure rather than God.
What does the bride signify if not the souls you redeemed with your blood? Although there are many, they can still be called one because of the unity of faith and love. And many of them have now become adulterous, because they love the world more than they love you. They seek someone else's pleasure, not yours; the doors of the bridal chamber—that is, the Church—are closed. What do the doors signify if not a good will, through which God enters into the soul? It’s closed off, as if it has no good effect. But your enemy’s will is being fulfilled; for whatever pleases and delights the body is what is loved, what is honored, and what is proclaimed as holy and good. But your will—that people should love you fervently, desire you wisely, and reasonably give everything for your sake—is completely shut away and neglected. There are also some who may occasionally enter the doors of your chamber quite openly, but they don't enter with the intention of doing your will or loving you with their whole heart; instead, they do it out of fear of what people might think, so they won't appear wicked or have others publicly discover what they are really like inside before God.1 So the door to your chamber is poorly shut, and the pleasure of the adulterer is greater than yours.
The Profanation of the Sacrament
The Father laments how the unfaithful treat the Eucharist with contempt, metaphorically killing the Son in their hearts through their indifference and sin.
They even think to themselves that when you're naked and asleep, they'll kill you. For they truly see you as naked when they behold your Body—which you took from the purest womb of the Virgin without ever losing your divinity—under the appearance of bread upon the altar. Seeing nothing of your divine power in it, they treat you as if you were merely a bit of bread, even though you are truly God and man—whom they cannot see with their eyes, blinded as they are by the darkness of the world. You also seem to be asleep to them when you let them go unpunished, and so they presume to enter your chamber, thinking to themselves:2 I’ll go in and receive the Body of Christ just like everyone else. Nevertheless, after receiving it, they still do whatever they please. What harm is there if I don’t receive it, and what good does it do me if I do? Look at how these miserable people, through such thoughts and such a will, kill you within their own hearts so that you won't reign in them—even though you are immortal and present everywhere through the power of your divinity.
The Promise of a New Bride
The Father promises to send courageous messengers to win a new, chaste bride for the Son, reaffirming his divine authority.
But because it isn't right, my son, for you to be without a bride, or to have any bride other than the most chaste one, I will send my friends to take a new bride for you—one beautiful to behold, honorable in her ways, and desirable to the touch—and they will bring her into your bridal chamber. These friends of mine will be as swift as birds in flight, because my Spirit will lead them along with me. They will also be as strong as those before whose hands a wall crumbles. They will be as courageous as those who don't fear death and are ready to give their lives. They will bring a new bride to you—that is, they will win the souls of my chosen ones for you with great honor and beauty, with great devotion and love, and with manly labor and strong perseverance. I am the One who speaks to you now, the same who cried out at the Jordan and on the mountain: 'This is my beloved Son!' My words will be fulfilled all the sooner.
Read the original Latin
Pater loquitur ad Filium: "Tu es similis sponso, qui desponsauit sibi sponsam decoram facie et honestam moribus et induxit eam in thalamo suo et dilexit sicut se. Sic tu, fili mi.
Tu desponsasti sponsam nouam, quando ad animas hominum tanta arsisti caritate, vt te ipsum pro eis lacerari et in stipite extendi voluisti.
Has introduxisti in sanctam Ecclesiam tuam, quam tuo sanguine dedicasti, quasi in quendam thalamum. Sed vere sponsa tua nunc facta est adultera, fores thalami sunt clause et in loco sponse iacet adultera pessima, qua cogitat sic apud se:
'Quando vir meus dormiet et nudus iacuerit, tunc producam contra eum gladium acutum et interficiam eum, quia non placet michi.' Quid notat sponsa nisi animas, quas sanguine tuo redemisti?
Que quamuis multe sunt, tamen propter vnitatem fidei et dileccionis vna vocari possunt. Et multe hee nunc sunt facte adultere, quia diligunt mundum plus quam te.
Delectacionem alterius querunt, non tuam, fores thalami, idest Ecclesie, sunt clause. Quid significant fores nisi voluntatem bonam, per quam ad animam ingreditur Deus?
Hec clausa est quasi nullius boni habens effectum. Voluntas vero inimici tui completur, nam quidquid placet, quidquid delectat ad corpus, hoc diligitur, hoc honoratur, hoc sanctum et bonum predicatur.
Voluntas autem tua, que est, quod homines debeant diligere te feruenter, desiderare te prudenter, omnia pro te dare racionabiliter, omnino clausa est et neglecta.
Necnon et aliqui, qui forte quandoque fores thalami tui patenter intrant, non hac intencione intrant, vt voluntatem tuam faciant et vt te toto corde diligant, sed pre verecundia hominum, ne videantur iniqui, ne sciantur publice ab hominibus, quales sunt intus apud Deum.
Sic igitur male clausa est ianua thalami tui et plus est delectacio adulteri quam tua. Cogitant eciam apud se, quod, cum nudus et dormiens fueris, interficient te.
Tunc quippe videris eis nudus, quando corpus tuum, quod de purissimis visceribus virginis suscepisti non tamen amittendo diuinitatem, vident sub specie panis in altari.
Et nichil cernentes in eo de diuinitatis tue potencia reputant te quasi panem modicum, cum tamen vere Deus et homo sis, quem oculis videre non possunt tenebris mundi obscurati.
Tunc quoque videris eis dormiens, quando pateris eos impunitos, et ideo presumptuose ingrediuntur thalamum tuum cogitantes apud se:
'Ingrediar et recipiam corpus Christi sicut ceteri.' Nichilominus tamen post sumpcionem faciunt, quod eis placet. 'Quid enim obest, si non sumpsero, et quid michi prodest, si sumpsero?'
Ecce miseri per tales cogitaciones et per talem voluntatem interficiunt te a cordibus suis, ne regnes in eis, quamuis immortalis es et in omni loco per potenciam tue diuinitatis.
Verum quia non decet, fili mi, te esse sine sponsa nec sponsam habere nisi castissimam, ideo mittam amicos meos, qui accipiant tibi sponsam nouam, venustam aspectu, honestam moribus, desiderabilem tactu, et in thalamum tuum introducant.
Ipsi autem amici mei erunt celeres tales sicut aues volantes, quia Spiritus meus cum me ipso ducet eos. Erunt et fortes sicut illi, ante quorum manus murus dissoluitur. Erunt et magnanimes tamquam illi, qui non timent mortem et parati sunt dare vitam.
Hii adducent ad te sponsam nouam, idest animas electorum meorum acquirent tibi cum magno honore et decore, cum magna deuocione et caritate, cum virili labore et perseuerancia forti.
Ego sum ille, qui nunc loquor, qui in Iordane et monte clamaui: 'Hic est Filius meus dilectus!' Verba mea cicius complebuntur."
Notes
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