Christus grauissime comminatur ypocritas religiosos presumptuosos et superbos, qui simplicitatem simplicium et innocentum deridendo perturbant cornibus detraccionis et malorum operum. Monet tamen eos pie, vt se ad virtutes cito conuertant; alioquin grauiter punientur.
The Shepherd's Warning
The Lord expresses his displeasure with the pride of modern religious and introduces a parable of a shepherd dealing with unruly rams.
I am the Creator of all things, and I was created by no one. For a long time, I’ve turned my eyes away from this place because of the wickedness of the people living here. For just as the first founders were eager to climb from virtue to virtue, so now these modern ones go from bad to worse; everyone is eager to outdo the others, and they even take pride in their sin. Now, however, the prayers of my beloved Mother move me to show mercy. But some roots of that worst lineage still remain, as you'll better understand through a comparison, as if there were a shepherd who said to his master: "Lord," he says, "in your fold there are a few gentle sheep, among whom are found head-butting rams that disturb the sheep." "Their heads are useless, their skin is corrupt, their flesh is rotten, and their insides are foul." The Lord answered him, 'So that my gentle sheep aren't disturbed, I will cut off the head of the rams with a very sharp blade.' Because the hide doesn't provide me with any wool, it will be stripped away. Let the entrails and flesh, as if they were rotten, be thrown out into the fields and given to the birds, who don't know how to distinguish between what is clean and what is unclean.'
The Judgment of the Proud
Christ interprets the parable, explaining how the pride, hypocrisy, and impurity of the religious will be judged and stripped away.
I am the Lord, and I have certain simple ones among you who are like sheep. Among them are some who are like horned rams, tearing them apart. Just as rams first rush in headlong to tear at the wool, and then use their horns to shove and knock their victims to the ground, so these people mock the simplicity of the innocent, disturbing them and casting them down to the earth with the horns of their slander and evil deeds. Therefore, their head—that is, their intention, puffed up with the horns of arrogance and presumption—will be cut off from them in my severe judgment, which is a most sharp sword. Their skin—the hypocrisy they’ve used to cloak themselves instead of living with religious simplicity—will be stripped away. Because they pretended to be one thing while being another, demons will flay their souls of every good on account of that very hypocrisy. They served me with their lips, but their actions were at odds with that. Their flesh, given over to pleasure—which in my sight is like the flesh of a prostitute—will be burned in fire without mercy. Their inner being—the thoughts and attachments they hold toward the world rather than toward me, where my enemies (namely, sins and demons) were nurtured instead of me—will be tormented by those very demons, so that there won't be a single twisted desire left for which they aren't punished.
A Call to Penance
The Lord offers a final invitation to repentance before judgment falls, warning of the desolation that follows ignored warnings.
Therefore, while there is still time, let their head—that is, their distorted will and pride—be brought down to humility; let the skin of simplicity be put on; let the flesh be restrained from pleasures; and let their inner parts, that is, their thoughts, be healed by penance. I don't want to demand justice from them quickly based on what they deserve, or hand them over to the power of demons so that they can do nothing but what pleases the demons, and be driven by them from one evil to the next. Christ speaks further: "A proverb will yet be taken up against this house, saying: 'Why has God done this to this house?'" The answer will be: 'Because they refused to listen to the words of the one who warned them.' For I will set guards over them who, watching from on high, will bring their land of pleasure into servitude. They will be given bread by measure, and they will be counted for their scarcity.
Read the original Latin
"Ego sum creator omnium et a nullo creatus. Ego longo tempore auerti oculos meos ab hoc loco propter iniquitatem inhabitancium.
Sicut enim primi fundatores festinabant de virtute in virtutem ascendere, sic nunc isti moderni de malo in malum; quilibet alium preire curat et gloriantur de peccato.
Nunc igitur preces dilecte matris mee ad miserendum me flectunt. Sed de pessima progenie adhuc remanent quedam radices, sicut per similitudinem melius intelliges, quasi esset pastor, qui diceret ad dominum suum:
'Domine', inquit, 'in ouili tuo sunt pauce oues et mansuete, inter quas arietes cornupete inueniuntur turbantes oues. Quorum caput ad nichil est vtile, pellis corrupta, caro putrida, intestina fetencia.'
Cui respondit dominus: 'Ne turbentur oues mee mansuete, caput arietum abscidam ferro acutissimo. Pellis, quia non portat michi lanam, decorietur. Intestina et carnes quasi putrida proiciantur ad agros et dentur volatilibus, que nesciunt discernere inter mundum et immundum.'
Ego sum dominus, qui in hoc loco quosdam simplices quasi oues habeo. Inter quos quidam sunt quasi arietes cornuti lacerantes eos.
Qui sicut arietes primo precipitanter accurrendo discerpunt lanam, inde cornibus impellendo prosternunt ad terram, sic ipsi simplicitatem innocentum deridendo perturbant et cornibus detraccionis et malorum operum ad terram prosternunt.
Propterea caput eorum, idest intencio elata cornibus arrogancie et presumpcionis, abscidetur ab eis in iudicio meo seuero, quod est gladius acutissimus.
Pellis eorum, idest ypocrisis, qua pro simplicitate religionis induti sunt, auferetur ab eis et pro ipsa ypocrisi anima eorum a demonibus ab omni bono decoriabitur, quia ostendebant aliud et aliud erant.
Seruiebant michi ore et dissenciebant opere. Caro eorum voluptati dedita, que in conspectu meo est quasi caro meretricis, igne cremabitur absque misericordia.
Intestina eorum, idest cogitaciones et affecciones, quas ad mundum habent et non ad me, in quibus fouebantur inimici mei, idest peccata et demones et non ego, plagabuntur a demonibus, vt non sit affeccio praua, pro qua non puniantur.
Ideo, dum adhuc tempus est, caput eorum, idest voluntas distorta et superbia, deponatur ad humilitatem, pellis simplicitatis assumatur, caro a voluptatibus refrenetur, intestina, idest cogitaciones, penitencia sanentur,
ne iusticiam ab eis secundum merita eorum celerem exigam et potestati demonum subiciam eos ita, quod nichil aliud possint, nisi quod demonibus placet, et ab eis impellentur de malo in malum."
Item loquitur Christus: "Adhuc assumetur parabola super domum istam dicencium: 'Quare fecit Deus domui huic sic?' Respondebitur: 'Quia noluerunt audire verba monentis.'
Nam ponam eis custodes, qui de excelsis speculantes terram voluptatis eorum redigent in seruitutem. Et dabitur eis panis in mensura et pro paucitate numerabuntur."
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