Quidam episcopus, qui erat rector Marchie Anconitane pro sancta Romana ecclesia, requisiuit dominam Birgittam super eo, quod stimulabatur a consciencia eo, quod ipse erat absens et nimis remotus a dyocesi sua propter predictum officium marchionatus, in quo ipse residebat, et sic non poterat attendere ad oues sibi commissas in sua dyocesi. Et ideo dubitabat, an magis placeret Deo, quod resideret in officio marchionatus, vel an quod reuerteretur ad regendum oues sibi commissas in sua dyocesi. Et cum domina supradicta sic requisita oraret pro prefato episcopo, tunc Christus apparuit ei dicens sibi verba, que infra continentur.
A Humble Request for Counsel
St. Birgitta acknowledges the bishop's request for spiritual guidance and describes her prayerful preparation for receiving the Lord's message.
May God be blessed forever for all His good gifts! Amen. My lord, most reverend father, having first offered my humble recommendation. You wrote to me with humility, asking that I—a woman unknown to you—might humbly pray to God on your behalf. To this I answer and tell you truthfully, in all conscience, that I am not up to such things—I am a sinner, alas, and unworthy. You also wrote to me asking that I might write down some spiritual counsel for the salvation of your soul; and so God, looking upon your faith and humility, has chosen to satisfy your desires and faith with a fatherly, loving kindness, not looking at my sins, but at the heartfelt affection of one who asks with humility. For when I, a sinner unworthy of such things, was praying to my Lord Jesus Christ for you yesterday, He appeared to me in spirit and spoke to me through a likeness, saying this:
The Parable of the Worldly Prelates
Christ uses a vivid allegory of pigs in a royal palace to warn clergy who abandon their spiritual duties for worldly honor.
"You to whom it has been given to hear and see in the spirit, pay attention now and know for certain that all bishops, abbots, and other prelates and beneficed clergy of the Church who have the care of souls, but who abandon their churches and my sheep entrusted to them to accept and hold other offices and positions with the intention and desire that they might be more honored by men and exalted and lifted up in a higher status in the world," Even if these leaders don't steal anything in those offices, or plunder anything, or commit any other injustice there, they are still—because they take pride and delight in those offices and honors, and because of this abandon my sheep and their own churches—like pigs dressed in pontifical or priestly vestments before me. It’s as if you were to say, by way of comparison, that a great lord had invited his friends to a banquet, and at the hour of the meal, those pigs—dressed up just as they were—entered the palace before that lord and before the guests who were sitting at the table. But when the master tried to offer them some of the precious food from his own table, those pigs let out a loud, grunting, dismissive noise, refusing to eat the fine food while greedily wanting to eat their usual vile pig-slop.✦ Then the Lord, seeing and understanding this, was disgusted by their baseness and filth, and immediately said to his servants with great anger and indignation: “Drive them out of my palace and throw them outside, so they can be fed and filled with the filthy pig-swill they deserve!” “For they neither want nor deserve to eat my food, which is prepared for my friends.”
Discernment for the Shepherd
Birgitta applies the vision to the bishop's situation, urging him to prioritize the care of his flock over his secular office if his conscience demands it.
From these things, most reverend father and my lord, I understood in the Spirit that you must act this way: you need to discern in your own conscience whether those sheep of Christ—the flock of your diocese entrusted to you—are being well and spiritually governed in your absence or not. But if they are being well cared for in your absence, in a way that is spiritually appropriate for their benefit and good, and if you see beyond this that you can bring greater honor to God and benefit to souls in your role as governor of the March than in your own diocese, And so I say that you may well and lawfully remain in the office of rector of the March in accordance with God’s will, provided that the desire for honor or the empty boasting of that office does not seduce you into staying there. But if your conscience tells you otherwise, then I advise you to leave your position as governor, return in person to reside in your church and the diocese entrusted to you, and take up the care of your sheep—or rather, Christ’s sheep, which were specifically entrusted to you. Feed them with your words, your example, and your actions, not carelessly and viciously like a bad hireling, but diligently and virtuously like a true and good shepherd. Forgive me, my Lord, for writing these things to you, since I am an ignorant woman and an unworthy sinner. I pray to our true and good Shepherd, who deigned to die for his sheep, that he may grant you the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that you may worthily shepherd his sheep and always, even until death, fulfill his glorious and most holy will.
Read the original Latin
Sit Deus benedictus in eternum propter omnia bona sua! Amen. Domine mi, reuerendissime pater, humili recommendacione premissa. Scripsistis michi cum humilitate, quod ego, quedam femina vobis incognita, Deum pro vobis humiliter exorarem.
Ad quod respondeo et vobis dico veridice in consciencia mea, quod ad talia faciendum sum insufficiens, peccatrix prochdolor et indigna.
Scripsistis eciam michi, quod aliqua consilia spiritualia vobis scriberem ad salutem anime vestre, et ideo Deus, attendens ad fidem et humilitatem vestram, vestris desideriis et fidei pio amore paterno voluit satisfacere, non attendens ad peccata mea sed ad cordialem affectum humiliter postulantis.
Nam cum ego peccatrix, ad talia indigna, pridie pro vobis orarem Dominum meum Ihesum Christum, tunc ipse michi apparuit in spiritu et per similitudinem loquebatur mecum sic dicens:
"O tu, cui datum est audire spiritualiter et videre, attende nunc et scias certissime, quod omnes episcopi et abbates ac eciam ceteri ecclesiarum prelati et beneficiati animarum curam habentes, qui dimissis suis ecclesiis et ouibus meis sibi commissis recipiunt et tenent alia officia et regimina ea intencione et voluntate, vt in illis officiis ab hominibus magis honorentur et in alciori statu mundi exaltentur et subleuentur,
quamuis in illis officiis ipsi rectores nichil furentur vel predentur vel quamuis aliam iniusticiam non ibidem committant, nichilominus tamen, quia in illis officiis et honoribus ipsi gloriantur et delectantur et propter hoc dimittunt oues meas et ecclesias suas, isti talia facientes similes sunt coram me porcis indutis pontificalibus seu sacerdotalibus ornamentis,
sicut per similitudinem diceretur sic, quod vnus magnus dominus, qui habebat inuitatos amicos suos ad cenam, et hora cene intrauerunt illi porci sic induti in palacium coram illo domino et coram discumbentibus, qui sedebant in mensa;
domino autem volente dare eis de illis preciosis cibariis mense sue, tunc porci predicti clamauerunt cum magno sonitu, voce porcina et refutatoria grunientes, recusando comedere illa preciosa cibaria, appetentes tamen auide comedere viles siliquas porcinas suo more solito.
Tunc autem dominus ille, hoc videns et intelligens, abhominatus est vilitatem eorum et immundiciam et statim dixit ad seruos suos cum ira magna et indignacione:
'Expellite eos de palacio meo et eicite foras, vt reficiantur et saturentur sordide siliquis porcinis, quibus digni sunt! Quia nec ipsi volunt nec digni sunt comedere de cibariis meis, que pro amicis meis parata sunt.'"
Ex quibus, reuerendissime pater et domine mi, tunc intellexi in spiritu, quod vos debetis facere sic, scilicet quod vos discernatis in consciencia vestra, vtrum ille oues Christi, scilicet episcopatus vestri vobis commisse, bene et spiritualiter reguntur in absencia vestra an non.
Si autem sic bene reguntur, secundum quod decet spiritualiter, in absencia vestra ad commodum et vtilitatem animarum ipsarum et vltra hoc videtis vos, quod in rectoria marchie potestis facere maiorem honorem Deo et vtilitatem animarum quam in episcopatu vestro,
et tunc dico, quod potestis in officio rectorie marchie bene et licite stare secundum voluntatem Dei, dum tamen non seducat vos ad standum ibi desiderium honoris neque vana ipsius officii gloriacio.
Si vero consciencia vestra dictat vobis contrarium, tunc ego consulo, quod dimisso marchionatus officio redeatis personaliter ad residendum in ecclesia vestra et in episcopatu vobis commisso, ad regendum scilicet oues vestras vel pocius Christi, specialiter vobis commissas, et ad pascendum eas verbo, exemplo et opere, non negligenter et viciose vt malus mercenarius, sed sollicite et virtuose vt verus et bonus pastor.
Parcatis michi, domine mi, eo quod talia vobis scribo, cum sim ignara femina et indigna peccatrix. Rogo illum nostrum verum et bonum pastorem, qui pro ouibus suis mori dignatus est, quod ipse vobis tribuat graciam Spiritus Sancti, qua oues suas digne regatis et vsque ad mortem semper faciatis eius gloriosam sanctissimam voluntatem.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.15.16 — He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.
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