Lulu (234 Páginas) As Profecias e Revelações de Santa Brígida da Suécia
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Chapter 133The Mother spoke: ”The enemies of my Son were so eager for his blood that they even inflicted wounds on him when he was dead. Get yourself ready, for my Son is coming with his great host to speak to you!” Then he himself came and said: ”Earlier, I likened myself to Moses when he was leading the people, when the water stood like a wall to right and left. I am indeed like Moses, figuratively speaking. I led the Christian people, that is, I opened heaven up for them and showed them the way to walk, freeing them from their oppressor, the devil, as though from pharaoh. They walked, as it were, between the two walls of the sea to right and left. One of these walls no longer was not meant to proceed; the other of them was not meant to recede; yet both were to stand firmly. These two walls were the two covenants. The first was the old law, the one not meant to proceed. The second was the new law, the one that was not to recede. Between these two, firmly standing walls, I went to the cross as though through the Red Sea, for my whole body was made red with my blood, and red was the once white wood, red the lance. I redeemed my captive people in order to win their love. Now, however, Israel, that is, the priests, neglect me, and they select another god to love. In their passion for the world, as I said before, they love the golden calf. It becomes desirable to them because of their lust and burns in them because of their passions, standing strong on its feet with its head and throat of gluttony. Besides that, they treat me like an idol and lock me in so that I cannot go. They offer incense to me, yet do not please me by it, because they are not doing it for my sake but for themselves. They bend their knee of voluntary obedience to me only as it suits their desires, in order that I may buy them some temporal gain. They call out to me, but my ears do not hear them, because it is not from devotion, and they do not really mean it. Hear me, my heavenly host and all my angels! I chose priests in preference to all the angels and other righteous people. To them alone I gave the power of handling my body. If I had liked, I could have chosen an angel for such an office. Instead, I had so much love for my priests that I granted them this great honor, and I appointed them to stand before me in as it were in seven ranks. They should be as patient as sheep, as steadfast as a solidly based wall, as courageous as soldiers, as wise as serpents, as modest as a virgin, as pure as an angel, as burning with longing as a bride for the marriage bed of her groom. Now, however, they have turned from me in the worst way. They are as wild as predatory wolves that yield to none in their hunger and covetousness, that give honor to none, that have no shame. Second, they are as unsteady as a stone in a weak wall. They lack confidence in their base, that is, in God, in his ability to give them what they need and in his desire to sustain them. Third, like thieves walking in the dark, they find themselves in the darkness of vice. They do not have the daring of soldiers to fight for the glory of God or to undertake a manly task. Fourth, they stand about like asses with their heads to the ground, so stupid and foolish, always thinking about earthly and present conditions and never about what is to come. Fifth, they are as immodest as whores and approach me dressed like whores, keeping their bodies for lustful indulgence. Sixth, they are hideously stained with tar; everyone who comes close to them gets dirty. Seventh, they are as disgusting as vomit. It would be milder and better for me to approach vomit than to spend my pleasure with them. They are so disgusting that the whole heavenly host is disgusted with them. What would be more repulsive than a naked man bringing his mouth down to his lower limbs and eating his own excrement and drinking his own urine? That is how repulsive they are in my sight. When they clothe themselves in priestly vestments, which can be compared to the clothing of the soul, for those vestments denote how the soul should be, then they clothe themselves as genuine traitors. When a man who has given his pledge to the enemy of his lord has to fight together with his lord against that enemy, he blunts his weapons so as not to injure him. In the same way, when these men clothe themselves in priestly vestments, which are the clothing of the soul, figuratively speaking, with which they should protect themselves against the devil, they keep everything blunted so as not to injure the devil and so that he need not fear them. One might ask: How does that happen? Well, when they clothe themselves with the weapons of continence, they blunt them through lust and thus do not vex the devil. When they clothe themselves with the weapons of charity, the weapons do no harm, because they have been blunted through malice. The weapons, that is, the vestments, in which they clothe themselves, are not for their Lord's protection but are only for show, just like traitors who act in one way but put on a different appearance. O my friends, thus do these accursed, dissembling priests approach me like traitors. Yet I come to them all the same, I who am your God and the God of every creature in heaven and on earth, and I lie there before them on the altar, true God and true man. As soon as they have pronounced those words 'This is my body,' I come to them like a bridegroom to share the delight of my divine nature with them, but I encounter the devil in them. So when they put me to their mouths, I take my divine and human natures and go away, and the devil, who had fled in terror at the presence of the Lord, returns then with pleasure. Hear again, my friends, what dignity I conferred upon priests, beyond that of the angels and other men. I gave them five privileges. First, the power of binding and loosing in heaven and on earth. Second, I gave them the ability to turn my worst enemy into a friend, a devil into an angel of mine. Third, I gave them the power of preaching my words. Fourth, the power of consecrating and offering my body, something that none of the angels can do. Fifth, the privilege of handling my body, something that none of you would dare to do, if I were lying before you. I make five accusations against them now. First, that they open hell and close heaven to those trying to enter. Second, that they make an enemy out of a friend and deal two wounds to the person coming to them with only one, who sees the shameful life of priests and thinks to himself: 'If he can do it, even more so can I.' Third, they make nothing of my words and assert their own lies while denying my truth. Fourth, they sell me with their lips, though they should be sanctifying me. Fifth, they crucify my body more painfully than the Jews did. My friends, see how those whom I have chosen and loved so much repay me. I joined them to myself with my own body, and they dissolve the bond between us. This is why they shall be sentenced as traitors and not as priests, unless they reform themselves.” Christ says that he has given more honor to priests than to all the angels and other men, but that they provoke him more than all the others. Their damnation is illustrated in the soul of one priest eternally damned.
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