Читать книгу The Prophecies and Revelations of Saint Bridget of Sweden - Saint Bridget of Sweden - Страница 31

The bride of Christ saw God looking angry, and he said: “I am without beginning and without end. There is no change in me either of year or day, but all time in this world is like a single second or moment to me. Everyone who sees me, sees and knows and understands everything that is in me in a moment. But since you, my bride, are in a material body, you cannot perceive and understand like a spirit, and therefore, for your sake, I will explain to you what has happened.

I was seated as a judge, for all judgment has been given to me, and a man came before my judgment seat to be judged. The voice of the Father thundered and said to him: ‘Woe unto you that you ever were born!’ God did not say this because he had repented of having created him, but it was just like anyone mourning for another and feeling compassion for him. Thereafter, the voice of the Son answered saying: ‘I shed my blood for you and suffered the most bitter and harsh pain for you, but you have separated yourself entirely from it and will have nothing to do with it.’

The voice of the Holy Spirit said: ‘I have searched all the corners of his heart to see if I might find some tenderness or love in his heart, but he is as cold as ice and as hard as stone, and I have nothing to do with him.’ These three voices have not been heard audibly as if there were three gods, but they were heard for your sake, my bride, because you would not be able to understand these spiritual mysteries otherwise.

Thereafter, the three voices of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were immediately transformed into a single voice, and this voice thundered and said: ‘By no means shall the kingdom of Heaven be given to you!’ The Mother of mercy, the Virgin Mary, was silent and did not open up her mercy, for he who was to be judged was unworthy to receive or enjoy her mercy; and all the saints cried out with one voice saying: ‘It is divine justice for him to be eternally exiled and separated from your kingdom and from your joy.’

All those who were in the fires of purgatory said: ‘No pain here is so bitter or harsh that it is enough to punish your sins; you deserve to endure much greater torments and you will therefore be severed from us.’ But then the wretched man himself cried out in a fearsome voice, saying: ‘Woe, woe for the seed that came together in my mother’s womb and from which I received my body!’ He called out a second time, saying: ‘Accursed be the moment when my soul was joined to my body and accursed be he who gave me a body and soul!’ He called out a third time: ‘Accursed be the moment when I came forth alive from the womb of my mother!’

Then came three horrendous voices against him from hell saying: ‘Come to us, accursed soul, like liquid copper draining down, to eternal death and life everlasting!’ They called out a second time: ‘Come, accursed soul, empty of all goodness, and receive our malice! For there will be none of us who will not fill you with his own malice and pain.’ They called out a third time: ‘Come, accursed soul, heavy like the stone that sinks down perpetually and never reaches the bottom where it can rest! You will sink deeper into the deep than we, so that you will not stop until you have reached the lowest part of hell.’

Then our Lord said: ‘Just like the man who had several wives who sees one of them fall away from him and turns away from her, and turns to the others who remain steadfast in his will and rejoices with them, so too have I turned my face and my mercy away from him, and I turn to my servants and rejoice with them. Therefore, when you have heard of his fall and misery, you shall serve me with so much greater sincerity and purity in proportion to the greater mercy I have shown to you. Flee the world and her desire! I did not accept such a bitter suffering for the sake of worldly glory or because I was unable to fulfill it more quickly or easily, - for I could have – but, justice demanded that because humanity sinned in every limb, so must also satisfaction be made in every limb. This was why the Divinity felt compassion for mankind, and in his burning and great love for the Virgin, assumed Manhood from her through which he would suffer all the punishment mankind was destined to suffer. Since I took your punishment upon me out of love, you should remain in true humility, just like my servants, so that you will not be ashamed before anyone and fear nothing but me. Guard your mouth in such a way that, if such were my will, you would never speak. Do not be saddened about worldly things, for they will perish, and I am able to make whomever I want rich or poor. Therefore, my bride, place all your hope in me and I will help you”

EXPLANATION

This man whose judgment is here proclaimed was a nobleman, canon and subdeacon, who received a false dispensation and married a rich virgin but was surprised by a sudden death and thus lost what he desired.

The words of the Virgin to the daughter about two wives, one of whom is called Pride and the other Humility (the latter signifying the most sweet Virgin Mary), and about how the Virgin Mary comes to meet those who love her at the moment of their death.