The Revelations of St Bridget and Church Reform
"The people... and the priests ... have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land with their abominations.... Furthermore, the leaders and rulers have taken a leading part in this apostasy!" (Ezra 9:1-2) The words of the Old Testament prophet describe well the perennial tendency of God's people throughout history, in both the old and new dispensations, to abandon God and his ways and to follow the sinful ways of the world. And as in the Old Testament, so also in fourteenth century Europe the religious leaders were in large part responsible for the widespread infidelity. The principle, corruptio optimi pessima, "the corruption of what is best becomes the worst," in fact, can be seen to apply throughout Bridget's revelations that pertain to apostasy and reform. Bridget writes that the Church in her time had among its members, both clerical and lay, a disproportionate number of apostates, primarily those who had succumbed to the temptations of pride, avarice, and carnal indulgence. She states that Christ's bride, meaning Christians, had become an adulteress, preferring the devil to Christ (Revelations, Bk. 6, Ch. 33; hereafter 6.33). These apostate Christians are members of Christ's Church merely outwardly, while their hearts belong to the world, the flesh and the devil. Hardly anyone believes that Christ is a just judge who will punish evildoers severely after death. And those who are within the Church but do not belong there on account of their evil lives, attack and oppress God's elect who remain faithful (1.5). St John the Baptist tells Bridget: "Not in a thousand years has God's anger at the world been so great" (4.134). In fact, Bridget saw her fourteenth century as the beginning of the age of widespread apostasy that would last until the end of the world and the Final Judgment, the first age having lasted from Adam to Christ and the second from Christ to her time. The Antichrist would be born at the end of the third age (6.67). In the Revelations Christians of all classes are accused of having fallen away and having rebelled against God, but especially the two leading classes of clergy and knights, who cause both themselves and their subjects to perish. The clergy are the worst of all on account of their exalted spiritual calling, since Christ chose them before all the angels, giving them alone the power to handle his Body in the Eucharist. But now they offend him more than all others, and for that reason the judgment of the world, Christ tells Bridget, will begin with them (3.5; 1.48).
6 5. Causes of Apostasy
St. Bridget states that in the general apostasy of her time Christians are living primarily for the pleasures of the flesh and worldly gain, and in so doing manifest a contempt for Christ as well as for their neighbor, and provoke God's judgment. Love of the world, rooted in pride and disordered self-will, along with avarice and unbridled sensuality are seen as the sources of man's alienation from God (3.5). In Revelation 1.23 Christ passes this judgment on a bishop: "...all of his thought is directed toward things of the present rather than things eternal, toward how he may be well regarded by men and what serves the flesh, rather than how he is regarded by me and what is profitable to men's souls." One aspect of pride particularly affecting the clergy is vainglory, in which they seek to gain the praise of others by being considered learned (1.33). They outwardly praise Christ while their intention is to receive praise themselves and to advance themselves in the Church and in worldly holdings (6.37). They will often refuse to admonish sinners and will say what people want to hear in order to be liked and appreciated (1.55). Avarice or covetousness (cupiditas) in relation to the clergy and religious often refers not only to a disordered love of material wealth and possessions, but also to a desire for higher offices and honors (4.126). Especially serious, according to Bridget, is this sin when it pertains to religious since they have made a vow of poverty, although secular clergy can also sin grievously by their worldly ways and attachments. The third vice, sensuality or inordinate carnal pleasure (carnalis voluptas), is sometimes referred to in the Revelations as disordered delight or concupiscence, and denotes an excessive and disordered appetite for what is pleasurable to the body. Christ plaintively says to St. Bridget that "no one desires to have me as their delight" (Extravagantes 5 1.3). 7 Instead of "Sister Abstinence," most Christians embrace "Lady Delight in the Flesh" (4.45). St. Bridget accuses a great number of Christians, especially priests, of lacking true contrition for their sins, lacking & firm purpose of amendment and not detaching themselves from the causes and occasions of sin. One priest is accused by demons who say, "The liar! We can testify that his confession is like that of Judas, for he says one thing with his mouth but has another in his heart" (1.48). St. Bridget accuses many priests of hypocrisy, concealing their impurity and other sins under the outward appearance of piety. Such hypocrites are worse than Judas, who at least acknowledged his wicked deed and regretted it, although he did not turn to God's mercy. These priests, however, continue to feign righteousness (4.132). Christians also lack a salutary fear of God's justice, Bridget writes. Priests in particular are guilty of lacking fear when they celebrate Mass, not realizing their utter unworthiness to approach Christ's altar, nor how pure they ought to be who actually handle Purity Incarnate (6.9). Christ also complains, through Bridget, that priests and religious offend him by not trusting in him to give them what they need, for he wants to support them in all their temporal and spiritual needs, but they lack the necessary confidence in God. This lack of trust and confidence in God also leads many religious to violate their vow of poverty (6.35). Bridget writes that many religious are negligent in their duties, for example monks rarely chant the Divine Office together in choir, and even the private recitation of the Office is considered a great burden by many priests and religious (1.47; 2.20), and spiritual reading is disdained (4.58). She reproaches many of the clergy for having abandoned their primary duty of helping to save the souls of those entrusted to them because of their inordinate concern for their own temporal aims (1.59; 4.43; 4.132-133). The bad example of many priests leads many people gradually into spiritual blindness and to become complacent in sin, and then to even boast about it, even if previously they had been ashamed of it (4. 132). Priests and religious are accused by Christ of being deficient and often totally negligent in their preaching and instructing the people in the faith. Christ complains to Bridget: "They do not speak of my wonderful deeds nor do they teach my doctrine, but instead they teach love of the world" (4.132). Bridget writes that many priests succumb to the temptation to avoid preaching and teaching about the "hard sayings" of Christ in order not to offend people and to be well received by them, and also for monetary gain. They yield to the demands of the world because they fear and cannot endure being persecuted and hated by the world. By presenting what is agreeable to people, Christ's justice remains hidden and the people blindly live in presumptuous confidence of their salvation. 8 One is reminded of Christ's denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees of his time: "Woe to you... you hypocrites! You who shut up the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven in men's faces, neither going in yourselves nor allowing others to go in who want to" (Mt 23:13); Compare this with Jn 15:19: "If you were of the world, the world would love [you because you are] its own; but because you are not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you"; Mt 10:22: "and you will be hated by all for my name's sake."* [Note at bottom of page] [*Priests today who have an immoderate aversion to being hated by the world will rarely if ever mention in their preaching and teaching such things as the evil of pornography, sodomy and the "gay" lifestyle, other sins of impurity, immodesty, contraception, divorce and remarriage, or hell. They should ponder the words of Our Lady of Fatima to Blessed Jacinta Marto: "More souls go to hell on account of sins of the flesh than for any other reason." When the world has gone from slouching toward Gomorrah to sprinting there, as one Catholic commentator put it, a little boldness, not excluding admonitory rhetoric with some "shock value" in it (as in the Revelations), may sometimes be required of shepherds. Then indeed the world will hate them (including the more carnal and worldly-minded of their parishoners), but they will lead many more souls, including their own, to the joy that the world cannot give, plus eternal life.] Bridget hears the devil tempting a certain bishop: Of what concern is it to you how this or that person lives? Why should you offend and correct those by whom you could be honored and loved? If they don't offend you and your loved ones, why should you care how they live or whether they offend God? If you are good yourself, why should you judge others? (3.2; cf. 4. 126). Bridget states that many priests follow this advice, to their own damnation. They ignore sin that should be corrected. They choose to forget, on account of their worldly and carnal attachments, as well as inordinate concern for human respect, that reproving the sinner is a spiritual work of mercy the neglect of which they will be held accountable before God (3.15). She also accuses bishops of tolerating and ignoring the great scandal of priests living unchaste lives (1.23). The Revelations also condemn the widespread practice of simony, i.e., the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices and benefits, even the sacraments. Many of the clergy will hardly do a thing, Bridget says, without the hope of material profit or temporal gain. She states that those guilty of simony, like the duplicitous priests referred to above, are worse than Judas, who at least returned the money after having betrayed Christ (4. 132).* Absenteeism is another pervasive evil which Bridget speaks of, beginning with the French popes living in Avignon for worldly reasons, as well as bishops neglecting their flock and abbots living outside their monasteries, both oftentimes residing in great castles and living in luxury.**
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