Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - III. The Romanized Church under the Sverkers, Erics and Folkungar (1130—1389 A.D.)
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
1 4 . ST. BIRGITTA: HER LIFE IN SWEDEN. 129
received of God" (Rev. Ivii., c. 7). On another occa
sion she heard the Blessed Virgin say that she had two
sons, one our Saviour, the other he
"
who sits in the papal
seat, that is the seat of God in the world, if he has obeyed
His precepts and loved Him with a perfect charity
"
(Rev.
iv. c. 138). This refers to Pope Urban V. Quite at the
close of her life, in her last pilgrimage, she declared that it
was the duty of the Greek Church to submit to Rome, and
threatened it with perpetual slavery if it did not do so (vii.
19).
Dr. Schiick, whose account of Birgitta s life is one of the
best known to me, compares her to Fra Angelico. She is
a poetess, with a keen eye for nature, and yet with a
mediaeval, not a modern, love of nature. She sees nature
"
with a background of gold and sky blue."
"
When one
reads her writings," he says, "it is as if one stood on a
height with clouds beneath one s feet, the vault of heaven
arching over one s head, but without discerning a bit of
earth" (I.S.L.H. i.
97).
But (as he goes on to say) Birgitta is far from being cold.
"
In her writings seethes a mystic passion. Childhood s
dreams and youth s suppressed enthusiasms return in her
revelations coloured by an already ageing woman s power
ful imagination. My body (she says) is like an untamed
colt, and my feelings like the wild birds of the forest
"
(Rev. extr. 52). She hears her bridegroom Christ whisper
to her : If thou desire nothing beside me, if thou despise
everything for my sake, not only children and parents, but
honour and riches, so shall thy heart be in my heart, and
inflamed with love for me, just as dry bushwood is burnt in
the fire; and I shall be in thee, so that all worldly things
s i; 11 become to thee bitter and the pleasures of the flesh as
po son
"
(Rev. i.
50).
The following extracts, which I have chosen from those
selected and translated (rather too freely) by Hammerich,
will give a fair idea of Birgitta s style, and particularly of
her eye for nature and her faculty of apt illustration :
"
Christ speaks : The world is like a broad desert, overgrown
9
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
