Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages | Birgitta Of Sweden (Essay Date C. 1377)
BIRGITTA OF SWEDEN (ESSAY DATE C. 1377)
SOURCE: Birgitta of Sweden. "The Fifth Book of Revelations or Book of Questions" and "The Seventh Book of Questions." In Life and Selected Revelations, edited by Marguerite Tjader Harris, translated by Albert Ryle Kezel, pp. 99-156; 157-218. New York: Paulist Press, 1990.
In the following excerpt, originally written in the fourteenth-century, Saint Birgitta of Sweden relates portions of her mystic vision in which Christ and the Virgin Mary appeared before her and spoke. Christ begins on the subject of Birgitta's spiritual conversion, followed by Mary's admonition against priests marrying.
"For your heart was as cold toward my love as steel; and yet, in it there moved a modest spark of love for me, namely, when you thought me worthy of love and honor above all others. But that heart of yours then fell upon the sulpherous mountain when the glory and delight of the...
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