The Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden
Chapter 99: Christ Is Like a Worm
1 The Mother says: “At the time of my Son's suffering, when his betrayer Judas approached, 1he bent down—for Judas was small of size—and gave him a kiss and said: 2 ‘Friend, for what have you come?’ And some of those there seized him immediately, while others pulled him by the hair or defiled him with their spittle.”
3 Then the Son spoke, saying: “I am regarded as a worm, lying as though dead in the winter. Passersby spit on it and trample it down. This day 2the Jews treated me like a worm, 3for they held me to be the lowest and most unworthy of creatures. 4 Even so do Christians scorn me, for they regard as meaningless everything I have done and endured for them out of love. 5 They trample me down each time they fear and venerate man more than me, their God, each time they count my judgment for naught and fix the time and measure for my mercy according to their own conceptions. 6 They strike me in the teeth whenever, having heard of my commandments and suffering, they say: ‘Let us do whatever delights us in the present, and we shall obtain heaven nonetheless. 7 If God had wanted us to perish or to punish us eternally, he would not have created us or redeemed us at such a bitter cost.’ That is why they shall experience my justice. While not the least little good will go unrewarded, neither will the least little evil remain unpunished. 8 They treat me with scorn, as though crushing me underfoot, whenever they disregard the church's sentence of excommunication. As the excommunicated are shunned by others, 4so too such as these will be separated from me, inasmuch as excommunication, when it is known but scorned, causes more grievous injury than a physical sword.
9 Since, then, I appear as a worm to them, I will now come to life again through my terrible judgment. My coming will be so terrible that those who see it will say to the mountains: ‘Fall upon us, cover us from the wrathful face of God!’ ”
