But to return to Matilda, who joined the Béguines at the time when they had already earned for themselves the reproach of Christ, and when, on the other hand, there were those amongst them who had wandered far from the primitive simplicity of the first inhabitants of Lambert le Bègues garden-houses.
By these latter (though they, too, claimed to be the “Friends of God,”) Matilda was “bitterly despised.” And she who had lived during her youth in ignorance of “the false profession of people called spiritual” had to learn amongst “the religious” many a sorrowful lesson. Not amongst Béguines only, but on all sides the fact forced itself upon the heart of Matilda that the Church was fallen from her first estate.
“I, poor creature as I was, could yet be so presumptuous as to lift up the whole of corrupt Christendom upon the arms of my soul, and hold it up in lamentation before God.
“And our Lord said, ‘Leave it alone, it is too heavy for thee.’ And I made answer, ‘O my beloved Lord, I will lift it, and bear it to Thy feet, and cast it into Thine own arms, which bore it on the cross.’ And God in His pity let me have my will, that I might find rest in casting it upon Him.
“And this poor Christendom, brought into the presence of the Lord, seemed to me as a maiden of whom I felt bitterly ashamed.
“And the Lord said, ‘Yea, behold her, blind in her belief, and lame in her hands which do no good works, and crippled in her feet with evil desires, and seldom and idly does she think of Me; and she is leprous with impurity and uncleanness.’”
And the foremost in the guilt of Christendom she found to be those who should have been the pastors and teachers, “the great he-goats, who are defiled with all uncleanliness, and with frightful greed and avarice.”
To the Lord, “the High Pope in Heaven,” Matilda turned for guidance and consolation. “When I wake in the night,” she said, “I think, have I the strength to pray as I desire for unfaithful Christendom, which is a sorrow of heart to Him I love.” She prayed for the priests, that from goats they might become lambs, that they might forget the law of the Jews, and think of the blood of the Lamb who was slain, and mourn over the sufferings of the Lord.
“Alas for holy Christendom, for the crown is fallen from thy head, thy precious jewels are lost; for thou art a troubler and a persecutor of the holy faith. Thy gold is dimmed in the mire of evil pleasures, thy purity is burnt up in the consuming fire of greed, thy humility is sunk in the swamp of the flesh, and thy truth has been swept away by the lying spirit of the world!
“Alas for the fallen crown, the holy priesthood! For thee there remains nothing but ruin and destruction, for with spiritual power thou makest war upon God, and upon His friends. Therefore God will humble thee before thou art aware, He will smite the heart of the pope at Rome with bitter grief.