Flower of Devotion

On one occasion the Lord Jesus said to St. Bridget:

“The Godhead, having created man, gave him at the same time two goods, namely, the freedom to do good and to protect himself from evil. For since there were no more angels to be created, it was fitting that man should take away his liberty if he was to rise to the dignity of angels. And to the soul of man the Lord God has given two goods, namely, reason, that it may discern one opposite from another, and that it may choose the best from the best, and secondly, that He has given it the strength to persevere in the good.
When Satan saw God’s love for man, he thought to himself, in his jealousy: “God has created something new that can get into the place we occupy, and can gain by fighting what we have recklessly lost. If we could crush it and conquer it, it would have to stop fighting, and then it would not reach its greatness.” Then Satan devised a deceitful temptation and deceived man by his malice, where, with the permission of My justice, he was victorious.
How and when was man defeated? Now, when he has lost his virtue and done a forbidden thing; when he was more pleased with Satan’s promise than with obedience to Me.
For this disobedience, man did not deserve to be in Heaven because he despised God. But he did not yet deserve hell either, because his soul, with the help of reason, pondered carefully what it had done and repented of the sin it had committed. Therefore the mighty God acknowledged the misery of man, and appointed him a guard and a place of imprisonment, so that man might know his weakness and atone for his disobedience. That he may once again be able to rise to the dignity he has lost.
And this Satan pondered again, and desired to kill the soul of man by the vice of ingratitude. He put his feces into the soul of man and darkened his understanding to such an extent that man knew nothing of the love of God and did not feel the fear of God. He also completely forgot God’s justice and despised God’s judgment. That is why God was not feared and his goodness and benefits were forgotten. The people of that time did not understand love, and they were paupers with a darkened conscience and had fallen very low.
However, God did not skimp on man’s help, but showed him His mercy and His justice.
Mercy, when He showed men, namely, Adam and other good men, how they would be helped at His appointed time. In this way, people’s love for God was awakened. And God showed His righteousness, namely, in the days of Noah, by a flood which filled the hearts of men with fear and fear of God.
But even then Satan did not cease to trouble man in other ways, but accosted him with two other malices. First he deprived him of his faith, then he subjected him to despair. He deprived him of his faith, so that people did not believe the word of God, and attributed his miracles to fate; and despair, lest they should expect either salvation or restoration of their lost glory. Against these two scraps the Lord Almighty did not fail to give two means; against despair he gave hope when he promised Abraham that from his seed he would raise up Him who would restore to him and to all his living descendants in faith the honor that had been lost. In addition to this, He called prophets to whom He showed the way of redemption and the places and times of His suffering. Against the second evil, i.e., unbelief, God spoke with Moses and revealed His law and His will to him, and He also made known to him His words by signs and wonders.
While this was happening, Satan’s anger had not yet ceased, but Satan stirred man up to more and more malice, and put two other things into man’s heart. First, the thought that God’s law is too intolerable; secondly, he gave him the thought, how almost impossible it seemed to believe, that God should die of love and be willing to suffer persecution. Again, God gave two means against these two things: first, in order that man might not lose patience with the firmness of the law, He sowed His Son into the womb of the Virgin, who, after taking upon Himself Humanity, fulfilled what the law required, and then He softened the law Himself. Against the second thing God showed the greatest strength, for the Creator died for the creature, the Righteous for the wicked; The innocent suffered persecution until the last moment, as the prophets had foretold.