The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage

...by its very Creator original: "conditore" in a higher place on earth, full of all pleasantness, riches, and delights—namely, in the earthly paradise—with all other creatures on earth subject to her. And her Creator had adorned her with grace and instructed her in heavenly discipline, having indeed given her a mandate by which, through obedience, she might have deserved to be indissolubly joined to her Bridegroom in a bond of perpetual faith, with every occasion for punishment, guilt, or misery removed.

And behold, a tyrant—the prince of darkness, indeed, by whose envy death entered into the world—clothed in the form of a cunning serpent, first overthrew feminine weakness with shrewd persuasion; and finally, aided by feminine charms, he subjugated the masculine stronghold. The author uses the traditional medieval allegory where the serpent targets Eve (feminine weakness) to eventually conquer Adam (the masculine stronghold/reason).

Therefore that tyrant snatched away the bride of God, seduced by deceitful counsel; and he drove her far from her homeland into an unknown region, subdued by poverty, misery, and captivity, as if she were never to return. But when the fullness of time original: "plenitudo temporis," a biblical reference to the moment of Christ's birth (Galatians 4:4). had come, in which God, having pitied the misery of his beloved, had arranged by his hidden counsel to set her free: he sent his Son into the temple of the virginal womb, from whose purest blood he joined her to himself in a personal union by an indissoluble covenant.

Of this nuptial celebration, the Archangel Gabriel was the messenger, and the Holy Spirit was the celebrant, while the undefiled Virgin provided her consent. Thus, therefore, the Son of God, the Bridegroom of his faithful, personally assumed our nature. Rising from on high, he visited us in the region of dissimilarity original: "regione dissimilitudinis." A concept from St. Augustine and St. Bernard of Clairvaux describing the soul's state of being lost and unlike God after the Fall.; he faithfully instructed us in heavenly disciplines; with athletic sweat A reference to the physical and spiritual struggle of Christ's Passion, compared here to the labor of an athlete. he manfully conquered our enemies; having achieved a full trophy (the sting of death being overcome), he turned back our captivity like a torrent in the south. A quotation from Psalm 126:4, symbolizing a sudden and powerful restoration of fortune.

He redeemed us with his precious blood; he restored us to liberty by his baptism; he endowed us with his sacraments and graces, so that finally, full of virtues, we might run to meet him in the hall of glory—