De quodam fratre a febre quartana per sanctum regem liberato.
The Learned Brother Struck Down
Brother Osbert, a learned and eloquent monk, is struck by a quartan fever at midsummer and reduced to such misery that he cannot join the Christmas feast.
There was also a certain brother in the monastery where his holy relics are kept — Osbert by name — whose deeply sincere life was adorned by learning, enlivened by eloquence, and exalted all the more by philosophy, both secular and ecclesiastical. This man was at one time struck down around the middle of July by a quartan fever, and for six months he was so severely tormented that nature seemed on the verge of giving way to the disease. His flesh had been eaten away, his blood drained, his bones emptied of their own marrow — he presented the image of a living skeleton more than a man. The feast of our Lord's nativity — a solemnity all mortals should embrace — had arrived, and that man was worn down by a double burden: he was racked by the force of his fevers, and yet he could not take part in those festive joys, so that the very fevers seemed to torment him all the more bitterly.
Faith Carries Him to the Manger
Against all hope, Osbert's devotion carries him to the Christmas Mass, where the Nativity Gospel renews his spirit, though his suffering is only suspended to reveal the saint's merits.
And so faith brought strength to bear against nature, and devotion triumphed over the illness, compelling the man of God to attend the most sacred vigils against everyone's hope. And now, around the crowing of the rooster, as the Church is accustomed to do on that day, the Mass is celebrated and the Gospel is read — the passage in which Saint Luke the evangelist describes the virginal birth, the shepherds' vigils, and the angels' watch — while that man, contemplating with deepest devotion the humility of the child born for us and the piety of his mother and virgin, dissolved entirely into tears, was flooded with inward joy in a wondrous way, and his withered limbs were revived by a certain outward sweetness. He sings psalms — sings them with spirit and with mind; he prays — prays with spirit and with mind; and between mother and son, between bosom and manger, a pious train of thought runs on together with his words. He believes that the suffering he had long endured had been extinguished; yet pious Jesus had only suspended it — not put it out — so that the merits of his Edward might be made known.
The Return of Pain on Edward's Feast
On the feast of Saint Edward, Osbert's fever returns with renewed violence, and he prostrates himself at the saint's tomb, pouring out lamentations and psalms of lament.
Within two days — because the fevers had, in some way, been checked by divine power on account of the man's devotion — on the third day they attacked his wretched body more severely than usual, and spreading into his joints, sinews, and ligaments, and even into his deepest inner parts, they tore asunder all his inward and outward parts alike with pains and with tortures. Amid these torments, when the day following the previous one seemed to have grown more cruel, the longed-for day arrived, on which the most glorious prince Edward, after his temporal glory, merited eternal glory from Christ who rewards. At that very hour in which, in memory of so great a king, the saving sacrifice was being offered, the ailing man approached the saint's tomb and, prostrate on the ground, as if about to breathe his last, he groaned in pain. My God, what sighs, what groans, what sobs shook that wretched body! What words pain dictated to him, faith suggested, and hope composed! At one moment, as if reasoning, he provokes God; at another, begging, he pleads with him. 'And you, Lord,' he says, 'how long?' How long will you forget me utterly?
A Soul Wrestling with God
Osbert's inner prayer intensifies as he pleads God's own words back to Him, accuses God of neglect, and confesses the unbearable tension of unending suffering.
How long will you turn your face away from me?✦ Where, I ask, are your great deeds, which our forefathers recounted to us, the works you performed in their days?✦ Is it really true that you always learned to show compassion and spare others, yet you will shut the heart of your compassion on those who serve you, who are set apart for your praise, bound over to your service and devotion? Is it really true that the body which you nourished with royal generosity until now you have now exposed to be consumed by fevers? And would that it might be consumed quickly — but alas! Alas! I waste away and am not consumed, I am tormented and do not die; my life is nothing but pain, yet it does not end; death is what I long for, yet it is not granted. But what am I doing, as if striving against you in judgment when I ask for mercy, yet I will not presume about your judgment?
A Direct Plea to the Saint-King
Osbert turns directly to King Edward, begging him to look upon his suffering and, if healing is not granted, to grant him death.
So I beg you, good king, most loving prince, sweet patron — let your heart be moved for your servant, since he suffers so greatly, and with the eye from which you survey things far away, look more closely at what is happening in my pitiful body, and at how unbearably I pass from extreme cold to extreme heat. Oh! Oh, the horrible trembling, the unspeakable burning! Pay attention, sweetest Lord, pay attention and see whether there is suffering like mine. If you judge me unworthy of health, then end my suffering in death. Amid these words, sobs and tears break out, and the matter can no longer be expressed in words — only in feelings.
Healed at the Saint's Tomb
After the Masses end, Osbert rises completely healed, his appetite restored, and devotes himself all the more eagerly to the saint's service.
Then, when the solemn Masses had been completed, he rose from prayer — and look: all the pain had left him, and as if bathed in a new coolness, all his limbs had regained their former strength. He even began to think about food, and at once, once the nausea was gone, his appetite was awakened and his desire for food returned. What more is there to say? Restored to perfect health, from then on he devoted himself all the more eagerly to the holy confessor's service and praise, because he had experienced the king's power firsthand.
Read the original Latin
Erat praeterea in monasterio quo sanctae ejus reliquiae servantur frater quidam Osbertus nomine, cujus sincerissimam vitam decorabat scientia, illustrabat facundia, philosophia tam saecularis quam ecclesiastica sublimius extollebat. Hic aliquando circa medium mensis Julii quartana febre correptus, per menses sex adeo vexabatur, ut natura morbo jamjamque cessura videretur. Exesae carnes, sanguis exhaustus, ossa suis vacuata medullis simulacrum magis quam hominem praeferebant. Aderat Dominicae nativitatis cunctis mortalibus amplectenda solemnitas, et vir ille duplici molestia fatigatur, cum et vi febrium torqueretur, et his gaudiis non interesse festivis ipsis ei febribus amarius videretur. Intulit itaque fides vim naturae, et devotio de morbo triumphat, virumque Dei sacratissimis interesse vigiliis contra spem omnium compulerunt. Et jam circa galli cantum, ut ea die consuevit Ecclesia, missa celebratur, et evangelium, quo virginalem partum, pastorum vigilias, excubias angelorum sanctus Lucas evangelista describit, recitatur, cum ille parvuli qui natus est nobis humilitatem, matris et virginis pietatem summa cum devotione considerans, totumque in lacrymas resolutus, et interiori laetitia miro modo perfunditur, et exteriori quadam suavitate membra marcida refoventur. Psallit, spiritu psallit et mente; orat, spiritu orat et mente; et inter matrem et filium, inter sinum et praesepium, pia cogitatio cum locotione discurrit. Exstinctam credit quam diu pertulerat passionem; quam tamen pius Jesus ut Edwardi sui merita propalaret, suspenderat quidem sed non exstinxerat.
Biduo namque ob devotionem viri febres quadam virtute conclusae divina, die tertio severius solito miserum corpus invadunt, et se artubus, nervis, juncturis quoque, imis etiam visceribus infundentes, doloribus, ac tortionibus tam interiora quam exteriora illius omnia dissecabant. In his tormentis cum dies posterior praecedenti videretur esse crudelior, advenit dies desiderata, qua gloriosissimus princeps Edwardus post gloriam temporalem Christo remunerante meruit aeternam. Hora igitur illa qua pro tanti regis memoria immolabatur sacrificium salutare, accessit ad sancti tumulum languidus, et prostratus solo, quasi jam extremum spiritum emissurus indoluit. Deus meus, quae tunc suspiria, qui gemitus, qui singultus miserum illud corpus concutiebant? Qualia ei verba dolor dictabat, suggerebat fides, spes componebat. Nunc quasi ratiocinando provocat, nunc supplicando compellat. «Et tu, inquit, Domine, usquequo? usquequo oblivisceris me in finem?
usquequo avertis faciem tuam a me? ubi sunt, rogo, magnalia tua quae narraverunt nobis patres nostri, opera quae operatus es in diebus eorum? Itane qui alienis didicisti misereri semper et parcere, tibi servientibus, tuis deputatis laudibus, tuis obsequiis mancipatis claudes viscera pietatis? Itane corpus quod regia munificentia hactenus aluisti, nunc febribus consumendum exposuisti? Et utinam consumendum cito; sed heu! heu! depascor et non consumor, torqueor et non morior; vita dolori est, nec finitur; mors desiderio, nec conceditur. Sed quid facio, quasi judicio contendens tecum cum misericordiam petam, nec praesumam de judicio?
Obsecro proinde, bone rex, amantissime princeps, dulcis patrone, moveat illa viscera tua piissima servuli tui tantus dolor, et oculo quo longe posita cernere consuesti, quid in his miserendis visceribus meis agatur diligentius contemplare, et quam intolerabiliter a frigore nimio ad calorem nimium transeam. O! o tremor horribilis, ardor indicibilis! Attende, Domine dulcissime, attende et vide, si est dolor sicut meus. Si indignum judicas sanitate, vel dolorem termina morte.» Inter haec verba, singultus lacrymaeque prorumpunt, nec ulterius res verbis agitur sed affectibus. Deinde expletis missarum solemniis surgit ab oratione; et ecce dolor omnis abcesserat, et quasi novo perfusa refrigerio vigorem pristinum membra cuncta resumpserant. Coepit etiam cogitare de cibo, et statim pulso fastidio, vis appetitiva ad cibi desiderium excitatur.
Quid plura? Perfectae redditus sanitati tanto dehinc devotius sancti confessoris obsequiis et laudibus insistebat, quanto fuerat in se ipso virtutem ejus expertus.
Scripture echoes
Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita Sancti Edwardi Regis et Confessoris companion
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