CAPUT IX. Quomodo oriatur vel ordinetur dolor
The Birth of Sorrow from Fear
Fear of punishment gives birth to penitential sorrow, and the sinner who turns back with a contrite heart is assured of salvation.
Once the first son is born and grows gradually, the second is born, because great fear must be followed by sorrow. The more fiercely someone fears the punishment they've earned, the more bitterly they mourn the fault they've committed. But you should know that at whatever hour a sinner turns back and groans, they will be saved, according to the word: "A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise."1
Simeon: The Cry Heard
The rhetorical question identifies the sorrowing soul as Simeon, 'being heard,' because true repentance and grief receive immediate pardon.
What do you think? Isn't a son like this rightly called Simeon—that is, "being heard"?2 For the one who truly repents and truly grieves will, without a doubt and without delay, receive pardon.
The Path of Compunction to Consolation
Prayer from a heart humbled by fear and contrite by sorrow is quickly heard, leading to the beatitude that mourners will be comforted.
Prayer offered from a contrite and humbled heart is heard more quickly: humbled by fear, contrite by sorrow. Through Ruben the heart is humbled; through Simeon it is crushed, and in weeping it is pierced with compunction. But: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."3
Read the original Latin
Primo filio nato, et paulatim crescente, secundus nascitur, quia magnum timorem necesse est ut dolor sequatur. Quanto enim vehementius quis metuit poenam quam meruit, tanto acerbius plangit culpam quam fecit. Sed sciendum quia, quacunque hora peccator conversus fuerit et ingemuerit, salvus erit, secundum illud: Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies. Quid tibi videtur? Nonne merito talis filius Simeon, id est exauditio, vocatur. Qui enim vere poenitet, qui veraciter dolet, absque dubio et absque mora indulgentiam accipiet. Oratio quae ex corde contrito et humiliato profertur, citius exauditur: humiliato per timorem, contrito per dolorem. Per Ruben humiliatur, per Simeonem conteritur, et in fletu compungitur: sed Beati qui lugent, quoniam ipsi consolabuntur.
Notes
- 1 ↩"conversus fuerit et ingemuerit" rendered as genuine conversion with penitential groaning, not mere mood change.
- 2 ↩exauditio rendered as "being heard" (favorable divine hearing of prayer), fitting Richard's onomastic allegory for Simeon.
- 3 ↩Subject of the passives is the heart (cor) from the preceding sentence; supplied in English for clarity.
Benjamin Minor (The Twelve Patriarchs / Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation) companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent