Caput XXXI. De adolescente resipiscente et Christum hora mortis vidente.
The Fire of Repentance
A man overwhelmed by habit blushes deeply and finds a fire of repentance blazing in his heart.
I saw a man who, though overwhelmed by the force of his own habit, could not hold himself in check through repentance; at last he turned back on himself and blushed beyond measure. And soon his heart grew hot within him, and in his meditation a fire blazed up.✦✦
War Against the Flesh
Moved by wholesome anger at himself, he declares war on his body and strips away even necessary comforts.
Then, growing angry at himself in a wholesome way, he rushed upon himself with the sharpest rebuke, and declaring war on his body, he stripped it even of things that seemed necessary.
A Changed Life
Gravity replaces frivolity and silence replaces talkativeness, so that no idle word is heard from him.
Gravity replaced frivolity; silence replaced talkativeness. No one saw him joking afterward, no one caught sight of him laughing, no one heard an idle word from his mouth.✦
Scrupulous Self-Examination
He renounces all bodily comfort, is scrupulous about his thoughts, and lives with downcast eyes as though standing before the divine judgment.
He so despised and shrank from worldly comforts and whatever seemed pleasant to the flesh that he wouldn't allow himself any rest, any consolation in food or drink. He was so anxious and scrupulous about his own thoughts that in this one respect alone he seemed excessive. With downcast face and eyes cast low he stood and sat, so that he seemed to stand trembling and fearful before the divine judgment seats.
Victory Over the Devil
With these spiritual weapons he wins a glorious triumph over the tyrant.
With weapons such as these he won a glorious triumph over the tyrant.
Christ at the Hour of Death
In his final illness, he declares that Jesus is coming to him.
For after a long period of debility, when he was struck by the most severe stomach ailment and the hour of his falling asleep was now upon him, he said, 'Leave off! Look — Jesus is coming.'12
Read the original Latin
Vidi hominem, qui cum poenitentia sua, vi consuetudinis oppressus, continere non posset; tandem in se reversus supra modum erubuit: et mox concaluit cor ejus intra eum, et in meditatione ejus exarsit ignis. Deinde salubriter irascens sibi, invectione gravissima irruit in se ipsum, et bellum indicens corpori, etiam ei quae necessaria videbantur, ademit. Successit gravitas levitati, loquacitati silentium. Nemo eum postea vidit jocantem, ridentem nemo conspexit, nemo ex ore ejus otiosum sermonem audivit. Temporales consolationes, et quidquid carni suave putabatur, ita contempsit et exhorruit, ut nullam sibi requiem, nullam in cibo vel potu consolationem indulgere ei pateretur. Cogitationum suarum ita sollicitus et scrupulosus erat, ut in hoc solo nimius videretur. Ita demisso vultu oculisque dejectis stabat, sedebat, ut timens et tremens divinis tribunalibus videretur assistere. Talibus armis gloriosum retulit de tyranno triumphum.
Nam gravissimum stomachi incurrens incommodum post diuturnum languorem, cum jam dormitionis ejus hora instaret; Sine, inquit, ecce Jesus venit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Jer.20.9 — And I said, 'I will not mention him, nor will I speak in his name anymore.' But it was in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was weary of holding it in, and I could not.
- ↩Luke.24.32 — They said to one another, "Was not our heart burning within us while he spoke to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"
- ↩Matt.12.36 — But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they will give an account for it on the day of judgment.
Notes
- 1 ↩dormitio rendered as 'falling asleep' rather than 'death' to preserve the ambiguity of the Latin, which can mean either; context suggests the approach of death but the gentler term fits the recluse setting.
- 2 ↩Sine as interjection ('Leave off!') preferred over prepositional reading; fits direct speech frame and the urgency of the moment.
De institutione inclusarum (A Rule of Life for a Recluse) companion
A rule only lives if you keep it daily
Chosen Portion gives your new rule its anchor: one free devotional portion every day.
Aelred built his sister's day around fixed times of prayer and meditation; Chosen Portion supplies the fixed daily portion that makes a modern rule of life keepable.
- Anchor your rule with a fixed 10-minute daily portion
- Practice Aelred's threefold meditation with guided daily prompts
- Review and adjust your one-page rule after 30 days of tracked practice