Caput LXXV. Ex sota Dei gratia salvandis accensemur.
Standing Before the Judge
The soul stands uncertain before Christ's judgment seat, overwhelmed by fear and darkness at the thought of where it may be assigned.
Stand now in the middle, not knowing which side the Judge's sentence will assign you to. What a harsh expectation! Fear and trembling came over me, and darkness covered me (Ps.✦ 54:6).
Grace Over Merit
Whether placed on the left or the right, the soul attributes every good outcome entirely to God's grace rather than its own merits, acknowledging that life rests in His will.
If He assigns me to the left, I won't protest as though it were unjust; if He enrolls me on the right, this is to be credited to His grace, not to my own merits.✦1 Truly, Lord, life is in Your will.
Welcomed Among the Blessed
The soul is urged to love the Savior all the more because He chose to number it among the righteous, and to picture itself hearing Christ's joyful invitation to receive the kingdom.
You see, then, how greatly your heart ought to be enlarged with love for Him — who, though He could justly turn back upon you also the sentence pronounced against the wicked, preferred instead to place you among the righteous and to number you among those being saved.2 Now imagine yourself joined to that holy company, hearing the decree of that voice: 'Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'✦
The Harsh Sentence of Rejection
The damned hear Christ's terrible command to depart into eternal fire, and the passage concludes with the scriptural citation of the four key verses from Matthew 25.
Wretched those who hear a harsh word, full of anger and fury: 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire.'✦ Then these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life (Matt.✦ XXV, 34, 41, 46).
The Anguish of Separation
Two anguished exclamations give voice to the soul's horror at the final, irrevocable separation of the damned from the blessed.
What a harsh separation! What a miserable condition!
Read the original Latin
Sta nunc in medio, nesciens quibus te judicis sententia deputabit. O dura exspectatio! Timor et tremor venerunt super me, et contexerunt me tenebrae (Psal. LIV, 6). Si me sinistris sociaverit, non causabor injustum: si dextris adscripserit, gratiae ejus hoc, non meis meritis est imputandum. Vere, Domine, vita in voluntate tua. Vides ergo quantum in amore ejus tuus extendi debeat animus, qui cum juste posset in impios prolatam, in te quoque retorquere sententiam, justis te maluit ac salvandis inserere. Jam te puta sanctae illi societati conjunctam vocis illius audire decretum: Venite, benedicti Patris mei, percipite regnum, quod vobis paratum est ab origine mundi.
Miseris audientibus verbum durum, plenum irae et furoris: Discedite a me, maledicti, in ignem aeternum. Tunc ibunt hi in supplicium aeternum; justi autem in vitam aeternam (Matth. XXV, 34, 41, 46). O dura separatio! o miserabilis conditio!
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.54.6 — Behold, God is my help; the Lord is among those who uphold my life.
- ↩Matt.25.33 — And he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at his left.
- ↩Matt.25.34 — Then the King will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'
- ↩Matt.25.41 — Then he will also say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'
- ↩Matt.25.46 — And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Notes
- 1 ↩The two conditional clauses contrast damnation (left) and salvation (right) in the imagery of the Last Judgment. 'Causabor injustum' is rendered as 'protest as though it were unjust' to capture the deponent verb's sense of lodging a complaint.
- 2 ↩Cum is taken concessively ('though') rather than causally, as the context contrasts God's justice with His merciful choice. 'Retorquere sententiam' — to turn back the sentence — is a vivid judicial metaphor rendered literally.
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
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