R138: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Propst A. von Erfurt
God Seeks You in Simplicity
Hildegard greets the provost with assurance that God sees him, desires sincere faith and a pure heart, and will free him from vice.
Hildegard's reply. God sees you. seeking a sacrifice from your heart in simplicity! for he himself is truthful, and doesn't want to find duplicity in the one way that is faith among neighbors! just as the eye of God also looks upon the happiness of people in simplicity. May God grant this to you. and free you from every storm of burning vices. So make the eye of your heart pure.
Called Back from Weariness
Acknowledging his sense of abandonment, Hildegard urges him to cease sin, trust God's faithfulness, and recognize that God seeks him like a lost sheep.
For it's as if you're weary and abandoned, far from the house of the one who created you. But you'll be called back among strangers. So stop your sins. God didn't sell you to destruction! He's searching for you, like a lost sheep called back to life. Why do you doubt, as if you're not held in salvation?
Seek God and Live
In a brief closing exhortation, Hildegard calls him to seek God in distress and promises life.
So seek God in your distress and in the grief of your soul! And you will live.✦
Read the original Latin
Responsum hildegardis. Deus preuidet te. querens sacrificium de corde tuo in simplicitate! quoniam ipse uerax est nolens duplicitatem in uia una quę fides est inter proximos! sicut etiam oculus dei in simplicitate inspicit felicitatem hominum. Hoc tibi deus concedat. et liberet te ab omni tempestate flagrantium uiciorum. Fac ergo oculum cordis tui purum.
Nam quasi lassus et derelictus es de domo illius. qui te creauit. Sed reuocaberis inter alienos. et ideo cessa a peccatis tuis. quoniam deus non uendidit te in perditione! sed requirit te in perdita oue quę reuocata est ad uitam. Cur dubitas. quasi non sis in saluatione?
Quere ergo deum in angustia et in dolore animi tui! et uiues.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ezek.18.21-Ezek.18.22;Amos.5.4 — But if the wicked turns from all the sins he has committed, and keeps all my statutes, and does justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. Ezek.18.22 — All his transgressions that he has committed will not be remembered against him; by his righteousness that he has done he shall live. Amos.5.4 — For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: Seek me and live.
Epistolae: Letters to Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England companion
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