De Purificatione post Puerperium (Epigr. XII)
The Sanctity of Maternal Praise
The author defends the practice of mothers offering praise to God after childbirth, arguing that gratitude is a natural duty.
It is displeasing that mothers, having brought forth children, present themselves in the temples, and offer the incense of praise to God. Perhaps, indeed, when the Church is tossed about by internal storms throughout your lands, infancy sees you without maternal hymns, and life has sufficiently avenged the neglected prayers. But we believe it is a sin, since the tongues of little ones cannot help but praise God the Father. If daily meals demand their own thanks, will our flesh be ignorant of holy praise?
From Burden to Blessing
Pious souls find in every life event an opportunity for humble prayer, transforming the memory of the Fall into a moment of reconciliation with God.
Furthermore, for pious souls, any occasion is a gain if it allows them to pour out prayers from a humble heart. Thus, when the woman, conscious of the plucked fruit, groans over her childbearing as if cursed, she returns to the gentle God—whom she had once fled in her agitation—now as if blessed.
Read the original Latin
Enixas pueros matres se sistere templis Displicet, et laudis tura litare Deo. Forte quidem, cum per vestras Ecclesia turbas Fluctibus internis exagitata natet, Vos sine maternis hymnis infantia vidit, Vitaque neglectas est satis ulta preces. Sed nos, cum nequeat parvorum lingua parentem Non laudare Deum, credimus esse nefas. Quotidiana suas poscant si fercula grates, Nostra caro sanctae nescia laudis erit? Adde piis animis quaevis occasio lucro est, Qua possint humili fundere corde preces. Sic ubi jam mulier decerpti conscia pomi Ingemat ob partus, ceu maledicta, suos, Apposite quem commotum subfugerat olim, Nunc redit ad mitem, ceu benedicta, Deum.
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