's Heeren Avontmael
The Unworthy Guest
The author reflects on the audacity of approaching the Lord's table while wearing a tattered and insufficient wedding garment.
Is it your high feast again, and am I among the guests once more? But, Lord, the wedding garment I wore last time I came is more than half worn out—no, it doesn't even look like one; and I sit boldly at the table as if it fit me perfectly.✦1 How well spent your vengeance would be if you caught me now and drove me out the door into eternal weeping!✦
The Hunger of the Heart
Despite the author's spiritual insufficiency, the Lord provides grace, prompting a deeper longing for true and lasting repentance.
And still you put the meal on my tab, and—on Faith alone and a little readiness to repent—you don't leave my soul to go hungry. So this is the penitent heart.2 But readiness doesn't get you far: it isn't a work begun.3 When will it be penitent—for now, for yesterday, and for the time still to come—once penitent forever; and when do you want it so, Lord? Is it always starting over again, and always back to the old again? Oh, that this hollow repentance would finally truly repent!4
Read the original Latin
Is 't weer dijn hooge Feest, en ick weer van de gasten? Maer, Heer, het Bruylosts-kleed daer in ick lest verscheen Is over halver sleet, jae 't en gelijkt 'er geen; En ick sit moedigh aen als oft' my puntigh pasten. Hoe waer de wraeck besteedt, soo ghy my nu verrasten, En uytter deure dreeft in 't eewighe geween! Noch borght ghy my 't gelagh, en, op Geloof alleen En wat boetveerdicheids, en laet mijn' ziel niet vastem Dit 's dan 't boet-veerdigh hert. maer 't veerdigh gaet niet veer: 't Is geen begonnen werck. Wanneer wil 't boetigh wesen, Voor nu, voor gisteren, en voor den tijd naer desen, Eens boetigh voor altoos; en wanneer wilt ghy 't, Heer? Is 't altijts weer op niews, en altijd weer op 't ouwe? Oh, dat my 't holl berouw eens endtelijck berouwe!
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.22.11-Matt.22.13 — But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding garment. Matt.22.12 — "And he says to him, 'Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. Matt.22.13 — Then the king said to his servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
- ↩Matt.22.13 — Then the king said to his servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Notes
- 1 ↩Bruylosts-kleed is the Gospel wedding garment (worthiness for the feast). puntigh pasten = fit exactly / to a tee; rendered as 'perfectly' for modern cadence.
- 2 ↩borght ... 't gelagh = put the feast/bill on credit for me (innkeeping idiom). boetveerdicheid = readiness/willingness to do penance, not full penance itself—the next sentence turns on that distinction. vastem = fast/go hungry (spiritual starvation at the Supper).
- 3 ↩'t veerdigh picks up boet-veerdigh: mere readiness to repent, not repentance itself. geen begonnen werck = not even a work that has been started.
- 4 ↩Wordplay on holl berouw ... berouwe: hollow/empty remorse that itself needs to repent—i.e. become genuine contrition. endtelijck = at last / finally.
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