Caput 6
The King's Prayer in the Wilderness
As the army faces starvation while pursuing Bysseni raiders, King Ladislaus withdraws to pray, begging God for mercy and recalling the manna given to Israel.
After this, Bysseni raiders burst across the borders of the Hungarians and carried off men and women as captives. Pursuing them with his army, he entered a vast wilderness, and they had no food. And while the army was in danger of starvation, he withdrew from them and, prostrate in prayer, begged God's mercy: that he who had once fed the children of Israel by raining down manna would not let the Christian people starve.
Miraculous Provision and Gratitude
God answers prayer by sending a tame herd of stags and buffaloes to feed the army, prompting praise and a theological reflection on God's presence with His chosen ones.
When he rose from prayer and was heading back, a herd of stags and buffalo met him, and they followed him right into the middle of the army, having set aside their wild nature. So each man took as much as he needed from the animals, praising and glorifying God in His saint, through whom they had received such mercy.1 God is present to His chosen ones, providing them with both the desire and the opportunity for good work.2
The Canonization of Hungary's First Saints
Heaven inspires Ladislaus to honor the bodies of the saints, and he secures papal authority to canonize Stephen, Emeric, Gerard, Andrew, and Benedict.
As this chosen servant of God thought with the deepest devotion about how to please Him, this above all was revealed from heaven: he should no longer allow the bodies of the saints—whom the Author of all heaven deigned to honor, already cherishing them in His own bosom—to lie in the dust. So, once he had secured the Pope's authority, he miraculously had the saints' bodies canonized—namely those of the blessed King Stephen, who first showed the Hungarians the way of eternal salvation, and of his son Saint Emeric, who, though the king's only son, asked that heaven reveal to him what he could offer God more acceptably, and was answered that virginity was most pleasing to God, and then, against the desire for marriage and the hope of a successor to the kingdom, offered God a vow of virginity; and also those of Saint Gerard the martyr and of the blessed Andrew and Benedict.
Read the original Latin
Post hoc latrunculi Byssenorum confinia Ungarorum irruperunt, et illic uiros ac mulieres captiuos abduxerunt. quos ipse cum exercitu persequens, uenit in solitudinem magnam, nec habebant quod manducarent. et dum fame periclitaretur exercitus, auulsus est ipse seorsum ab eis, et in oracione prostratus implorabat misericordiam dei, ut qui quondam filios Israhel manna pluens nutrierat, christianum populum famis inedia non sineret interire.
cumque surgens ab oracione reuerteretur, ecce grex ceruorum et bubalorum obuiat ei, et cum ipso scilicet in medium exercitus deposita feritate conuenit. tulit ergo unusquisque ex animalibus quantum sibi sufficiebat, laudantes ac gloriantes deum in sancto suo, per quem talem misericordiam fuerant consecuti. adest deus electis suis, affectum eisdem oportunitatem boni operis administrans.
Electus iste dei seruus dum affectu summo placita deo facere cogitaret, hoc ei potissimum diuinitus oblatum est, ne corpora sanctorum, quos auctor uniuersitatis celi dignabatur honorare, suo iam gremio confouens, in puluere diucius iacere pateretur.
igitur auctoritate summi pontificis impetrata, sanctorum corpora, uidelicet beati Stephani regis, qui primus Ungaris uiam salutis eterne demonstrauit, et filii eius sancti Hemerici, qui cum esset filius regis unicus, peteretque sibi diuinitus reuelari, quid offerre deo posset accepcius, essetque ei responsum uirginitatem esse deo gratissimam, contra uoluntatem coniugii et contra spem posteritatis in regni successore, uotum deo uirginitatis obtulit, corpora sancti Gerhardi martiris et beatorum Andree et Benedicti mirabiliter fecit canonizari.
Notes
- 1 ↩in sancto suo is rendered as 'in His saint,' referring to Ladislaus as the instrument of God's mercy, not as the object of praise in place of God.
- 2 ↩affectum and oportunitatem stand in asyndeton as coordinated objects of administrans; rendered as 'both the desire and the opportunity.' affectum here is the God-given inclination toward good, not mere emotion.
Legenda Sancti Ladislai regis (Life of Saint Ladislaus of Hungary) companion
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