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Chapter 27Ansl.1.27

ORATIO XXVII. AD CHRISTUM. Cum sacerdos corpus Christi et sanguinem in manibus tenet, tenensque dulciter recordetur quos dolores in cruce pro nobis passus est.

Preparing the Soul to Receive Christ

The priest prays for cleansing from sin and asks God to teach His righteous ways so he may worthily approach the altar and handle the mystery of Christ's Body and Blood.

Sweetest and most longed-for Jesus Christ, more desirable than all things, be present at my prayer, attend to the voice of my pleading, and in your great mercy cleanse my soul from every stain of sin, so that I may be worthy to approach the service of your altar and worthily handle the mystery of your Body and Blood.1 I confess, sweetest Lord, before your almighty power that I am deeply guilty, doing many wrongs nearly every hour — and yet, trusting in your unfailing goodness, I do not despair.2 You are good, Lord, and in your goodness teach me your righteous ways, so that by understanding them and, as is fitting, carrying them out continually, I may receive your mysteries with a clean heart and a pure soul.34

The Soul as Christ's Lodging

The soul is urged to prepare a pure inner dwelling for Christ, who cannot remain where wickedness reigns, and is warned of the terrible consequences of being abandoned by Him.

See, my soul, prepare the lodging of your heart to receive the body and blood of your Creator with pure thoughts and pure deeds. Cleanse out from all your inner depths whatever could offend a guest of such immense majesty. For Christ cannot remain in that soul or in that heart which is possessed by any contamination of wickedness, and unless the highest peace and the highest love reign there, He judges that lodging unworthy by the conduct of His dwelling, and bearing no great unrest and turmoil from it, He quickly departs from that lodging. But woe to that mind which Christ abandons on account of its own iniquities, and abandoning it, allows it to be led astray by the temptations and deceits of the enemy.

Self-Examination and the Danger of False Compunction

The priest is called to rigorous self-examination, to guard the senses and drive out all impurity, to beg forgiveness while holding the consecrated elements, and to beware the devil's snare of turning recollection of sin into renewed delight in it.

So examine carefully, O my soul — carefully gather back all the senses of your body to yourself within, and whatever foul or unclean thing you find in them, cast it out; and having expelled all malice or iniquity, carefully close again the entrance of your breast behind them, so that they cannot at some time return to you, or defile your inner parts further.5 But once all that pertains to the consecration of that venerable mystery has been completed, and everything that is accustomed to stain the secret of the mind has been driven out — O you, my wretched soul — look upon all your negligences with great diligence, and all the evils and sins you were accustomed to commit.67 And when you hold in your hands the body and blood of your Redeemer, beseech his ineffable mercy — as sweetly as you can — that through his great piety he may forgive all your sins, and that you may not be able to commit these or other sins any longer.89 Before all things — and I warn you as though warning you of your own destruction — beware that in recollections of this kind you do not fall into any of the devil's snares, into which many incautious people more often fall; for while they bring back their own evils before the eyes of the mind, weeping as it were for them, through those same recollections they foolishly fall back into delight in those very evils.101112

Meditating on the Passion and Speaking to Christ

The priest is led to contemplate Christ's ineffable love and the details of His Passion—His wounds, mockery, patience, and prayer for His enemies—and then to rest in tender colloquy with the body he holds, confessing the creedal faith about that very body.

Call to mind, as tenderly as you can, the inexpressible love in the body of Christ that you hold — and, beyond anything you can measure, the astonishing sweetness with which He endured many injuries for your redemption and in the end was crucified.✦ But consider — and reconsider — the very passion He bore on the cross, pain by pain: with what great suffering His feet and hands were fastened to the cross-beam of that gibbet, His side pierced by the soldier's lance; how there, before the cross, He was mocked and scoffed at by the very ones for whom He suffered, as though He were a criminal; and how, enduring such horrible reproaches, like the gentlest Lamb He displayed immeasurable patience.✦✦ Although He could easily have done so, He did not avenge Himself on His own murderers; instead He prayed to the Father to forgive them this sin. When, having been nourished by meditations of this kind, you begin to rest — yet even in resting do not cease to ruminate on these things tenderly and with deep affection — speak to that most sweet body of the most sweet Lord which you hold in your hands, and as though speaking to one who is present, set before Him your needs. Believe this about Him with firm faith: that this body is truly that body which was born of the Virgin, which was crucified, which was laid in the tomb, which on the third day rose again from the dead, which ascended into heaven, and which sits at the right hand of the Father.✦

Angels, Saints, and Persistent Prayer at the Altar

The priest contemplates the angels and saints present at the Eucharistic sacrifice, and is urged to embrace Christ's flesh with tender faith, making his needs known and pressing them upon Him with persistent, adoring prayer.

And don't doubt that in that hour of the sacrifice of the body and blood of your Redeemer, angels stand present before their Creator, and before the flesh and blood of their Creator they offer their reverent, ineffable homage with great awe. What then should be thought of all the saints? What can be imagined, when they behold the price of his redemption being celebrated on earth, the saints who now already possess great joy in heaven, rejoicing in the eternal vision of the one whose sacrifice they witness? But you, my soul, believing all these things faithfully, and tenderly embracing the flesh of your Creator, in those very embraces of his goodness make your need known to him, and as sweetly as you can, beseech his goodness, so that through his ineffable mercy he may cleanse away every foulness of yours. Throw all of yourself — your very self — into Christ whom you hold, and first adoring him, as you present your needs again and again, keep pressing them upon him.

Read the original Latin

Dulcissime, et super omnia desideranda desiderande et suavissime Jesu Christe, adesto supplicationi meae, et intende voci orationis meae, et per tuam magnam misericordiam emunda ab omni inquinamento peccati animam meam, ut dignus possim accedere ad servitium tui altaris, digneque tractare mysterium corporis et sanguinis tui. Fateor, dulcissime Domine, coram omnipotentia tua me nimis esse culpabilem, et multa mala fere per singulas horas facientem, et tamen de ineffabili bonitate tua non desperantem. Bonus es tu, Domine, et in bonitate tua doce me justificationes tuas, ut eas intelligendo, easque, sicut decet, jugiter operando, mundo corde mundaque anima possim recipere mysteria tua.

Ecce, anima mea, praepara hospitium cordis tui ad suscipiendum corpus et sanguinem Creatoris tui mundis cogitationibus mundisque operibus, expurga ab omnibus interioribus tuis quidquid potest offendere hospitem tam immensae majestatis; non enim potest in illa anima vel in illo corde manere, quam possidet aliqua contaminatio malitiae, et nisi ibi summa pax summaque charitas fuerit, indignum judicans illud hospitium conversatione suae mansionis, nec diu ferens tantam inquietudinem perturbationis, ab illo hospitio cito discedit. Vae autem menti illi quam Christus propter suas iniquitates deserit, deserensque et damnans tentationibus et dolis inimici seduci permittit!

Diligenter ergo, o anima mea, inspice, diligenter omnes sensus corporis tui ad teipsam intus recollige, et quidquid eis sordidum vel immundum inveneris, foras projice, expulsaque omni malitia vel iniquitate, diligenter post illas aditum pectoris tui reclude, ne ad te valeant quandoque redire, vel amplius interiora tua inquinare. Peractis vero omnibus quae ad ipsius venerabilis mysterii consecrationem pertinent, expulsisque omnibus quae ipsius mentis arcanum maculare solent, o tu, misera anima mea, cum magna diligentia intuere omnes negligentias tuas, omnia mala et peccata quae facere solebas. Et cum ipsius Redemptoris tui corpus et sanguinem in manibus tenes, illius ineffabilem misericordiam, quam dulcius potes, exora, ut per suam magnam pietatem omnia peccata tua dimittat, et ut haec vel alia amplius admittere non valeas. Hoc ante omnia, et sicut interitum tuum moneo caveas, ne in hujusmodi recordationibus aliquos diaboli laqueos incurras, quos multi incauti saepius incurrunt; qui dum mala sua quasi pro eis plorantes ante mentis oculos reducunt, per easdem recordationes in ipsorum malorum delectationes insipienter reincidunt.

Recordare, quam dulcius potes, ipsius corporis Christi quod tenes ineffabilem pietatem, et plusquam aestimari possit admirandam dulcedinem, quod pro redemptione tua multas injurias sustinuit, et ad ultimum crucifixum sit. Sed et ipsam passionem quam in cruce pertulit per singulos dolores cogita et recogita, scilicet cum quanto dolore in ipsius crucis patibulo et pedes ejus et manus infixae sunt, latus ejus per militis lanceam transforatum, ab ipsis etiam pro quibus patiebatur, ibi ante crucem quasi malefactor sit illusus, irrisus, et tam horrida opprobria sustinens, quasi Agnus mansuetissimus inaestimabilem patientiam ostendit. Qui cum facile posset, non se de suis interfectoribus vindicavit, sed Patrem, ut hoc peccatum illis dimitteret, oravit. Cum vero, hujusmodi recordationibus quasi satiata requiescere coeperis, nec tamen requiescens haec dulciter et cum magno affectu ruminare cessaveris, ad ipsum dulcissimum dulcissimi Domini corpus quod in manibus tenes loquere, et quasi cum praesenti loquens, tuas illi necessitates expone. De illo haec fideliter crede quod corpus hoc veraciter corpus illud sit quod de Virgine natum est, quod crucifixum est, quod in sepulcro positum est, quod tertia die a mortuis resurrexit, quod ad coelos ascendit, et quod sedet ad dexteram Patris.

Nec dubites in illa hora sacrificii corporis et sanguinis tui Redemptoris angelos adesse suo Creatori, suique Creatoris carni et sanguini cum magna reverentia ineffabile obsequium deferre. Quid vero de omnibus sanctis aestimari debet? Quid cogitari potest, cum ipsius redemptionis suae pretium in terra celebrari conspiciunt, de cujus aeterna visione laetantes, jam magnum gaudium possident in coelo? Tu vero, anima mea, haec omnia fideliter credens, carnemque tui Creatoris dulciter amplectens, in ipsis amplexibus ejus pietatis significa tuam necessitatem, et quam dulcius potes ejus exora pietatem, ut per suam ineffabilem misericordiam omnem tuam emundet foeditatem. Ingere totam te ipsam in Christum quem tenes, et ipsum prius adorans, tuas iterum et iterum repraesentans ingere necessitates.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gal.1.4 — who gave himself for our sins, so that he might rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
  2. ↩John.19.34 — But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
  3. ↩John.1.29 — The next day he sees Jesus coming toward him and says, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
  4. ↩1Cor.15.4 — and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Notes

  1. 1 ↩mysterium corporis et sanguinis tui — rendered 'the mystery of your Body and Blood' to preserve Eucharistic specificity; 'mystery' here carries sacramental weight, not mere hiddenness.
  2. 2 ↩ineffabili bonitate — 'unfailing goodness' chosen over 'ineffable goodness' to capture the sense of boundless, inexhaustible kindness rather than mere inexpressibility.
  3. 3 ↩justificationes tuas — rendered 'your righteous ways' rather than 'justifications' to avoid the narrow Pauline theological term and capture the broader sense of God's righteous ordinances or paths.
  4. 4 ↩mysteria tua — 'your mysteries' retains sacramental resonance; context points to Eucharistic reception.
  5. 5 ↩aditum pectoris rendered 'entrance of your breast' — the Latin pectus carries both the physical chest and the seat of inner feeling; 'breast' preserves the concrete image while pointing to the interior life.
  6. 6 ↩venerabilis mysterii rendered 'venerable mystery' — a reference to the Eucharistic consecration; the adjective venerabilis signals the sacramental gravity of the moment.
  7. 7 ↩arcanum mentis rendered 'secret of the mind' — arcanum points to the hidden interior of the soul; 'secret' here means the private depths, not something merely concealed.
  8. 8 ↩misericordiam rendered 'mercy' — the Latin carries the weight of divine compassion and covenantal faithfulness; 'mercy' is preferred over 'compassion' to preserve the theological register.
  9. 9 ↩quam dulcius potes rendered 'as sweetly as you can' — the comparative adverb dulcius modifies the manner of beseeching; the sense is 'with all the tenderness you are capable of.'
  10. 10 ↩interitum tuum rendered 'your own destruction' — the Latin interitus carries the sense of ruin or spiritual death; the author frames the warning in the gravest terms.
  11. 11 ↩ante mentis oculos rendered 'before the eyes of the mind' — a vivid image of interior imagination; 'eyes of the mind' preserves the Latin metaphor of mental vision.
  12. 12 ↩insipienter reincidunt rendered 'foolishly fall back' — insipienter (foolishly, unwisely) underscores that the relapse is not merely accidental but involves a failure of wisdom; reincidunt (fall back) captures the cyclical danger of dwelling on past sins with disordered affect.

Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy companion

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