SR
← Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy/Book 1 · Orationes sive Meditationes
Chapter 68Ansl.1.68

Retractatio charitatis S. Stephani.

Stephen's Prayer for His Killers

Anselm marvels at Stephen's overflowing charity as he prayed for his murderers, drawing out the image of a heart so full of love that persecution only released more mercy.

When your mad enemies were crushing their own friend, as truthful Scripture bears witness, you fell to your knees and cried out with a loud voice: Lord, do not hold this sin against them.✦ O heart, rich with the fatness of love — from which, when it was afflicted, such abundant mercy overflowed! O mind, burning vehemently with love, richly anointed with charity — from which, when it was troubled, sparks gleamed so sweetly burning and so ardently sweet! O honeycomb, fat with the honey of love — from which, when it was pressed, drops dripped down so rich and so sweet! Lord, do not hold this sin against them.✦ Blessed one, what great hope you give to sinners who are your friends, when they hear that you were so deeply concerned for your godless enemies! Vessel of love, overflowing with fullness — with what abundance will you make those who long to embrace you within their heart drink, when you thus pour yourself out for those who cast you out of their city?✦

Love Poured Out for Those Who Rage

Anselm contrasts Stephen's enemies' fury with his gentle intercession, drawing out the paradox that the humbled saint ran to help the proud.

When you pour yourself out like this for those who rage against you in panting fury — how will you restore those who flee to you in fear, gasping for breath? Lord, do not hold this sin against them.✦ How will the one who was called answer, when he who was provoked rebuked so fiercely? How gently will the one who was exalted cherish the humble, when the one who was humbled ran to help the proud so generously? With what swiftness will the one who was freed set the afflicted free with power, when the one who was afflicted came so readily to help those who afflicted him? They were hurrying to take your life; you were working to give them back their souls. They raged with stiff necks and great fury, to kill you; you knelt down and prayed with a loud voice, that they might not perish.✦ Truly, with a loud voice — because of great love; and on bended knees — because of true simplicity of heart.

Fragrance Rising from the Whetstone

Anselm uses vivid images of pressing and striking to show how persecution released the sweet fragrance of Stephen's love and mercy.

Pride tormented humility under the whetstone, and from there the fragrance of love rose up. When love was struck with a stone by hatred, the ringing sound of devotion was given back in return. Impiety pressed down on piety with a stone, and the oil of mercy bubbled up.

Longing to Draw Out the Oil of Love

Anselm yearns to receive through prayer the same oil of love that stones squeezed from Stephen, and savors the sweetness of Stephen's word as spiritual food.

Oh, if only I could ever deserve to draw out the oil of Stephen's love through prayer — the very oil they managed to squeeze out of him with stones!✦12 My soul is wasting away with a most grievous languor that is healed by nothing except the oil of mercy.3 Would that God might even once intercede for me, and for all my sin: Lord, do not hold this sin against him. Teach me, blessed soul of blessed Stephen — by what savor you were delighted, by what fullness you burned, when your heart poured forth so good a word.✦45 How sweet your utterance is to the throat of my soul — beyond honey and honeycomb to my mouth.6 Chewing on it, it grows ever sweeter; sucking on it, its most delicious flavor flows in more and more. The more it is seen, the more it shines forth; handled in every way, it always grows toward delight.7 It bears the form of faith; it has the solidity of patience. It shines with the purity of simplicity; it gleams with the color of kindness.

A Prayer for the Fatness of Charity

Anselm asks Stephen to intercede that his own soul may be filled with the richness of charity, satisfied with the bread of love and set ablaze with divine fire.

It tastes of love, it breathes devotion, through touch it yields gentleness, through sound it displays mercy. Tell me, then, blessed Stephen — what did you cherish within, from which so rich a blend of sweetness burst forth? Surely you were filled with all of them, adorned by all of them, set ablaze by all of them. Through all these virtues in which you so richly abounded, I beg you — O loving Stephen — pray that my parched soul may be filled with the fatness and richness of charity.✦ Help me, so that my hungry soul may be satisfied with the bread of love.✦ Make it so that my cold soul burns with the fire of love — through the one who created it granting this.✦

Read the original Latin

Cum enim insani inimici tui te opprimerent amicum suum, sicut Scriptura verax testatur, tu positis genibus clamasti voce magna: Domine, ne statuas illis hoc peccatum. O cor opulentum pinguedine charitatis; de quo, cum affligeretur, tam copiosa misericordia supereffluebat! O mens vehementer ardens amore, copiose uncta charitate; de qua, cum tribularetur, tam suaviter ardentes et tam ardenter suaves scintillae micabant! O favus pinguis melle dilectionis; de quo, cum premeretur, tam opulentae, tam jucundae guttae distillabant. Domine, ne statuas illis hoc peccatum. Vir beate, quantam spem donas peccatoribus amicis tuis, cum audiunt te sic fuisse sollicitum pro impiis inimicis tuis? Vas charitatis superabundans plenitudine, qua ubertate potabis desiderantes amplecti te intra cor suum, cum sic perfundis ejicientes te extra civitatem suam?

Cum sic propinas furore anhelis irruentibus in te: quomodo refocillabis timore anhelos fugientes ad te? Domine, ne statuas illis hoc peccatum. Quomodo respondebit invocatus, qui sic objurgabat provocatus? Quam benigne fovebit humiles exaltatus, qui sic superbis succurrebat humiliatus? Qua celeritate liberabit afflictos potenter liberatus, qui sic affligentibus subveniebat afflictus? Illi festinabant auferre animam tuam; tu satagebas animabus eorum reddere vitam suam. Illi rigido collo, magno furore fremebant, ut te perimerent; tu positis genibus voce magna orabas, ne illi perirent. Utique voce magna, quia charitate magna; et positis genibus, quia vera simplicitate.

Superbia humilitatem sub cote tribulabat, et odor charitatis inde fragrabat. Charitas ab odio cum petra percutiebatur, et tinnitus pietatis reddebatur. Impietas pietatem lapide premebat, et oleum misericordiae ebulliebat.

O si unquam merebor de charitate Stephani oleum precibus elicere, quod illi potuerunt lapidibus exprimere! Languet namque anima mea languore gravissimo, qui non sanatur nisi misericordiae oleo. Utinam vel semel suggerat Deo pro me, et pro cuncto peccato meo: Domine ne statuas illi hoc peccatum Doce me, beata anima beati Stephani, quo sapore jucundabaris, qua satietate aestuabas, cum eructavit cor tuum verbum tam bonum. Quam dulce faucibus animae meae eloquium tuum, super mel et favum ori meo. Mandendo, magis ac magis dulcescit; sugendo plus et plus suavissimus sapor ejus affluit. Plus videndo, plus fulgescit; omni modo tractatum, semper ad delectationem crescit. Formam gerit fidei, soliditatem habet patientiae. Simplicitatis puritate nitet, benignitatis colore lucet.

Charitatem sapit, pietatem olet, tactu reddit mansuetudinem, sono repraesentat misericordiam. Dic ergo, beate Stephane, quid intus fovebas, unde misturam tot suavitatum foras erumpebas? Nimirum iis omnibus plenus eras, omnibus iis ornatus eras, omnibus iis accensus eras. Per has omnes virtutes quibus abundabas, te precor, o charitative Stephane, ora ut charitatis adipe et pinguedine repleatur arida anima mea. Adjuva, ut pane charitatis satietur esuriens anima mea. Fac ut igne charitatis flagret frigido anima mea, praestante eo qui creavit eam.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Acts.7.59-Acts.7.60 — And they were stoning Stephen, who was calling upon the name of the Lord, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Acts.7.60 — Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And having said this, he fell asleep.
  2. ↩Acts.7.60 — Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And having said this, he fell asleep.
  3. ↩Luke.4.29 — And they rose up and drove him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, in order to hurl him down.
  4. ↩Acts.7.60 — Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And having said this, he fell asleep.
  5. ↩Acts.7.59-Acts.7.60 — And they were stoning Stephen, who was calling upon the name of the Lord, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Acts.7.60 — Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And having said this, he fell asleep.
  6. ↩Acts.7.54-Acts.7.60 — When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and gnashed their teeth at him. Acts.7.55 — But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Acts.7.56 — And he said, 'Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' Acts.7.57 — But they cried out with a loud voice, held their ears shut, and rushed together against him. Acts.7.58 — And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid aside their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. Acts.7.59 — And they were stoning Stephen, who was calling upon the name of the Lord, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Acts.7.60 — Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And having said this, he fell asleep.
  7. ↩Acts.7.55-Acts.7.56 — But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Acts.7.56 — And he said, 'Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'
  8. ↩Ps.63.5 — So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
  9. ↩John.6.35 — Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will not hunger, and the one who believes in me will never thirst."
  10. ↩Luke.24.32 — They said to one another, "Was not our heart burning within us while he spoke to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"

Notes

  1. 1 ↩charitate rendered as 'love' (theological virtue); 'charity' is also legitimate but 'love' fits the devotional register here.
  2. 2 ↩The image of 'oil of love' drawn out by prayer or by stoning plays on the double sense of Stephen's grace under persecution — the prayerful desire to receive through intercession what his persecutors could only extract through violence.
  3. 3 ↩anima rendered as 'soul' per policy; 'languor' conveys both spiritual weariness and the sense of a sickness only divine mercy can cure.
  4. 4 ↩The syntax shifts abruptly from petition to God ('Domine ne statuas illi hoc peccatum') to direct address of Stephen's soul ('Doce me, beata anima'). The speaker asks God not to count Stephen's sin (presumably his murderers' sin, or perhaps Stephen's own human frailty) and then turns to Stephen's soul as teacher. The ambiguity is preserved.
  5. 5 ↩suggero here carries the sense of intercession or suggesting/granting access to God, not merely 'hinting'; rendered as 'intercede' to capture the prayerful force.
  6. 6 ↩faucibus animae meae: literally 'to the jaws/throat of my soul.' The image is of spiritual nourishment tasted and swallowed — the word of God (or Stephen's word) as food. Rendered 'throat of my soul' to keep the physicality of the metaphor.
  7. 7 ↩videndo is ambiguous — it could mean 'by being seen' (passive) or 'by seeing' (active, i.e., the soul beholding it). Given the contemplative context, the active sense ('the more one beholds it') is more likely, but the passive reading ('the more it is beheld') is possible. Rendered with the active sense.

Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy companion

There are 90 more prayers where these came from

Chosen Portion delivers the full Anselm collection — and the wider royal devotional archive — one daily prayer at a time, free.

Anselm told Adeliza to take these prayers a little at a time, and Chosen Portion does exactly that — serving the collection as paced daily portions rather than a book to skim.

  • Pray through all 97 of Anselm's prayers and meditations, one portion each day
  • Each prayer is broken into short sections so a 100-sentence meditation fits a 10-minute sitting
  • Morning reminder at your chosen time, so the day starts with a written prayer instead of a blank
Chosen Portion — Daily Prayer (free iOS app) →