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Chapter 69Ansl.1.69

Retractatio dormitionis S. Stephani.

The Peaceful Sleep of Stephen

Stephen's holy death is celebrated as a secure and eternal rest in God, whose soul thirsted for the fountain of life.

And when he had said this, he fell asleep in the Lord.✦ Oh, he fell asleep! Oh, sleep with rest, rest with security, security with eternity! You rest, O blessed one, in joy; you rejoice in rest. You glory, O secure one, in fullness; you are filled in glory. Your joy will not be changed; your light will not fail.✦ Whatever you do not wish is far away; whatever you wish is present to your desire. Your soul thirsted for God, the fountain of life.✦

Drinking from the Torrent of God's Pleasure

Stephen eternally delights in God, always drinking with desire and satisfaction, surrounded by the peace of those who fall asleep in the Lord.

You have come to him, and you drink from the torrent of his pleasure — as much as you wish, in whatever way you wish, for as long as you wish.✦1 Always filled, you always drink — because it always delights you to drink, and you never grow weary of it. Nor do you drink so that satisfaction may come to you as though you did not yet possess it; rather, you always drink so that the satisfaction you already possess may endure forever. For you always desire what you always have, and you are assured that you will always have what you have. Indeed, you desire unceasingly and with delight that very longing which is itself delightful; and you always drink with a burning desire for that longing, and with abundant satisfaction. O happiness that is enough, and blessed sufficiency! How blessed to fall asleep — to fall asleep in the Lord!✦ What peace surrounds those who fall asleep in the Lord!✦

Freedom from All Suffering and Tears

The blessed are freed from bodily pain, temptation, want, and every tear is wiped from their eyes by God.

The burdens of the flesh will no longer weigh on them, and the pains of corruption will no longer afflict them. The stings of temptation will not assail them, and the conscience of sins will not terrify them. No want will trouble them. God has wiped every tear from their eyes.✦✦

Lament of the Wretched Soul

The speaker laments his misery, his inner conflict between soul and flesh, and cries out for deliverance, then turns to Stephen in prayerful intercession.

O rich and blessed peace, how far I am from you! Look — even when I try, even just barely, to taste the faintest drop of someone else's happiness, I'm forced to swallow great gulps of the bitter draughts of my own misery, which so shake me that I can't keep silent about the good things I can't even bring myself to think about, or weep over the heavy evils I can feel pressing in on me as I endure them.23 Alas, wretched me! Where I am not, I am — and where I am, I don't know where I'm about to be.4 My soul is indeed miserably at odds with my flesh, to which it's bound: it doesn't want to follow the flesh, and it can't leave it behind without fear; it doesn't dare abandon it, and it can't drag it along without pain — it wants to draw the flesh after it, and it can't, not even with great effort.✦5 Unhappy man that I am — who will free me from this body of death?✦6 . I pray, O blessed Stephen — I pray, sympathize with me, a wretched man in need. I rejoice with you, who are blessed, though you are not in need as I am.7

Final Prayer for Deliverance and Rest

The speaker prays to be freed from the body of death through Stephen's merits and God's grace, to rest in peace with him forever.

May he set me free from this body of death — by your merits and the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord — so that at last I may fall asleep in peace, together with him, and rest in the Lord, who lives and reigns, God through all ages of ages.✦✦✦89 Amen.

Read the original Latin

Et cum hoc dixisset, obdormivit in Domino. O obdormivit! o somnus cum requie, requies cum securitate, securitas cum aeternitate! Requiescis, o felix, in gaudio, gaudes in requie. Gloriaris, o secure, in satietate, satiaris in gloria. Laetitia tua non mutabitur, lumen tuum non deficiet. Quidquid non vis, procul abest; quidquid vis, ad votum adest. Sitivit anima tua ad Deum fontem vivum.

Venisti ad eum, et bibis de torrente voluptatis ejus quantum vis, quomodo vis, quandiu vis. Semper satiatus semper bibis, quia semper delectat te bibere, nec unquam fastidis. Nec bibis, ut fiat tibi satietas quasi nondum habenti; sed semper bibis, ut semper duret satietas jam possidenti. Semper enim desideras quod semper habes, et quod semper securus es te semper habere. Incessanter quippe et delectabiliter desideras ipsum delectabile desiderium; et semper bibis cum delectabili ardore ipsum desiderium, cum copiosa satietate. O sufficiens beatitudo, et beata sufficientia! Quam felix obdormire, obdormire in Domino! Quanta pace obdormiunt, qui obdormiunt in Domino!

Non enim gravabunt eos amplius pondera carnis, non eos affligent dolores corruptionis. Non impugnabunt stimuli tentationum, non terrebit conscientia peccatorum. Nulla eos sollicitabit indigentia. Abstersit Deus omnem lacrymam ab oculis eorum.

O dives et beata pax, quam longe sum a te! Ecce enim qui conor vel tenuiter gustare salivam alienae felicitatis, cogor affluenter glutire acerbos haustus meae infelicitatis, qui me commovent tacere ea bona quae nec possum cogitare, et flere gravia mala quae sufferendo possum palpare. Heu me miserum! ubi non sum, et ubi sum, qui nescio ubi futurus sum. Discordat quippe miserabiliter anima mea cum copulata sibi carne mea, quam sequi non vult, nec potest sine timore: relinquere non audet, nec valet sine dolore; trahere eam post se vult, et nequit vel cum labore. Infelix ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus? . Precor, o beate Stephane, precor, compatere tu mihi misero indigenti, qui congaudeo tibi beato, licet non indigenti.

Liberet me de corpore mortis hujus tuis meritis gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum, ut quandoque in pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam in Domino, qui vivit et regnat Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

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. ↩Isa.60.19-Isa.60.20 — No longer shall the sun be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you; but the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Isa.60.20 — Your sun shall no longer set, and your moon shall not be withdrawn, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.
  3. ↩Ps.41.2 — Blessed is the one who has regard for the poor; in the day of trouble, the LORD delivers him.
  4. ↩Ps.35.9;Ps.37.8 — Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD; it will exult in his salvation. Ps.37.8 — Refrain from anger and abandon wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.
  5. ↩Acts.7.59;1Thess.4.14 — And they were stoning Stephen, who was calling upon the name of the Lord, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 1Thess.4.14 — For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.
  6. ↩Acts.7.59;Rev.14.13 — And they were stoning Stephen, who was calling upon the name of the Lord, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Rev.14.13 — And I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'so that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow with them.'
  7. ↩Rev.21.4 — And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more; neither mourning, nor crying, nor pain will be any more, for the former things have passed away.
  8. ↩Isa.25.8 — He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; the reproach of his people he will remove from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
  9. ↩Rom.7.24 — Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
  10. ↩Rom.7.24 — Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
  11. ↩Rom.7.24 — Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
  12. ↩Ps.4.9 — In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you, LORD, alone make me dwell in safety.
  13. ↩1Tim.1.17 — Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The phrase 'torrent of his pleasure' (torrente voluptatis ejus) echoes Psalm 35:9 Vulg. ('de torrente voluptatis tuae bibes') / Psalm 36:8 ('you will drink from the torrent of your pleasure'). Candidate allusion pending Moses resolution.
  2. 2 ↩saliva — literally 'spittle/saliva,' used figuratively for a tiny taste; rendered as 'faintest drop' to capture the metaphor of a mere trace of another's felicitas.
  3. 3 ↩palpare rendered 'feel pressing in on me' to convey the sense of evils that are tangible through suffering, not merely abstract.
  4. 4 ↩The paradox plays on spiritual absence/presence: the speaker is absent from peace yet present in the body, and present in the body yet uncertain of the future. Rendered to preserve the disorienting parallelism.
  5. 5 ↩anima/caro duality rendered as 'soul'/'flesh' following lexeme policy; the passage describes the interior conflict of a soul bound to the body, not a Pauline flesh-vs-Spirit antithesis per se, though the language echoes it.
  6. 6 ↩Direct quotation of Romans 7:24 (Vulgate: Infelix ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis huius?). Candidate scripture allusion; final resolution belongs to tx-08 Moses stage.
  7. 7 ↩congaudeo rendered 'rejoice with you' to capture the sense of shared joy in another's blessedness; licet non indigenti rendered 'though you are not need as I am' to preserve the contrast between the speaker's neediness and Stephen's blessed sufficiency.
  8. 8 ↩gratia Dei: rendered 'the grace of God' as ablative of means; could also be nominative ('grace, [which is] of God'), but the ablative reading fits the intercessory logic of the prayer.
  9. 9 ↩tuis meritis: 'by your merits' — the merits belong to Stephen, the saint being addressed; this is an intercessory appeal, not a claim of personal merit.

Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy companion

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