ORATIO LXX [ol. LXVIII]. AD SANCTUM LAURENTIUM.
Calling on Lawrence's Intercession
The soul addresses Saint Lawrence, acknowledging its own unworthiness and pleading for the martyr's intercession before God.
Blessed martyr, most ardent lover of the Savior, crowned with the laurel of true happiness, Lawrence — you, that precious vessel of the house of God, you, that faithful steward of the heavenly treasury and most kindly provider for the poor of Christ — I call on you to help me as I long to entreat the face of God, though because of the weight of my sins I do not dare to lift my face to him.1 Come then, strongest witness of Christ's power, show your goodwill toward me, attend to my need, and bring my prayer to him. Wipe away my sins by your loving intercession, uproot my vices by the help of mercy, so that, freed from them, my soul may be able to kindle in itself that love with which you burned wholly and blissfully for Christ, however it may be.2 For this reason, most precious Lord, I come to you above all, because I behold the wonderful flame of this love in you.
The Flame of Lawrence's Love
The speaker marvels at the intensity of Lawrence's love for Christ during martyrdom and invites the soul to contemplate that love, finding in it a hunger for God.
For who could think, what mind could judge, what understanding could grasp enough to say with what ardor, with what burning, with what holy affection you held his love fixed in your heart — or rather, you had fastened your heart to his love, when you were so filled with his sweetness within that you despised the flames pressing against you from outside?3 Enter, my soul, the inner reaches of spiritual contemplation, and penetrate, if you can, the secret of the blessed breast of your Lord, so fiery a lover, and consider how happily his mind was bound by the nectar-like bond of divine love: when a cruel fire was burning his flesh from outside, his inner exulting affection was directing praises toward heaven.4 Pay attention, I say, and be astonished, wonder and rejoice, rejoice and love, love and praise — for however much you apply yourself to contemplating him, that sweetness by which he himself delighted through love and was made blessed through its effect far surpasses your understanding. Nevertheless, you do make progress from this by thinking about it, so that you hunger to be filled by it, and as long as fullness is absent, you may endure the longing for it.
Hunger and Fullness in Divine Love
The soul reflects on how spiritual hunger leads to greater joy in fullness and urges itself to keep begging Lawrence for even a drop of heavenly love.
Because clearly, the more you're consumed by hunger, the more abundantly you'll rejoice once fullness is received. So don't stop crying out. Don't be ashamed to beg at the door of this rich treasurer whose help you implore — humbly praying that, just as he distributed the treasures of the Church to the poor as a faithful and prudent steward, so from the treasure of love at least let something drip down to you, so that day by day you may become more famished with desire for him and always long for his fullness.
A Famished Cry for Heavenly Sweetness
The speaker, as a starving poor man, cries out to Lawrence not to have hunger removed but to have it inflamed, rejecting all earthly sweetness in favor of the longing for God alone.
To you, then, most powerful and most precious witness of the Savior of the world, Lawrence, at the door of your mercy this famished man, this hungry poor man, cries out — not to have his hunger taken away, but so that, once it has been revived by whatever taste of love, you might kindle it all the more, pouring into my thirsting soul however small a drop of its sweetness, and increase in me the longing for that sweetness; so that every sweetness that does not flow from that fountain might be a burden to me. And yet, if sweetness is rightly so called, it is not sweetness at all when it has no flavor drawn from that source. Therefore, most gracious Lord, don't let some satisfaction drawn from worldly pleasure empty out the — admittedly too lukewarm — hunger of my heart, which my soul endures from this very craving; let no carnal delight extinguish its thirst. But in the mind of your humble lover, let that hunger grow day by day.✦ Let my soul, eager for this hunger, grow disdainful of all earthly things, so that, falling away from them and advancing toward that blessed fullness through spiritual hunger, it may arrive at the satiety by which you yourself, rich in your renowned merits, deserved to be filled and beatified. Let other poor people approach the doors of the wealthy, so that, filled with earthly feasts, they may drive out the troubles of bodily hunger; but I knock at the doors of your mercy, so that I may deserve to escape the satisfaction of earthly pleasure and to obtain the unfailing hunger for heavenly sweetness. For this I burn with hunger, for this I thirst, for this I groan, for this I sigh.
Prayer That Sets the Soul Ablaze
The speaker asks Lawrence to look after him, wrestles with the tension between wordiness and longing, and discovers that true prayer in spirit and truth only grows more fervent the more one prays.
Look after me, most glorious martyr. Look — perhaps my indiscreet wordiness says, 'Enough has been prayed,' and yet the longing of desire cries out: 'Press on all the more fervently in prayer.' Is it really so, sweetest Lord and most fervent lover of Christ — does genuine devotion in prayer work in such a way that the more intently one directs oneself to prayer, the more one is set ablaze? Is it really so — when those who pray in spirit and in truth draw forth the incomparable fragrance of love, so that even as prayer reaches its end, it delights one to go on praying still longer?✦ Yes, clearly so. Blessed is the mind that such a fire truly sets ablaze.
Closing Plea and Doxology
The speaker concludes by beseeching Lawrence to lift up his prayer with powerful merits, asking that all wickedness be rooted out and true love advanced, ending in Trinitarian praise.
But so that my prayer — such as it is — may now draw to a close, I beseech you, most blessed martyr and outstanding pillar of the Church of God, Lawrence, who were blessed to earn from the most gracious Jesus the gift of hearing — come, good desire; my angels will welcome you, for once tested on the grill you did not deny me, and once proven you confessed me. I beseech you, I say: lift up my prayer with your exalted and most powerful merits, so that what I long for above all — namely, that every wickedness be rooted out of me, and that true love advance in me all the way to the end — I may deserve to obtain, with you interceding and with the good Lord Jesus favoring me, through the same Lord and Redeemer granting it, who is with the Father and the Holy Spirit life and reign unto eternal ages. Amen.
Read the original Latin
Beatissime martyr ac ferventissime Salvatoris dilector, verae felicitatis laurea redimite Laurenti, tu illud pretiosum vas domus Dei, tu ille fidelis dispensator thesauri coelestis, et benignissime pauperum Christi provisor, te invoco in auxilium mihi desideranti deprecari faciem Dei, sed pro peccatorum magnitudine ad eum faciem levare non audenti. Age ergo, testis fortissime potentiae Christi, ostende in me benevolentiam tuam, et attende necessitatem meam, et defer illi orationem meam. Evacua pia intercessione peccata mea, exstirpa misericordi subventione vitia mea, ut ab ipsis eruta, charitatem illam, qua in Christi desiderium totus feliciter exarsisti, quoquomodo in se accendere valeat anima mea. Ob hoc, pretiosissime Domine, ad te potissimum accedo, quia charitatis hujus in te mirabilem flammam considero. Quis enim cogitare, quae mens aestimare, quis intellectus capere sufficiat quo ardore, quo aestus sancti affectu, ejus amorem in corde tuo fixum tenebas; imo cor tuum amori ejus infixeras, quando sic interius illius dulcedine replebaris, ut flammas exterius te prementes parvipenderes? Ingredere, anima mea, interiora spiritualis intuitus, et penetra si potes secretum beati pectoris, tam igniti dilectoris domini tui, et considera quam nectareo divinae vinculo charitatis felix mens ejus fuit colligata; cum carnem exterius crudele torreret incendium, et affectus interior exsultando laudes dirigeret in coelum. Attende, inquam, et admirare, mirare et gaude, gaude et ama, ama et lauda; quantumcunque enim te ad considerandum intenderis, longe tuum superat intellectum dulcedo illa qua ipse jucundabatur per affectum, et beatificabatur per effectum. Ad hoc tamen inde cogitando proficis, ut ea satiari esurias, et quandiu satietas abest, ejus esuriem patiaris.
Quia nimirum quo plus esurie afficieris, eo abundantius percepta satietate gaudebis. Non ergo cesses clamare, non erubescas mendicare ad januam hujus divitis thesaurarii, cujus imploras auxilium; suppliciter orans ut sicut thesauros Ecclesiae tanquam fidelis et prudens dispensator pauperibus distribuit; sic de thesauro charitatis tantum tibi saltem distillet, quo in dies desiderio ejus magis famelicus fias, et illius sutietatem semper desideres.
Ad te igitur, potentissime et pretiosissime Salvatoris mundi testis Laurenti, ad tuae pietatis januam clamat hic famelicus, hic esuriens pauper; non ut ejus famem evacues, sed ut qualicunque charitatis gustu refocillatam magis accendas, quantulamcunque stillam dulcedinis ejus sitienti animae meae infundendo, sitim illius in me augeas; ut onerosa mihi sit omnis dulcedo, quae illius ex fonte non manat; si tamen dulcedo recte dicenda est, quae de illa saporem non habet. Non itaque, benignissime domine, licet nimis tepidam famem cordis mei, quam hac esurie patitur, satietas aliqua mundanae voluptatis evacuet: non ejus sitim delectatio quaelibet carnalis exstinguat; sed in mente tui humilis dilectoris in dies excrescat. Sit anima mea hujus avida famis, ad omnia terrena fastidiosa, ut ab iis deficiens, in illam proficiens, per spiritualem esuriem ad beatam perveniat satietatem, qua ipse insignibus dives meritis satiari et beatificari meruisti. Adeant alii pauperes januas divitum, ut terrenis epulis satiati corporeae famis expellant incommoda; ego ad tuae pietatis januas pulso, ut satietatem terrenae delectationis evadere, et famem supernae dulcedinis indeficientem merear obtinere. Hanc esurire, hanc sitire, ad hanc gemere, huic suspirare inardesco.
Consule mihi, martyr gloriosissime. Ecce indiscreta fortasse verbositas dicit: Satis oratum est, et affectus desiderii clamat: Adhuc ardentius orationi insiste. Itane, dulcissime domine et ferventissime Christi amator, sese habet non ficta orandi devotio, ut orationi quo plus intendit, plus accendatur? Siccine in spiritu et veritate orantes incomparabilis attrahit odor charitatis, ut dum oratio ad terminum dicitur, diutius orare delectet? Ita plane. Beata mens illa, quam tale veraciter inflammat incendium. Sed ut jam mea qualiscunque claudatur oratio, deprecor te, beatissime martyr et praecipua columna Ecclesiae Dei Laurenti, qui feliciter a benignissimo Jesu audire meruisti, veni, desiderator bone; suscipient te angeli mei, quoniam assatus non negasti me, probatus confessus es me: te, inquam, deprecor, subleva tuis sublimibus et potentissimis meritis orationem meam, quatenus quod summe desidero (videlicet ut a me exstirpetur omnis iniquitas, et vera usque in finem in me proficiat charitas), te interveniente, et bono Domino Jesu favente, merear obtinere, praestante eodem Domino et Redemptore nostro, qui est cum Patre et Spiritu sancto vita et regnum in aeterna saecula. Amen.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rev.3.15-Rev.3.16 — I know your works—that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! Rev.3.16 — So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
- ↩John.4.23-John.4.24 — But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such as these to worship him. John.4.24 — God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
Notes
- 1 ↩The repeated 'tu' constructions are emphatic identifications, not simple appositions: the prayer stacks titles of honor before turning to petition.
- 2 ↩'misericordi subventione' — ablative of means; the source could be read as 'by the assistance of mercy' (i.e., God's mercy) or 'by merciful assistance' (i.e., Lawrence's). The translation preserves the ambiguity.
- 3 ↩'imo' introduces a correction: not merely 'you held' but 'you had fastened' — the heart is the thing fixed, not the love. The translation captures this intensification.
- 4 ↩'spiritualis intuitus' — 'intuitus' here means contemplative gaze or spiritual insight, not mere looking. Rendered as 'spiritual contemplation' to preserve the interior-devotional sense.
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