ORATIO LXXII [ol., LXX]. AD SANCTUM BENEDICTUM.

A Humble Appeal to Saint Benedict

The soul prostrates itself before Saint Benedict, confessing the vast gap between its monastic profession and its actual life, and begs the saint's mercy and help.

Holy and blessed Benedict, whom the heavenly grace of God enriched with so abundant a blessing of virtues that it not only raised you to the glory all desire, to blessed rest, to a heavenly seat, but also drew countless others to that same blessedness — your admirable life attracting them, your gentle admonition stirring them, your sweet teaching instructing them, your miracles spurring them on: to you, I say, Benedict of God, whom God blessed with so generous a blessing, to you my distressed soul, taking refuge, prostrates itself before you with all the humility of heart it can; to you it pours out its prayers with all the devotion it can. It implores your help with all the desire it can. For the need of that life is enormous and intolerable: I profess the life of holy conduct that I promised by the name and dress of a monk, but by living as a far exile from that life, I am convicted — by my own conscience — of lying to God, to the angels, and to men. Be present, devout Father; be present to your suppliant. I beg you: do not shrink from one so full of faults and so false; but attend to one who trusts, and — more than I deserve — have mercy on one who grieves.

The Twisted Heart Laid Bare

Under Benedict's leadership, the speaker confesses a heart hardened toward repentance yet soft toward temptation, enslaved by a catalog of vices that daily mock and tear the unhappy soul.

Indeed, O glorious leader among the great commanders of Christ's armies, I have pledged myself to your guidance, however weak a soldier I am. I have placed myself under your teaching, even though I am a lazy disciple. According to your Rule I have vowed to live, though I am a monk of the flesh. For my heart is twisted — it is stony and dry when it comes to weeping over the sins I have committed; but when it comes to resisting the temptations that press in on me, it is soft and muddy. My corrupted mind is quick and tireless when it comes to carrying out useless and harmful things, but when it comes even to thinking about what would be wholesome, it is disdainful and unmoved. My blinded and twisted soul is easy and ready to plunge headlong and wallow in vices, but to remember the virtues — even that — is difficult and sluggish for it. It would take too long, dearest Father, to recount each thing one by one. Far too long, I say, to list gluttony, drowsiness, fickleness, impatience, vainglory, slander, disobedience, and the other vices by which my unhappy soul has become a daily laughingstock — vices that now drag it this way and tear it apart, now mock and trample this wretched, ragged little creature, now crowd in and stomp on it with insults.

The Shame of the False Monk

The speaker holds up a bitter contrast between the ideal soldier of Christ and the reality of his own life, ending in a cry of shame.

See, blessed Benedict, how vigorously this soldier of Christ fights under your leadership; see how effectively this disciple of yours makes progress in your school; see the good monk who, with vices and fleshly pleasures thus put to death, thus burns and lives for virtues alone — nay rather, the one whom the crowd of vices thus lords over, the mass of sins weighs down.¹ What shame!²

Between Death and Judgment

The speaker turns on himself with fierce self-reproach for the audacity of wearing the monastic habit without the life, then cries out to Christ for mercy and the grace to make his life match his confession.

You shameless monk, what nerve do you have, calling yourself a soldier of Christ, a disciple of holy Benedict — you false professor, what sheer audacity lets you wear the tonsure and the habit of profession on your head and body when you don't have the life that goes with them?³ What grief! What straits surround me on every side! If I deny my supreme king and my good master and the profession I have made, death is what awaits me. But if I claim to be their soldier, their disciple, and their monk, when my life accuses me of lying, judgment is what I face.⁴ My spirit is anxious within me; my heart is troubled within me. Break forth and cry out, my soul! Jesus, good Lord, look on my suffering and my toil, and forgive all my sins.⁵ Be my helper, Lord — don't abandon me, don't look down on me — but teach me and help me to do your will, so that my life may bear witness to what my heart and mouth gladly confess.⁶

The Saint's Aid and the Final Doxology

Through Benedict's intercession the speaker begs for deliverance from sin, asks the saint to arm him for spiritual combat, and closes with a prayer for mutual glory before God.

Hear the voice of my prayer, my king and my God, through the merits and intercession of blessed Benedict, your beloved, my leader and my master. O you, my good leader, O sweet master, O dear father Benedict, I pray and I beg you: through the mercy you showed toward others, and through that which God showed toward you, have compassion on my misery — I who rejoice in your blessedness.⁷ Come to the aid of me, your patron, as I cry out. Lift from me, buried under the weight of sins, the burden of my guilt. Loose me, bound by the ropes of my offenses. Free me, ensnared by accusations. Raise me up as I lie fallen. Steady me as I waver. Arm me — unarmed — with spiritual weapons, that is, with virtues. Teach me and protect me as I fight; overcome those who attack me. Win victory for me, and lead me to the crown.⁸⁹ Act now, advocate of monks — through the charity with which you were zealous for how we ought to live, be zealous still, so that we may fully desire and effectively live as we ought; so that both you may glory in our discipleship and we in your teaching, before God, who lives and reigns forever and ever.¹⁰¹¹ Amen.

Read the original Latin

Sancte et beate Benedicte, quem tam opulenta benedictione virtutum superna gratia ditavit, ut non solum te ad desideratam gloriam, ad beatam requiem, ad coelestem sedem sublimaret; sed et alios innumerabiles ad eamdem beatitudinem tua admirabilis vita attraheret, dulcis admonitio incitaret, suavis doctrina instrueret, miracula provocarent: ad te, inquam, Benedicte Dei, quem benedictione tam larga benedixit Deus, ad te confugiens angustiosa anima mea tibi se prosternit quam humili mente potest; tibi fundit preces quanto affectu potest. Tuum auxilium implorat quanto desiderio potest. Nimis enim est immanis et intolerabilis ejus necessitas: vitam namque sanctae conversationis, quam promisi, nomine et habitu monachi profiteor; sed ab hac vita longe exsulando, mentiri Deo et angelis et hominibus ipsa mea conscientia convincor. Adesto, pie Pater, adesto supplicanti. Rogo ne abhorreas tam mendosum et tam mendacem; sed attende confidentem, et plusquam merear, miserare dolentem.

Utique, o praeclare dux inter magnos duces exercituum Christi, tuo me addixi ducatui, quamvis imbecillem militem. Tuo me subdidi magisterio, licet ignavum discipulum. Secundum tuam regulam devovi me vivere, quanquam carnalem monachum. Perversum namque cor meum ad ploranda perpetrata peccata lapideum est et aridum; ad resistendum vero instantibus est molle et luteum. Depravata mens mea, ad inutilia et noxia perpetranda velox est et infatigabilis; ad vel cogitanda salubria, fastidiosa et immobilis. Obcaecata et distorta anima mea ad praecipitandum et volutandum se in vitiis facilis est et prompta; ad saltem reminiscendum virtutes, difficilis et pigra. Longum est nimis, charissime Pater, commemorare singula. Nimis, inquam, longum est enumerare gastrimargiam, somnolentiam, levitatem, impatientiam, cenodoxiam, detractionem, inobedientiam, et caetera vitia, quibus facta est infelix anima mea quotidianum ludibrium, quae modo sibi vicissim trahunt et distrahunt ad illudendum hunc aerumnosum, et quasi pannosum homunculum; modo eidem cum turba insultant conculcando, et conculcant insultando.

Ecce, beate Benedicte quam strenue pugnat hic miles Christi sub tuo ducatu; ecce quam efficaciter proficit hic tuus discipulus in tua schola; ecce bonum monachum, qui sic mortificatis vitiis, et voluptatibus carnis, sic fervet et vivit solis virtutibus; imo cui sic turba dominatur vitiorum, premit moles peccatorum. Proh pudor!

O impudens monache, qua fronte audes dici miles Christi, discipulus sancti Benedicti; false professor, qua impudentia potes pati videri in te tonsuram et vestem professionis, cujus non habes vitam? Heu dolor! O angustiae, quae mihi sunt undique! Si enim summum regem meum, et bonum magistrum meum, et professionem factam nego, mors mihi est; si autem eorum militem, et discipulum, et monachum me profiteor, cum vita me arguat mendacii, judicium mihi est. Anxiare in me spiritus meus, turbare in me cor meum. Erumpe et clama, anima mea: Jesu, bone Domine, vide humilitatem meam, et laborem meum, et dimitte universa delicta mea. Adjutor meus esto, Domine, ne derelinquas me, neque despicias me, sed doce et adjuva me facere voluntatem tuam ut vita mea testetur quod cor et os libenter confitentur.

Intende voci orationis meae, rex meus, et Deus meus, per merita et intercessionem pii Benedicti, dilecti tui, ducis mei et magistri mei. O tu mi bone dux, o suavis magister, o dulcis Pater Benedicte, oro et obsecro per misericordiam, quam erga alios habuisti, et per illam quam erga te Deus habuit, compatere miseriae meae, qui congratulor felicitati tuae. Succurre te patronum clamanti; exonera mole peccatorum obrutum, solve delictorum funibus ligatum, expedi criminibus irretitum, erige jacentem, sustine nutantem, instrue spiritualibus armis, id est virtutibus inermem, doce et protege pugnantem, expugna impugnantes; erige mihi victoriam, et perduc me ad coronam. Age, advocate monachorum, per charitatem, qua sollicitus fuisti quomodo vivere deberemus; esto sollicitus, ut sufficienter velimus et efficaciter possimus vivere quemadmodum debemus; ut et tu de nostro discipulatu, et nos de tuo magisterio gloriemur coram Deo qui vivit et regnat per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Notes

1 ↩The sentence shifts from exclamation (ecce) to a relative clause (qui…) describing the good monk, then pivots with imo to a contrasting or corrective sense: the monk who ought to live for virtues alone is instead one whom vices dominate. The particle imo intensifies or corrects the preceding thought.
2 ↩Proh pudor is an exclamatory interjection of indignation or lament. Rendered as a natural English exclamation.
3 ↩qua fronte... qua impudentia: literally 'with what forehead... with what impudence.' Rendered dynamically to capture the rhetorical force of the double question.
4 ↩mors... judicium: the contrast is between spiritual death (denial of Christ) and divine judgment (hypocritical profession). The sentence is a tight either/or with no middle ground.
5 ↩Direct address to Christ: uncontracted 'look on' chosen for gravity, but otherwise natural contemporary register maintained.
6 ↩Direct prayer to Christ: uncontracted 'do not' in 'don't abandon' reads more naturally in contemporary English than 'do not abandon,' but gravity is preserved through the weight of the petitions themselves.
7 ↩The relative clause 'qui congratulor felicitati tuae' is attached to the speaker ('my misery'), yielding 'I who rejoice in your blessedness.' The syntax is compressed; the speaker both laments his own state and celebrates Benedict's glory.
8 ↩The string of imperatives (succurre, exonera, solve, expedi, erige, sustine, instrue, doce, protege, expugna, erige, perduc) is rendered as a continuous urgent plea, preserving the rhetorical accumulation.
9 ↩'Spiritualibus armis, id est virtutibus' is rendered 'spiritual weapons, that is, with virtues' to preserve the explanatory appositive.
10 ↩The double 'ut' clauses express purpose: the first ('ut sufficienter velimus et efficaciter possimus vivere') is the immediate goal of Benedict's zeal; the second ('ut et tu de nostro discipulatu, et nos de tuo magisterio gloriemur') is the ultimate purpose — mutual glory before God.
11 ↩'Gloriemur' is rendered 'may glory' (subjunctive of purpose), not 'boast,' to preserve the theological sense of joyful confidence before God.

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