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Chapter 12PrecesPriv.1.12

Preces Quotidianae

Cleanse My Soul

A prayer asking God to drive away senseless thoughts and turn the eyes away from vanity.

my soul.1 Drive senseless thoughts out of my soul. Wis.2 Sol.3 1.4 b.5 Instead, breathe good thoughts into me—thoughts that please you.6 Turn my eyes away so they don't look on vanity.✦

Guard My Senses

A prayer for righteous sight, hearing, and speech, citing Proverbs and Psalms.

Let my eyes look on what is right, and let my eyelids approve what is upright.✦ Hedge in my ears with thorns, so that they do not listen to words without understanding. Give me a listening ear in the morning, so I may be attentive to the words of discipline.✦7 Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; a door of caution for my lips.✦8 Ps. 140.9 3.

Seasoned Speech and Good Works

A petition for gracious speech and for work that leads to mercy rather than regret.

Let my speech be seasoned with salt.✦ 4. 6. so that it may give grace to those who hear.✦ Let nothing I am about to do become for me a cause of bitter regret or a scandal to my heart.10 But let some work be prepared for me, for which you may remember me for good, and spare me according to the multitude✦11 of your mercies.

Entrust All to God

A prayer commending spirit, soul, body, and all possessions into God's hands, asking for protection from evil.

Into your hands I entrust my spirit, my soul, and my body.✦ You created, redeemed, and regenerated them, Lord, God of truth—Ps.✦ 31. 6.✦ And with me, all who are mine and all that is mine. You gave them to me, Lord, in your kindness.✦12 Genesis 33. 5. Keep us from all evil (Psalm 121).13 7.

Read the original Latin

animam meam. Pelle ex anima mea cogitationes insensatas. Sap. Sol. i. b. Inspira autem bonas, et in conspectu tuo complacitas. Averte oculos meos ne videant vanitatem.

Oculi mei quod rectum est aspiciant, Et palpebre annuant rectis. Sepi aures. meas spinis, Ne intendant sermonibus absque intellectu. Erige mane mihi aurem audientem, Ut attentus sim sermonibus disciplinz. Pone, Domine, custodiam ori meo, ostium circumstantie labis meis. Psal. cxh. 3.

Esto sermo meus sale conditus, Coloss. iv. 6. ut det gratiam audientibus. Nihil quod facturus sum sit mihi in singultum vel scandalum cordis. Praeparetur autem mihi aliquod opus, pro quo memor sis mei in bonum, et parce mihi secundum multitudinem

miserationum tuarum.

IN manus tuas commendo Spiritum, animam, corpus meum. Creasti, redemisti, et regenerasti illa Domine, Deus veritatis, Psal. xxxi. 6. Et mecum meos omnes et mea omnia. Donavisti mihiilla, Domine, in benignitate tua. Gen, xxxiii. 5.

Custodi nos ab omni malo, Pse/ cxxi. 7.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.119.37;Ps.119.37 — Turn my eyes from looking at what is worthless; in your ways, give me life. Ps.119.37 — Turn my eyes from looking at what is worthless; in your ways, give me life.
  2. ↩Prov.4.25 — Let your eyes look straight ahead; let your gaze be fixed directly before you.
  3. ↩Isa.50.4 — The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
  4. ↩Ps.141.3 — Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.
  5. ↩Col.4.6 — Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
  6. ↩Eph.4.29 — Let no rotten word proceed from your mouth, but only what is good for building up as the need may be, so that it may give grace to those who hear.
  7. ↩Ps.51.3;Ps.52.1 — Be gracious to me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Ps.52.1 — To the choirmaster. A Maskil of David.
  8. ↩Ps.31.5;Ps.31.6 — Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. Ps.31.6 — Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, God of truth.
  9. ↩Ps.31.5;Ps.31.6 — Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. Ps.31.6 — Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, God of truth.
  10. ↩Ps.31.5;Ps.31.6 — Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. Ps.31.6 — Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, God of truth.
  11. ↩Gen.33.5 — He lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children, and said, "Who are these to you?" And he said, "The children whom God has shown favor to your servant."

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Trailing object phrase only; likely continues the previous section's petition (educes de tribulatione … animam meam).
  2. 2 ↩Abbreviation Sap. = Sapientia (Wisdom); kept as a citation fragment, not prose.
  3. 3 ↩Abbreviation Sol. = Solomonis; part of Sap. Sol. citation.
  4. 4 ↩Roman numeral i. as chapter number in the Sap. Sol. citation.
  5. 5 ↩Subverse/section letter b in the Sap. Sol. citation; exact verse mapping left to later resolution.
  6. 6 ↩bonas / complacitas continue the feminine plural of cogitationes from s2; rendered with that implied object made explicit for readability.
  7. 7 ↩Printed 'disciplinz' read as disciplinae (discipline/instruction), early orthography with z for ae.
  8. 8 ↩Vulgate 'ostium circumstantiae' may mean a surrounding/enclosing door or a door of circumspection; rendered as 'door of caution' for the restraint sense.
  9. 9 ↩Printed 'cxh.' is most plausibly a corrupt reading of 'cxl.' (140), matching Vulgate Psalm 140:3 quoted just above; Hebrew numbering would be 141.
  10. 10 ↩singultum is sob/sobbing; rendered as 'bitter regret' to carry the force of grief that makes one sob, without archaic diction.
  11. 11 ↩Section ends mid-clause; next section completes with miserationum tuarum ('of your mercies').
  12. 12 ↩Source reads mihiilla; translated as mihi illa (you gave them to me), the only plausible word division.
  13. 13 ↩Source 'Pse/ cxxi.' is read as a Psalm citation (Ps./Psal. cxxi.), matching the section's citation pattern; the surface is likely corrupt/abbreviated print.

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