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Chapter 132PrecesPriv.1.132

Preces Quotidianae

Plea for Mercy

The supplicant begs God to spare him, appealing to divine justice and clemency, and asks that God reclaim what is His while removing what is sinful.

So spare me, for it is not hard for the Almighty, nor unfitting to Your justice, nor unusual for Your clemency, to spare the one who has done wrong.1 You who created me — do not destroy me.2 .3 nb.4 You who redeemed me — do not condemn me.5 You who created me by Your goodness — do not let Your work perish by my iniquity. Claim in me what is Yours, and take from me what is mine.6 Look on me, a wretched one, O boundless Compassion; on me, a criminal, O Mercy open to all.7

Healing and Cleansing

The supplicant comes as a sick and wounded person to the Divine Physician, asking for compassion, forgiveness, cleansing, enlightenment, and even resurrection from the dead.

Sick, I come to the Almighty; wounded, I run to the Physician. Keep for me the gentleness of Your compassion, You who have for so long held back the sword of vengeance.8 Blot out the great number of my sins; renew the multitude of Your mercies.✦ However unclean I am, cleanse me; however blind, enlighten me.9 You can heal me, weak as I am;10 or if I am dead,11 raise me to life.12

Surrender and Dependence

The supplicant declares total belonging to God and expresses the fear of being cast out or despised, pleading for acceptance.

Whatever I am, whether good or bad, I am always Yours.13 If You cast me out, who will take me in?14 If You despise me, who will look on me?15

Read the original Latin

Parce ergo, difficile potentis Quia non est 4 indecens justitice Tu:e, insolitum clementiz parcere delinquent. : creasti, perimas, Qui me { 2$. . nb. xng redemisti, condemnes. Qui me creasti Tua bonitate, Ne pereat opus Tuum mea iniquitate. Agnosce in me quod est Tuum, Et tolle a me quod est meum. Respice ad me infelicem, Pietas immensa : ad me sceleratum, Misericordia publica.

Infirmus ad Omnipotentem venio, Vulneratus ad Medicum curro. Serva mihi mansuetudinem miserationis, Qui tamdiu suspendisti gladium ultionis. Dele numerositatem criminum meorum, Renova multitudinem miserationum Tuarum. Quantumvis sum immundus, mundare, caecus, | illuminare,

; Tu potes me infirmus, sanare,

vel s mortuus, . resuscitare. Qualiseunque sum, sive bonus, sive malus, semper Tuus sum. s ejicis E recipiet ? Si Tu me ᾧ e quis me 1 pr despicis, respiciet ?

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.50.3;Ps.52.1 — Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before him, and around him a great tempest rages. Ps.52.1 — To the choirmaster. A Maskil of David.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩OCR is badly mangled. Reconstructed primarily from the clearer parallel at PrecesPriv.1.236.1: 'Quia non est difficile potenti nec indecens justitiae Tuae nec insolitum clementiae…', with 'parcere delinquenti' retained from this section's recoverable closing words. 'difficile potentis' → 'difficile potenti'; 'justitice Tu:e' → 'justitiae Tuae'; 'clementiz' → 'clementiae'; 'delinquent' → 'delinquenti'; the intrusive '4' treated as 'nec'.
  2. 2 ↩Supplied text ': creasti, perimas, Qui me { 2$.' is OCR debris. Recoverable core is Qui me creasti, [ne] perimas — the classic petition couplet completed in s5.
  3. 3 ↩Supplied Latin is only a bare period ('.'). No recoverable lexical content; treated as segmentation/OCR debris between the creasti/perimas and redemisti/condemnes couplet.
  4. 4 ↩Supplied Latin 'nb.' is unintelligible OCR debris (possibly a fragment of 'ne' from the prohibition couplet). No secure reading.
  5. 5 ↩Supplied text 'xng redemisti, condemnes.' retains redemisti and condemnes. Parallel to s2 and common prayer form yields Qui me redemisti, ne condemnes; leading 'xng' treated as OCR garbage for 'qui me' / residual 'ne'.
  6. 6 ↩Agnosce can mean recognize/acknowledge/own. Rendered 'Claim' to capture the petition that God own and keep what is His in the speaker, while removing what is merely the speaker's (sin/self).
  7. 7 ↩Misericordia publica rendered 'Mercy open to all' (public/common mercy), not civic government. Pietas immensa as divine Compassion/Pity rather than human piety.
  8. 8 ↩mansuetudinem miserationis rendered as 'gentleness of Your compassion' (mildness of pity/mercy); could also be 'gentleness of pity'.
  9. 9 ↩Source ends mid-period with pipe and trailing comma ('caecus, | illuminare,'). Infinitives mundare/illuminare likely depend on following 'Tu potes' (next section); rendered as direct petitions for readable continuity while marking the break.
  10. 10 ↩Latin has 'me infirmus' (nominative) where 'me infirmum' or an explicit 'infirmus [sum]' construction is expected; sense taken from the prayer sequence (immundus/mundare, caecus/illuminare, infirmus/sanare, mortuus/resuscitare).
  11. 11 ↩Supplied Latin is corrupt: 'vel s mortuus, .' Read as 'vel si mortuus' (medieval/abbrev. s = si), continuing the prior petition 'You can heal me, weak as I am'.
  12. 12 ↩resuscitare continues the infinitive series with sanare under 'Tu potes': heal / raise up. Rendered as a petitionary infinitive, not a free-standing imperative.
  13. 13 ↩Normalized 'Qualiseunque' to 'Qualiscunque' (of whatever kind/sort).
  14. 14 ↩Supplied 's ejicis E recipiet ?' is badly damaged. Most plausible reconstruction: 'si [me] ejicis, [quis] recipiet?' — 'If You cast me out, who will receive me?' The capital 'E' is treated as residual OCR noise or a lost 'me/quis' sequence, not as a separate lexeme.
  15. 15 ↩Supplied text 'Si Tu me ᾧ e quis me 1 pr despicis, respiciet ?' contains non-Latin junk (Greek ᾧ, '1 pr'). Secure words yield the prayer pattern 'Si Tu me despicis, quis me respiciet?'

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