Preces Quotidianae
Heading and Citation
A heading naming Thomas Bradwardine introduces a prayer, followed by a brief bibliographic citation pointing to his work On Virtue.
Prayer of Thomas1 Bradwardine, Book I On Virtue, chapter 1 Corollary 39
Love That Desires God Alone
The soul declares its love for God alone, longing for nothing other than God Himself.
You Yourself, my God—You Yourself for Your own sake—I love above everything else.2 I long for You Yourself. You Yourself are what I finally desire.3 I seek You Yourself for Your own sake—not anything else at all—always and in everything.4 From my whole inmost heart and depths, with groaning and weeping, with unceasing labor and pain.5 What then will You finally give me? If You do not give me Yourself, You give me nothing. If You do not grant me Yourself, You grant me nothing.
The Agony of Seeking Without Finding
The soul laments that without finding God, all other gifts are empty, leading to endless sorrow and torment, and declares this outcome unworthy of God's goodness.
If I don't find You Yourself, I find nothing.6 You reward me in vain, but You torment me fiercely.7 For before I sought You, I hoped at last to find You and hold You.8 And with this honey-sweet hope I was gently comforted in all my labors. But now if You deny Yourself to me, whatever else9 You give—my so great hope frustrated, not for a little while but forever—will I not always languish with love, grieve with languor, ache with sorrow, mourn and weep with pain, because I will always remain empty and void?1011 Will I not be inconsolably grieved? Will I complain without ceasing?12 Will I be tormented without end? This is not like You, most good, most merciful, most loving God; it does not fit You at all; it is nowhere becoming.13
Petition for Final Union
The soul asks God to grant that in this life it may love and seek God alone, and in the life to come find and hold Him forever.
So grant, my most good God, that in this present life I may always love You Yourself for Your own sake above all things, seek You in all things, and at last in the life to come—14 I may find and hold You forever.15
Read the original Latin
ORATIO THO. BRADWARDINI,
Lib. I. De Virtute, cap. i. coroll. 39.
Teipsum, Deus meus, Teipsum propter Teipsum super ala cuncta amo. Teipsum desidero. "Teipsum finaliter concupisco. "Teipsum propter Teipsum, non aliud quodlibet, semper et in omnibus quiero. Ex totis meis przcordiis et medullis, cum gemitu et ploratu, cum labore continuo, et dolore. Quid ergo finaliter mihi reddes? Si non Teipsum mihi reddideris, nihil reddis. Si non Teipsum mihi donaveris, nihil donas.
Si non Teipsum invenio, nibil invenio. Nequiequam me przmias, sed crucias vehementer. Prius enim quam ΤῸ quszsivi, spe- 'avi Te tandem invenire, et tenere. Et hac spe melliflua in omnibus laboribus meis dulciter consolabar. Nune autem si Teipsum mihi negaveris, quicquid aliud. dederis, tanta spe frustratus (nec ad tempus modicum, sed in perpetuum) nonne semper amore languebo, languore morebo, mocerore dolebo, dolore lugebo et flebo, quia semper inanis et vacuus remanebo? Nonne inconsolabiliter contristabor? incessabiliter querulabor?
interminabiliter cruciabor? Non est hoc Tuum, optime, clementissime, amantissime Deus; nullatenus congruit, nusquam decet. Fac igitur, optime Deus meus, ut in vita presenti semper 'Teipsum propter Teipsum amem pre omnibus, quiram in omnibus, et tandem in futura in-
veniam ac teneam in zternum.
Notes
- 1 ↩THO. expands as Thomae/Thomas (genitive), pairing with Bradwardini in the next sentence to form the heading 'Prayer of Thomas Bradwardine'.
- 2 ↩Normalized 'super ala cuncta' is treated as intended 'super alia cuncta' (above all other things / above everything else).
- 3 ↩'finaliter' rendered as final end/goal of desire, not merely 'at last' in time.
- 4 ↩Normalized 'quiero' is treated as intended 'quaero' (I seek).
- 5 ↩Normalized 'przcordiis' is treated as 'praecordiis' (inmost heart/breast).
- 6 ↩Reading 'nihil' for transmitted 'nibil'.
- 7 ↩Reading 'Nequiquam me praemias' for transmitted 'Nequiequam me przmias'.
- 8 ↩Reconstructed from heavy OCR corruption as 'Prius enim quam Te quaesivi, speravi Te tandem invenire et tenere' (ΤῸ → Te; quszsivi → quaesivi; spe- 'avi → speravi).
- 9 ↩Reading 'Nunc' for transmitted 'Nune'. Sentence is intentionally incomplete in the print division; it continues in s6 with 'dederis…'.
- 10 ↩Reading 'maerebo' for 'morebo' and 'moerore' for 'mocerore' to restore the parallel series amore languebo / languore maerebo / moerore dolebo / dolore lugebo et flebo.
- 11 ↩Completes the conditional begun in s5: si Teipsum mihi negaveris, quicquid aliud dederis…
- 12 ↩Syntactically a bare future question; Nonne from s7 (and the following interminabiliter cruciabor?) likely governs this whole rhetorical series.
- 13 ↩Non est hoc Tuum rendered as character/fitness (“not like You”), not mere possession; nullatenus congruit / nusquam decet kept as parallel denials of fitness and propriety.
- 14 ↩Normalized reading treats quiram as quaeram (“seek”), pre as prae (“above”), and presenti as praesenti; sentence is truncated mid-word (in-), continuing into the next section.
- 15 ↩Normalized reading takes zternum as aeternum (OCR/type corruption). Preceding section ends mid-word with in-, so veniam is read as the completion of inveniam rather than free-standing veniam (“come”). Object You is supplied from the continuing petition in PrecesPriv.1.232.5.s3.
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