Preces Quotidianae
Longing for Tears
The soul laments its inability to weep over sins like the saints and asks Christ for a share in His tears.
Not that I might wash Your feet—not abundantly like Jeremiah, not bitterly like Peter (though oh, if only I could! Or at least one little tear, and then another: one You would store in Your bottle, one You would enter in Your book).✦✦✦1 But if I cannot even obtain this—ah, pumice!2 Oh, I am truly burning!3 I am boiling in cold water; outside, where less is needed, I am without fervor; where I should not grieve, I grieve enough; where I most need to, I am cold, dry, and dead. At least from the tears of Your Christ, grant me some—tears which, in the days of His flesh, He poured out abundantly.✦4 Oh, grant me some of them.
Christ Supplies My Lack
A brief affirmation that in Christ the soul finds what it lacks in itself.
In him there remain for me the things that I lack in myself.5
A Short Prayer After Confession
A heading introduces a prayer meant to be said after confession.
A short prayer after Confession.
The Prayer for a New Life
Desiring to die before sinning again, the soul prays that a new Spirit may produce a new life of perpetual repentance.
O my Savior, Christ, my Savior, who will grant that I might die before I offend You again, Christ my Savior, O my Savior? O Lord, let the pattern of a new life show that a new Spirit has come; for true repentance is a new life, and true confession is to repent without ceasing.6
Perpetual Sabbath
A closing phrase envisions true repentance as keeping a perpetual Sabbath rest.
Read the original Latin
Non ut pedes Tuos rigare, Non copiose, ut Jeremias, Non amare, ut Petrus, (Quanquam O, si sic ἢ At vel lacrymulam saltem unam Atque alteram supple; Quam Tu in utre Tuo recondas, Quam in commentarios 'Tuos referas. Sin nec hoc impetro, ah, pumex ! Ah me, vere caleem! in aqua frigida ferventem, Extra, ubi minus oportet, absque fervore, Ubi non oportet dolentem satis, Ubi maxime oportet, frigidum, aridum, emortuum, Saltem de lacrymis Christi 'Tui Imperti mihi aliquas, Quas in diebus carnis sux fudit ubertim. Imperti O mihi de iis.
Supersunt in illo mihi, quz in me mihi desunt.
Oratiuncula post Confessionem.
O Servator mi, Christe, Servator mi, Quis mihi det, ut prius moriar quam Te denuo offendam, Christe Servator mi, O Servator mi? O Domine, novum supervenisse Spiritum Nova vitz:e ratio demonstret ; Nam paenitentia vera, nova vita, Et vera confessio, sine intermissione poenitere,
Observando Sabbatum perpetuum
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.7.38 — and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
- ↩Matt.26.75;Luke.22.62 — And Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly. Luke.22.62 — And he went out and wept bitterly.
- ↩Ps.56.8 — You have kept count of my wanderings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.
- ↩Heb.5.7 — In the days of his flesh, he offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
- ↩Gen.2.2-Gen.2.3;Exod.20.8-Exod.20.11;Heb.4.9-Heb.4.11 — And God finished on the seventh day His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. Gen.2.3 — And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God created to do. Exod.20.8 — Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Exod.20.9 — Six days you shall labor and do all your work. Exod.20.10 — but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; on it you shall not do any work—you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. Exod.20.11 — For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the day of the Sabbath and made it holy. Heb.4.9 — So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Heb.4.10 — For whoever has entered into that rest has himself also rested from his works, just as God rested from his own. Heb.4.11 — Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Notes
- 1 ↩Source shows Greek ἢ and stray quote marks around Tuos; translated as the alternative 'or' plus the Psalm-echo of tears kept in God's bottle and book. amare is taken as the adverb 'bitterly' (with Peter), parallel to copiose, not the verb 'to love'.
- 2 ↩pumex is the dry, non-weeping stone: an image of a hard heart that yields no tears.
- 3 ↩Latin caleem looks corrupt. Rendered from the most plausible intended form calentem / caleo ('burning/on fire'), which fits the next sentence's ferventem in cold water. If the true reading is callum ('callous'), the sense would be hardness rather than misplaced heat.
- 4 ↩sux corrected to suae ('His flesh'); stray quote before Tui ignored as noise.
- 5 ↩Source reading 'quz' is treated as 'quae' (OCR/ligature corruption of quæ).
- 6 ↩Normalized reading takes corrupted 'Nova vitz:e ratio' as 'Nova vitae ratio' (pattern/way of a new life). Highly probable OCR/print corruption of vitae.
- 7 ↩Sabbatum perpetuum may mean continuous Sabbath rest from sin (ascetical sense) or the everlasting Sabbath of heavenly rest; the gerund Observando marks means/manner ('by keeping'). Neighboring penitential context favors ongoing rest from sin, but the phrase alone does not settle it.
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