Preces Quotidianae

The Peril of New Sins

A warning that while repentance destroys old sins, new sins destroy repentance itself.

From the occasion of sin, from sin and its tinder, from danger.¹ For just as repentance destroys old sins, So new sins destroy penitence.²

Preparing the Heart for Prayer

A preparatory prayer that acknowledges the heart's unreadiness, longs for it to be ready, and asks God to supply what is lacking in preparation.

Preparatory Prayer. Lord, my heart is ready: (as the Psalmist says, Psalm³ 108.⁴ 1.) But, Lord, I fear that mine is not. I certainly long for it, and I grieve if it falls short.⁵ If only it were ready! Woe is me, that it is not! Lord, I put myself in order and prepare.⁶ Help my disposition, and make up for what is lacking in my preparation.⁷ I will place my sins before me,^✦

Sins Set Before God

A brief petition that one's sins may be set before oneself so they do not stand before God.

so that they won't stand before You.

The Preacher as Man of Prayer

A caution and prayer from Fulgentius urging the preacher to rely on prayer rather than eloquence, and to seek divine instruction through Scripture, conversation, and inspiration.

Before the sermon: a caution with a prayer, from a letter of Fulgentius.⁸ 1. To Monimus.⁹ The preacher should work hard so that he is heard gladly, with understanding, and with obedience. And he should not doubt that he can do this more by the devotion of his prayers than by skill in speaking.¹⁰ Praying for himself and for those he is about to address, let him be a man of prayer before he is a teacher; and approaching with devotion, before he puts forth his speaking tongue, let him lift a thirsty soul to God, so that he may pour out what he has drunk from there and give what has filled him.^✦¹¹¹²¹³ So I don't stop asking our true Lord and Master that he would give me those things, whether through the words of his Scriptures,¹⁴ or through the brothers' conversation, or through his inspiration¹⁵

Read the original Latin

Occasione, A peccato ejusque4 Fomite, Periculo. Sicut enim penitentia. destruit vetera peccata,

Sie nova peccata pceenitentiam.

Oratio Preparatoria. Domine, paratum est cor meum: (sic Psaltes, Psal. cviii. 1.) Sed, Domine, metuo ne meum non sit ; Cupio certe, et doleo si minus. Utinam esset paratum! hei mihi, quod non est! Domine, dispono me, et prwparo.

Adjuva dispositionem, et przparationem meam supple. Ponam peccata mea coram me,

Ut non sint coram Te.

Ante Concionem Cautela cum Precatione em Fulgentii l. 1. ad Mon.

Predicator laboret, ut libenter, ut intelligenter, et obedienter audiatur. Et hoc se posse magis pietate orationum, quam orationis facultate, non dubitet. Orando pro se, ac ilis quos est allocuturus, sit prius orator | quam doctor; et devote accedens, priusquam exserat proferentem linguam ad Deum, elevet animam sitientem ; ut eructet, quod inde biberit, et effundat quod impleverit.

Ergo a vero Domino ac Magistro nostro postulare non desino, ut ea me, sive per eloquia Scripturarum suarum,

sive per sermocinationem fratrum, sive per inspira-

Scripture echoes

↩Ps.50.5 — Gather to me my faithful ones, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
↩Ps.45.2 — My heart is stirred by a noble theme; I address my work to the king; my tongue is the pen of a ready scribe.

Notes

1 ↩Source has 'ejusque4', almost certainly a footnote marker run into the text; reading as 'ejusque' ('and its'). 'Fomite' taken as theological fomes peccati (the residual tinder/inclination to sin).
2 ↩Source reading 'Sie nova peccata pceenitentiam' is corrupt. Taken as 'Sic nova peccata poenitentiam' with the verb supplied by parallel ellipsis from the previous clause (Sicut enim poenitentia destruit vetera peccata…): so new sins [destroy] penitence.
3 ↩Parenthetical citation is split across s2–s4 by the printed sentence boundaries; render as the continuing reference rather than a closed sentence.
4 ↩Standalone 'cviii.' is the Roman-numeral psalm number continuing the citation begun in s2.
5 ↩'meum' and the understood subject look back to 'cor meum' / readiness: the speaker fears the psalm's claim is not truly true of his own heart; 'minus' means less ready / short of that readiness.
6 ↩Normalized 'prwparo' as 'praeparo' (I prepare); confirmed by the next section's 'dispositionem' / 'praeparationem'.
7 ↩Source reading przparationem is treated as praeparationem (preparation), matching the previous section's preparo and ordinary private-prayer diction.
8 ↩Source reads "em Fulgentii l."; most plausible intended reading is "ex Fulgentii l." (from a letter/book of Fulgentius). "l." is taken as the usual early-modern abbreviation for letter/book (liber/epistola), continued in s3 as "ad Mon."
9 ↩"ad Mon." is almost certainly the citation "ad Monimum" (to Monimus), continuing the Fulgentius letter reference begun in s1. Fulgentius of Ruspe wrote letters Ad Monimum.
10 ↩Latin plays on orationum (prayers) versus orationis (speech/oratory): the preacher’s power comes more from devout prayer than from rhetorical facility.
11 ↩Source reads ilis; translated as illis (“for those”). The pipe mark after orator is treated as a line-break artifact, not as content.
12 ↩orator here means one who prays (from orare), contrasted with doctor (“teacher”), not classical “orator” as public speaker.
13 ↩Source punctuation attaches ad Deum to linguam; sense rendered as elevating the thirsty soul to God before speaking, the more natural reading in context.
14 ↩Section ends mid-clause after sive per eloquia Scripturarum suarum; the governing verb for ut ea me is not present here and continues in the next section (sive per sermocinationem...).
15 ↩Printed line ends mid-word as 'inspira-'; completed as 'inspiration' from the following section's continuation 'tionis su[a]e' (inspirationis suae). Latin case is genitive with 'per' (usually accusative); rendered as the natural sense 'through his inspiration' rather than a strained genitive construction.

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