Preces Quotidianae

Daily Prayer's Twofold Path

The chapter opens with the two main elements of daily devotion: self-examination and prayers of thanksgiving.

Scrutiny and inquiry, or examination of oneself,¹² Prayers and thanksgivings.

The Discipline of Self-Knowledge

Citing Augustine, Cicero, and Seneca, the text urges the necessity of knowing one's own weakness and the hidden recesses of the mind before correction can begin.

Scrutiny, Inquiry, or Examination.³ Augustine. A good man would rather know his own weakness than know the foundations of the earth and the heights of heaven.⁴ But that knowledge of your own weakness isn't gained without careful searching; without it the mind is usually blind, and sees nothing in what is its own.⁵ Cicero. There are many hiding places in the mind, and many recesses, and so on.⁶ Seneca. You have to catch yourself before you can correct yourself.

The Deep and Wounded Heart

Drawing on Jeremiah's image of the heart's depth and deceitfulness, the text calls for careful attention to the old self and its hidden wounds.

An unknown wound grows worse and is left without a cure. Jer. 17. 9. The heart is deeper than anything.^✦⁷ The heart is deep and twisted.^✦ The old self is covered over with a thousand wrappings.⁸ So then: Pay attention to yourself. Pay attention to yourself.⁹

The Daily Examen

The examen focuses on one's actions, readings, words, and writings, assessing whether they befit a Christian or a priest, and considering daily duties.

But this, above all, needs examining: what you've done, what you've read, what you've said, and what you've written. Whether it befits a Christian,¹⁰ a priest; what today concerning the father, etc.¹¹

Petitions for Growth and Salvation

Prayers ask for strengthening of faith and obedience, increase of knowledge, proper governance of soul and body, and the salvation of others.

May He strengthen faith, obedience,¹² May he increase knowledge. . which concerns the government of the soul, or of the body.¹³ yours; may it work the salvation of others.¹⁴

Closing: And Prayers

The chapter concludes with a heading for prayers and a section mark, indicating a transition to the prayer section of the daily office.

And prayers.¹⁵ [Section mark 9 D — unreadable/non-prose source]¹⁶

Read the original Latin

Serutinium et inquisitionem Per vel examen sui,

Preces et gratiarum actiones.

Scrutinium οὐ Inquisitio, vel Examen. Aug. Vir bonus przponit scire infirmitatem suam, magis quam scire fundamenta terrz, et fastigia coeli. Ila vero scientia infirmitatis sux non paratur absque inquisitione diligenti; sine qua czecus plerumque est animus, atque in propriis nihil videt. Cicero. Multz sunt in animo latebrze multique recessus, etc. - Seneca. Deprehendas te oportet, antequam emendes.

Ignotum ulcus in deterius abit, et curatione destituitur. Jer. xvii. 9. Βαθεῖα ἡ καρδία παρὰ “πάντα. Cor profundum est et tortuosum. Homo vetus mille involucris obtegitur. Itaque 7póceye σεαυτῷ: Attende tibi ipsi.

Hoc autem maxime inquirendum ; Egeris, Legeris, Dixeris, Scripseris. Í f deceat Christianum, |. sacerdotem, Quid hodie patrem, etc.

confirmet fidem, obedientiam,

augeat scientiam.

. quod Ax ; animi, vel regimen 1 I corporis. : tuam, operetur salutem 1 : aliorum,

AND PREGES. 9 D

Scripture echoes

↩Jer.17.9 — The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and desperately sick — who can know it?
↩Jer.17.9 — The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and desperately sick — who can know it?

Notes

1 ↩Latin surface 'Serutinium' is almost certainly a corruption of 'Scrutinium' (scrutiny/searching examination). Translated on that reading.
2 ↩'Per vel' is hard to construe as transmitted. Most plausible heading sense is alternative 'vel'/'sive' ('or') before 'examen sui'; 'Per' treated as likely print/OCR noise rather than the preposition 'through'.
3 ↩Greek οὐ between Scrutinium and Inquisitio is likely OCR/print noise or a corrupted separator (not functioning as classical οὐ, 'not'); rendered as a synonym list joined by vel.
4 ↩Normalized OCR: przponit → praeponit; terrz → terrae.
5 ↩Normalized OCR: Ila → Illa; sux → suae; czecus → caecus.
6 ↩Normalized OCR: Multz → Multae; latebrze → latebrae. Trailing etc. kept as 'and so on.'
7 ↩Greek appears truncated or OCR-damaged (odd quotation mark before πάντα; phrase likely continues in the full LXX of Jer 17:9). Rendered as the intact sense of the surviving words.
8 ↩Homo vetus is the Pauline 'old man' / old self; rendered as 'old self' for modern readability while keeping the formation sense.
9 ↩Normalized OCR-garbled 7póceye σεαυτῷ to πρόσεχε σεαυτῷ ('attend to yourself'), which the following Latin Attende tibi ipsi glosses.
10 ↩Source reading "Í f deceat Christianum, |." is corrupt/OCR-damaged. Rendered from the clear remainder as an examen prompt: whether (si/an id) this befits a Christian; the leading tokens and trailing "|" are not recoverable with certainty.
11 ↩Telegraphic examen notes: "sacerdotem" continues the prior "deceat Christianum" construction; "Quid hodie patrem" lacks an explicit preposition/verb and may mean duties toward one's father, a spiritual father, or the Father—left neutral as "the father."
12 ↩Subject of confirmet is unexpressed in this fragment; rendered as God (He) from the surrounding private-devotion petition series, which continues in the next section with augeat scientiam.
13 ↩Supplied Latin is badly corrupted: 'Ax', '1', and 'I' look like OCR or layout artifacts and were not rendered. 'regimen' is taken with both genitives (animi / corporis) as the most plausible parallel sense.
14 ↩Feminine accusative 'tuam' has no recoverable head noun in the supplied text (often something like gratiam in this genre). It is left as 'yours' rather than silently supplied. Leading/internal colons and the numeral '1' are treated as print/OCR debris.
15 ↩Source reads AND PREGES. Most plausible intended surface is PRECES (prayers); PREGES is treated as OCR/print corruption of PRECES.
16 ↩Source is only 9 D. This is treated as a residual section/page/signature mark, not a translatable sentence of Latin prose. No continuous sense can be recovered from the supplied text alone.

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