VI
Crown Your Own Gifts
The soul asks God to finish the good stirrings he begins and to crown gifts that belong to him alone.
Complete, O my God, the good stirrings you give me.✦ Be their end as you are their beginning.✦ Crown your own gifts, for I recognize that they are your gifts.✦
No Merit of Mine
The soul renounces any claim that prayer could oblige God, confessing a heart turned toward creatures and resting only on mercy.
Yes, my God: and far from claiming that my prayers have any merit that would oblige you to grant them by necessity, I very humbly acknowledge that, having given my heart to creatures—a heart you had formed only for yourself, not for the world, and not for myself—I can expect no grace except from your mercy, since I have nothing in myself that could bind you to it, and since all the natural movements of my heart, drawn toward creatures or toward myself, can only anger you.✦1
Thanks for the Stirring to Thank
Gratitude rises not only for the good stirrings themselves, but for the very grace that moves the soul to thank God for them.
So I give you thanks, my God, for the good stirrings you give me, and even for the very stirring you give me to thank you for them.
Read the original Latin
Achevez, ô mon Dieu, les bons mouvemens que vous me donnez. Soyez-en la fin comme vous en êtes le principe. Couronnez vos propres dons : car je reconnois que ce sont vos dons. Oui, mon Dieu : et bien loin de prétendre que mes prières aient du mérite qui vous oblige de les accorder de nécessité, je reconnois très-humblement qu’ayant donné aux créatures mon cœur, que vous n’aviez formé que pour vous, et non pas pour le monde, ni pour moi-même, je ne puis attendre aucune grâce que de votre miséricorde, puisque je n’ai rien en moi qui vous y puisse engager, et que tous les mouvemens naturels de mon cœur, se portant vers les créatures ou vers moi-même, ne peuvent que vous irriter. Je vous rends donc grâce, mon Dieu, des bons mouvemens que vous me donnez, et de celui même que vous me donnez de vous en rendre grâces.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Phil.1.6 — I am confident of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
- ↩Phil.1.6 — I am confident of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
- ↩Jas.1.17 — Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
- ↩Ps.73.25-Ps.73.26;Deut.6.5 — Whom have I in heaven but you? And with you I desire nothing on earth. Ps.73.26 — My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Deut.6.5 — And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Notes
- 1 ↩«engager» rendered as «bind you to it» (moral/necessary claim on God), not mere emotional persuasion; «irriter» as «anger you» preserves the moral offense of disordered natural movements.
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