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Chapter 21PsAug.1.21

Ex bonis temporalibus colligitur magnitudo coelestium.

From Visible Gifts to Invisible Glory

The soul, awakened by God's mercy, contemplates how the smallest visible creatures reveal God's greatness and reasons from earthly blessings to the immeasurable goods prepared in the heavenly homeland.

Look—your great mercy has been revealed to me. With your light, I beg you, shine even more, so that it may be revealed to me more fully. For from these smallest things of yours we come to grasp your great things, and from these visible things of yours we come to grasp your invisible things, Lord God, holy and good, our Creator. For if, my Lord, for this ignoble and corruptible body you bestow such great and countless benefits—from heaven and air, from earth and sea, light and darkness, heat and shade, dew and rain, winds and showers, birds and fish, beasts and trees, and from the abundance of the earth's herbs and sprouts, and from the service of all your creatures ministering to us in turn through their own seasons, so as to relieve our weariness—what, I beg you, and how great and innumerable will those goods be which you have prepared for those who love you, in that homeland of heaven, where we shall see you face to face?1

The Prison and the Palace

Through a series of sharp contrasts—prison and palace, common and reserved gifts, friends and enemies, the day of tears and the day of the wedding—the soul magnifies God's works and infers the surpassing glory awaiting the faithful.

If you do such great things for us here in prison, what will you do in the palace? Great and innumerable are your works, Lord, King of the heavens. Although all these things are very good and delightful, which you have given as common to the good and to the wicked alike, what sort of things must those be which you have stored up for the good alone? If so many and varied are your gifts, which you now bestow equally on friends and enemies, how great and innumerable, how sweet and delightful will those be which you are about to lavish on your friends alone? If there are so many comforts in this day of tears, how great will those you bring in the day of the wedding?

Scripture Confirms What the Heart Desires

The soul presses the prison-versus-fatherland contrast once more, then anchors its hope in scriptural testimony—Isaiah, the Psalms—affirming that God's hidden sweetness, immeasurable greatness, and boundless recompense exceed all human reckoning.

If the prison holds so many delights, how many, I ask, does the fatherland hold? Eye has not seen, God, apart from you, what you have prepared for those who love you (Isai.✦ LXIV, 4). For according to the great abundance of your magnificence, there is also a great abundance of your sweetness, which you have hidden from those who fear you (Psal.✦2 L, 3; Psal. XXX, 20). For you are great, Lord my God, and immeasurable, and there is no end to your greatness (Psal.✦ CXLIV, 3), and there is no counting your wisdom, no measuring your kindness, no end, no number, no measure to your recompense: but as great as you are, so great are your gifts, since you yourself are the reward and the gift of all your faithful fighters.✦3

Read the original Latin

En aperitur mihi misericordia tua magna; lumine tuo illustra, quaeso, magis adhuc, ut mihi magis aperiatur. Nam ex his minimis tua magna, et ex his visibilibus tua invisibilia comprehendimus, Domine Deus sancte, et bone creator noster. Si enim, mi Domine, pro hoc corpore ignobili et corruptibili tam magna et innumera beneficia praestas a coelo et aere, a terra et mari, luce et tenebris, calore et umbra, rore et imbre, ventis et pluviis, volucribus et piscibus, bestiis et arboribus, et multiplicitate herbarum et germinum terrae, et cunctarum creaturarum tuarum ministerio nobis successive per sua tempora ministrantium, ut alleves fastidium; qualia, quaeso, et quam magna et innumerabilia erunt illa bona, quae praeparasti diligentibus te, in illa coeli patria, ubi te videbimus facie ad faciem? Si tanta facis nobis in carcere, quid ages in palatio? Magna et innumerabilia sunt opera tua, Domine rex coelorum. Cum sint haec omnia valde bona et delectabilia, quae bonis pariter malisque communia tradidisti; qualia futura sunt illa, quae solis bonis recondisti? Si tam innumera et varia dona tua, quae nunc amicis pariter tribuis et inimicis; quam magna et innumerabilia, quam dulcia et delectabilia, quae solis tuis es largiturus amicis? Si tanta solatia in hac die lacrymarum; quanta conferes in die nuptiarum?

Si tanta delectabilia continet carcer; quanta, quaeso, continet patria? Oculus non vidit, Deus, absque te, quae praeparasti diligentibus te (Isai. LXIV, 4). Secundum enim magnam multitudinem magnificentiae tuae est etiam multitudo magna dulcedinis tuae, quam abscondisti timentibus te (Psal. L, 3; Psal. XXX, 20). Magnus enim tu es, Domine Deus meus, et immensus, nec est finis magnitudinis tuae (Psal. CXLIV, 3), nec est numerus sapientiae tuae, nec est mensura benignitatis tuae, nec est finis, nec numerus, nec mensura retributionis tuae: sed sicut magnus es tu, ita magna sunt donaria tua, quoniam tu ipse praemium et donum omnium legitimorum tuorum pugnatorum.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Isa.64.4;1Cor.2.9 — You meet those who rejoice and do righteousness; in your ways they remember you. But behold, you were angry, and we sinned — in those ways we have been for long, and can we be saved? 1Cor.2.9 — But as it is written: What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived—all that God has prepared for those who love him.
  2. ↩Ps.31.19;Ps.52.3 — How great is your goodness that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you have worked for those who take refuge in you before the children of men! Let the lips of falsehood be silenced, those who speak against the righteous with arrogance and contempt. Ps.52.3 — You who boast in evil, mighty one—God's steadfast love endures all the day.
  3. ↩Ps.145.3 — Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.
  4. ↩Ps.145.3 — Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩facie ad faciem: rendered 'face to face' as the established biblical idiom for direct vision of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12).
  2. 2 ↩Dulcedo rendered 'sweetness' to preserve the sensory-devotional register; could also be 'delight' or 'tenderness.'
  3. 3 ↩Pugnatorum rendered 'fighters' to preserve the martial-spiritual metaphor; alternatives include 'those who strive' or 'combatants.'

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