Spem sublevant jam praestita Dei beneficia.
God's Prevenient Mercy
The soul recalls how God's mercy and foreknowledge accompanied it from before birth, even from the womb, preordaining all that concerns it.
Remember your ancient mercy, with which you went before us from the beginning in the blessings of your sweetness. For before I was born, I was a servant's child; Lord, my hope from my mother's breast (Ps.✦ XXI, 10), you went before me, preparing paths for me to walk on and come to the glory of your house.✦ Before you formed me in the womb, you knew me; and before I came forth from the birth canal, whatever pleased you, you had preordained concerning me.
Eternity, Time, and Trembling
Reflecting on God's eternal counsel, the soul trembles at its own ignorance and the dangers of this dark life, yet finds that without God's help it would despair.
What kind of things are written about me in your book, in the secret of your counsel — I truly do not know, and so I am deeply afraid; but you know. For what I expect through the passage of days and times, even a thousand years of this temporality, in the sight of your eternity it has already been accomplished; and what is yet to come has already been accomplished.✦ But I, standing in this dark night, not knowing these things, fear and trembling have come upon me, as I see many dangers threatening me on every side, being hunted by many enemies too, and surrounded by a multitude of countless miseries in this life.✦ And unless your help were present to me in so many evils, I would despair.
Hope in Abundant Mercy
The soul's hope is lifted by reflecting on the abundance of God's compassions and the earlier signs of mercy, anticipating greater gifts reserved for God's friends.
But a great hope lies before me in you, most gentle Sovereign, my God; and reflecting on the abundance of your compassions that are with you lifts my mind. And the earlier signs of your mercy, which went before me before I was born and have now shone forth especially in me, remind my hope of the better and more perfect gifts of your kindness that you reserve for your friends — so that my joy may be in you, Lord my God, in a holy and living joy, you who always gladden my youth.
Loved First and Made in God's Image
God loved the soul first, created it in His own image, and dignified it above all creatures, a dignity known through the very act of knowing God.
You loved me first, my one and only love, before I loved you; you created me in your own image and set me above all your creatures. That dignity I still hold whenever I have come to know you — the very reason you made me.✦✦✦123
Read the original Latin
Recordare misericordiae tuae antiquae, qua nos a principio in benedictionibus tuae dulcedinis praevenisti. Antequam enim nascerer ego filius ancillae tuae, Domine spes mea ab uberibus matris meae (Psal. XXI, 10), tu me praevenisti praeparans mihi semitas, quibus incederem et venirem ad gloriam domus tuae. Priusquam me formares in utero, novisti me; et antequam exirem de vulva, quidquid tibi placuit, praeordinasti de me. Quae qualia sunt in libro tuo de me scripta, in secreto consistorii tui, ego quidem ignoro, unde et valde timeo; tu vero nosti; quoniam quod ego per successus dierum et temporum hinc ad mille annos hujus temporalitatis exspecto, in conspectu aeternitatis tuae jam factum est; et quod futurum est, jam factum est. Ego autem stans in hac nocte tenebrosa haec ignorans, timor et tremor venerunt super me, dum video mihi undique imminere multa pericula, a multis quoque hostibus venari, multitudineque innumerarum miseriarum in hac vita circumdatum. Et nisi in tantis his malis adforet mihi tuum adminiculum, desperarem. Sed spes mihi magna subest de te, mitissime princeps Deus meus; et consideratio multitudinis miserationum tuarum, quae apud te sunt, sublevat mentem meam; et praecedentia signa misericordiae tuae, quae antequam nascerer praevenerunt me, et nunc specialiter in me effulserunt, de futuris benignitatis tuae melioribus et perfectioribus muneribus, quae tuis amicis reservas, spem meam admonent, ut in te laetetur, Domine Deus meus, laetitia sancta et viva, quae semper laetificas juventutem meam.
Dilexisti enim me, unice amor meus, antequam diligerem te, et ad imaginem tuam creasti me, omnibus creaturis tuis praeposuisti me: quam dignitatem tunc quidem servo cum noverim te, propter quod fecisti me.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.21.10 — You will make them like a fiery furnace at the time of your appearing. The LORD, in his anger, will swallow them up, and fire will consume them.
- ↩Ps.21.10 — You will make them like a fiery furnace at the time of your appearing. The LORD, in his anger, will swallow them up, and fire will consume them.
- ↩Ps.89.4;2Pet.3.8 — I have cut a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant. 2Pet.3.8 — But do not let this one thing escape your notice, beloved: with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
- ↩Ps.54.6 — Behold, God is my help; the Lord is among those who uphold my life.
- ↩Gen.1.27 — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
- ↩1John.4.19 — We love because he first loved us.
- ↩Ps.8.5-Ps.8.6 — What is man that you remember him, and the son of Adam that you visit him? Ps.8.6 — You have made him a little lower than God, and crowned him with glory and honor.
Notes
- 1 ↩unice amor meus rendered 'my one and only love' to capture the vocative force and tender directness of the address; the phrase is a term of endearment directed to God.
- 2 ↩enim ('for') is rendered implicitly through the word order and the dash, preserving the explanatory force without a stiff 'for' at the start.
- 3 ↩omnibus creaturis tuis: case ambiguous between dative and ablative plural; rendered as ablative of comparison ('above all your creatures') following the praeposuisti construction.
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