De altitudine judiciorum Dei.
The Trembling Before Inscrutable Judgment
The soul confesses the awesome depth and equity of God's judgments, acknowledging that no one can know with certainty whether they stand in God's favor or disfavor.
Great are your judgments, Lord God — righteous and mighty judge, who judge with equity and whose ways are inscrutable and deep. When I consider them, all my bones tremble, since no living person on earth is ever secure — so that we may serve you with piety and purity all the days of our life in fear, and rejoice before you with trembling; so that our service is never without fear, nor our joy without trembling, and let not the one who is girded boast as though he were ungirded (III Reg.✦ XX, 11), nor let all flesh boast before you, but let it tremble and shudder at your presence, since a person does not know whether he is worthy of love or of hatred. But for the future, all things are kept uncertain.✦
The Fall of the Proud and the Rise of the Lowly
The soul recalls, with trembling, how the proud have been cast down and the lowly raised up by God's sovereign reversals, illustrated through scriptural images of stars falling, the dead rising, and sinners entering the kingdom before the self-righteous.
We have seen many, Lord, and heard from our fathers — which I certainly cannot recall without great trembling, nor confess without much fear — who at first rose even to the heavens and placed their nest among the stars, but afterwards fell to the abysses, and their souls were stunned among evils.✦ We have seen stars fall from heaven at the striking blow of the dragon's tail, and those who lay in the dust of the earth rise wonderfully at the presence of your uplifted hand, Lord.✦ We have seen the living dying and the dead rising from death; and those who walked among the sons of God in the midst of burning stones flowed away like mud to nothing.✦ We have seen the light darkened, and from darkness light come forth — because tax collectors and prostitutes precede the inhabitants in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness.✦✦
The Mountain of Temptation and the Temple of Grace
The soul asks why such reversals occur, pointing to the mountain of temptation, and then turns to the consolation of God's predestining grace that makes the faithful a holy temple and dwelling place for the divine majesty.
Why then are all these things so, unless it is because they have ascended that mountain on which the angel first ascended and the devil descended?✦ Those whom you predestined, you also called, and sanctified, and cleansed, so that they may be a worthy dwelling place for your majesty — with whom and in whom your delights are holy and pure, in whom you take pleasure and gladden their youth, dwelling with them in their midst, so that they themselves may be your holy temple. And it is a commendation of great dignity for our humanity.✦✦✦
Read the original Latin
Magna sunt haec judicia tua, Domine Deus, judex juste et fortis, qui judicas aequitatem et inscrutabilia et profunda: quae cum considero, contremiscunt omnia ossa mea, quoniam non securatur homo vivens super terram: ut serviamus tibi pie et caste cunctis diebus vitae nostrae in timore, et exsultemus tibi cum tremore; ut non sit servitium sine timore, neque gaudium sine tremore, et non glorietur accinctus aeque ut discinctus (III Reg. XX, 11), neque glorietur ante te omnis caro, sed pavescat et contremiscat a facie tua, cum ignoret homo utrum amore an odio dignus sit; sed in futurum omnia reservantur incerta. Vidimus enim multos, Domine, et audivimus a patribus nostris (quod utique sine magno tremore non recolo, sine multo timore non confiteor), ascendisse primitus quidem usque ad coelos, et inter sidera nidum suum collocasse; postmodum autem cecidisse usque ad abyssos, et animas eorum in malis obstupuisse. Vidimus stellas de coelo cecidisse ab impetu ferientis caudae draconis, et eos qui jacebant in pulvere terrae, a facie sublevantis manus tuae, Domine, mirabiliter ascendisse. Vidimus vivos morientes, et mortuos a morte surgentes; et eos qui inter filios Dei ambulabant, in medio lapidum ignitorum quasi lutum ad nihilum defluxisse. Vidimus lucem obtenebrasse, et de tenebris lucem processisse, quia publicani et meretrices praecedunt incolas in regno coelorum; filii autem regni ejicientur in tenebras exteriores. Quare autem ista omnia, nisi quia in montem illum ascenderunt, in quem primus ascendit angelus, et descendit diabolus? Quos autem praedestinasti, ipsos et vocasti, et sanctificasti, et mundasti, ut dignum habitaculum sint tuae majestatis; cum quibus et in quibus sunt tibi deliciae sanctae et mundae, in quibus tu delectaris, et laetificas juventutem eorum, habitans cum eis in medio eorum, ut ipsi templum sanctum tuum sint, quod magnae dignitatis commendatio est humanitatis nostrae.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Kgs.20.11 — And the king of Israel answered and said, "Let not the one who puts on his armor boast as the one who takes it off."
- ↩Eccl.9.1 — For I have set all this upon my heart and have examined all this: that the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Neither love nor hatred does a person know beforehand; all of it lies before them.
- ↩Obad.1.4 — Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the LORD.
- ↩Rev.12.4 — And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.
- ↩2Pet.2.22 — It has happened to them according to the true proverb: 'A dog returns to its own vomit,' and 'A sow, after washing herself, returns to wallowing in the mud.'
- ↩Matt.21.31 — Which of the two did the will of the father? They say, 'The last.' Jesus says to them, 'Truly I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go before you into the kingdom of God.'
- ↩Matt.8.12 — But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
- ↩Matt.4.8 — Again, the devil takes him to a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
- ↩Rom.8.30 — And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.
- ↩1Cor.3.16-1Cor.3.17 — Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 1Cor.3.17 — If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy that person. For the temple of God is holy, and you are that temple.
- ↩2Cor.6.16 — What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.'
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