Caput 21. Ex bonis temporalibus colligitur magnitudo coelestium.
From Temporal Gifts to Heavenly Promises
The soul prays for light to see how the countless temporal blessings given to all point to the far greater heavenly rewards prepared for those who love God.
See, your great mercy is opening to me; please shine on me still more with your light, so that it may open to me still more. For from these least things we grasp your great ones, and from these visible things your invisible ones, Lord holy God, and our good Creator. For if, my Lord, for this lowly and perishable body you grant such great and countless blessings from heaven and air, from earth and sea, from 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 through the service of all your creatures that minister to us in turn through their seasons to ease our weariness — what kind, I ask, and how great and countless will those goods be that you have prepared for those who love you, in that homeland of heaven where we will see you face to face?✦1 If you do so much for us in the prison, what will you do in the palace?2 Great and countless are your works, Lord, King of the heavens. Since all these things are very good and delightful — things you have handed over in common to the good and the bad alike — what will those be like that you have stored up for the good alone? If your gifts that you now give alike to friends and enemies are so countless and varied, how great and countless, how sweet and delightful will those be that you are going to lavish on your friends alone? If there are such consolations in this day of tears, how great will those be that you will give on the wedding day?
God Himself Is Our Reward
Scripture confirms that the delights of this life are but a shadow of the homeland's joys, where God's own immeasurable greatness, wisdom, and kindness become the eternal prize for His faithful warriors.
If the prison holds so many delights, how many, I ask, does the homeland hold? No eye has seen, O God—apart from you—what you have prepared for those who love you (Isa.3 64:4). For according to the great abundance of your majesty there is also a great abundance of your sweetness, which you have hidden for those who fear you (Ps. 50:3; Ps. 30:20). For you are great, Lord my God, and immeasurable, and there is no end to your greatness (Ps. 144:3)—nor is there any number to your wisdom, nor any measure to your kindness, nor any end, nor number, nor measure to your reward. But as great as you are, so great are your gifts, because you yourself are the prize and the gift of all your rightful warriors.4
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
- ↩Isa.64.4 — 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?
Notes
- 1 ↩fastidium rendered as 'weariness' (relief from monotony by varied created goods); could also shade toward distaste or satiety.
- 2 ↩carcere / palatio: this present life as a prison, the heavenly court as a palace — figurative contrast carried forward in the next section.
- 3 ↩Wording blends Isaiah's absque te with the 1 Corinthians form diligentibus te (those who love you) rather than Vulgate Isaiah's expectantibus te (those who wait for you).
- 4 ↩legitimorum...pugnatorum rendered as 'rightful warriors' for those who contend lawfully/rightly in God's service; retributionis taken in the positive sense of reward/recompense.
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