Verba Christi ad sponsam, qualiter corpus per nauem et mundus per mare designantur; et qualiter voluntas est libera ad animas perducendum in celum vel in infernum; et qualiter terrena pulchritudo vitro comparatur.
The Soul's Voyage
Christ invites the soul to trust in His presence as the navigator of the ship of life, guiding the free will toward heaven.
The Son speaks: "Listen, you who long for a harbor after the storms of the world." Anyone at all who is out on the sea shouldn't fear anything, provided that the One who can command the winds to stop blowing is standing right there with them.1 He commands all physical things that seek to do harm to withdraw, and makes the jagged rocks soften; He commands the storms to guide the ship into a quiet harbor.2 In the same way, some people in this world are like a ship carrying a body across the waters of the world, bringing comfort to some and trouble to others, because the free will of a person leads some souls to heaven and others into the depths of hell. That will, therefore, which desires nothing more fervently than to hear the honor of God, and which lives for nothing else but to be able to serve God, is pleasing to God; for God dwells joyfully in such a will, and He softens all the dangers to the soul and calms the reefs upon which the soul is so often in peril.
The Fragility of Earthly Beauty
The soul is warned against the dangers of worldly desires, which are compared to fragile, hollow glass, and encouraged to seek peace through detachment.
And what are these jagged rocks, if not evil desires? For it's tempting to see the world's possessions and to own them, to take pride in one's own reputation, and to taste whatever delights the flesh. In such things, the soul is often in danger. But when God is in the boat, all these things soften, and the soul despises them all, because every bodily and earthly beauty is like glass painted on the outside but filled with dirt on the inside. Once the glass is broken, it’s worth no more than black dirt, which was created for no other purpose than to be possessed so that, through it, heaven might be bought. Therefore, any person who no longer desires to hear their own honor or the world's praise any more than they would a toxic wind—who mortifies all the members of their body and detests the abominable pleasures of the flesh—can rest in peace and wake up with joy, because God is with them at every hour.
Read the original Latin
Filius loquitur: "Audi tu, que desideras portum post mundi procellas. Omnis, quicumque in mari est, non debet timere aliquid, si ille cum eo stat qui prohibere potest ventos, ne flent;
qui omnia corporalia, que nocere volunt, iubet abscedere scopulosque mollescere; qui procellis imperat, ut nauem perducant ad quietum portum.
Sic corporaliter in mundo aliqui sunt quasi nauis perducens corpus super aquas mundi aliis in consolacionem, aliis in tribulacionem, quia voluntas hominis libera quasdam animas perducit in celum, quasdam in profundum inferni.
Illa ergo voluntas que nichil desiderat feruencius audire quam honorem Dei nec ad aliud viuere, quam ut possit Deo seruire, ipsa placet Deo, quia in tali voluntate gaudenter moratur Deus et mitigat omnia pericula anime scopulosque quietat, in quibus anima multociens periclitatur.
Quid autem sunt scopuli nisi desiderium malum? Nam delectabile est videre possessiones mundi et possidere, gaudere de corporis sui honore et gustare quidquid delectat carnem. In talibus enim multociens periclitatur anima.
Sed quando Deus in naui est, omnia ista mollescunt et anima omnia ista contempnit, quia omnis pulchritudo corporea et terrena similis est vitro depicto ab extra sed intus pleno terra.
Fracto autem vitro non habet plus utilitatis quam terra nigra, que ad nichil aliud creata est, ut possideatur, nisi ut per eam ematur celum.
Itaque omnis homo, qui non plus desiderat audire honorem suum seu mundi quam nociuum aerem, qui omnia membra corporis sui mortificat et voluptatem carnis sue abhominabilem detestatur, hic quiete requiescere potest et gaudenter euigilare, quia Deus est cum eo in omni hora."
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'ne flent' (lest they blow) is rendered here as 'command the winds to stop blowing' to capture the sense of the Lord's authority over the storm.
- 2 ↩The Latin 'ut nauem perducant' (that they may lead the ship) refers to the storms (procellis) acting as the instrument of God's will to bring the soul to port.
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