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Chapter 86SermC.1.86

Sermo 86

The Soul's Clear Purpose

The soul's reason for seeking the Word has already been made clear, and what remains concerns how we ought to live.

There's no need to ask me anymore why the soul seeks the Word: that has been made abundantly clear already. Come, let's go through what remains of this chapter — only the parts that bear on how we ought to live.

The Bride's Modesty as a Lesson for the Young

The bride's modesty is singled out as supremely pleasing and offered especially to the young as a radiant adornment of character and good hope.

Here, notice first the bride's modesty — I'm not sure anything more pleasing could be found in the way people live. This above all, I'd like to take up, in a sense, in our hands — to pluck it like some lovely flower and set it before our young people. Not that it shouldn't also be kept with every effort at a more advanced age — it truly is the adornment of every stage of life — but because the grace of modesty shines more fully and beautifully in younger years. What is more lovable than a modest young person? How beautiful, how splendid a gem of character — in the life and in the face of a young person! How true and utterly reliable a messenger of good hope — a sign of a good nature!

Modesty's Fruits in Self-Control and Innocence

Modesty restrains shameful passions, begets self-control and simplicity, and lends even the blush of the cheeks a special grace.

She has a rod of discipline that stands over shameful passions and restrains the impulses of a slippery youth, checking reckless behavior. Why this, if not because she shuns filthy talk and every kind of shamefulness that follows from it? She is a sister of self-control. There is no clearer sign of a dove-like simplicity, and for that reason she is also a witness of innocence. She is a lamp of a chaste mind, burning continually so that nothing shameful or unbecoming can settle in it without her immediately exposing it. In this way she drives out what is evil and defends inborn purity; she is the special glory of a good conscience, the guardian of reputation, the honor of life, the seat of virtue, the firstfruits of the virtues, the praise of nature, and the mark of all that is decent. And what of the blush itself on the cheeks, which modesty sometimes brings — how much grace and beauty does it usually lend to a face when it spreads across it?

Holy Shame Versus Shameful Darkness

Scripture distinguishes shame that leads to sin from shame that leads to glory, and the bride's modest shame belongs to the latter, loving privacy and the night.

Modesty is such a genuine good of the soul that even those who are not ashamed to act wickedly are still ashamed to appear so, as the Lord says: Everyone who acts wickedly hates the light.✦ But those who sleep, sleep by night, and those who are drunk, are drunk by night: works assuredly of darkness, worthy of hiding places, hiding in the darkness.✦ It matters, however, that the hidden disgraces which their shame does not keep them from having but is ashamed to reveal, the bride's shame does not at all cover up, but spits out, but drives away. Therefore the Wise One says: There is a shame that leads to sin, and there is a shame that leads to glory. The bride seeks the Word chastely indeed, because in bed, because through the nights; but this shame has glory, not sin.✦ She seeks this for the purification of conscience, she seeks it for a witness, so that she may be able to say: This is my glory, the witness of my conscience. On my bed through the nights I sought him whom my soul loves. Modesty, if you pay attention, is signified to you both in place and in time.✦ What is so friendly to a modest soul as privacy?

The Secret Room of Prayer

Prayer is to be offered in private to avoid vainglory, and modesty itself teaches this, especially fitting for youth beginning the religious life.

And so a secret place, and the night, and a little bed all have their modesty. In short, when we want to pray, we are told to enter our room — surely for the gift of privacy.1 This, then, is a safeguard — so that human praise doesn't steal away the fruit of prayer before those watching, and its effect be frustrated.2 But you're also taught modesty by this saying. What belongs so properly to modesty as avoiding your own praise and steering clear of boasting? It's clear that he, the son and teacher of shame, expressly and with modesty indicated that those praying should seek privacy.3 What is so unbecoming — especially in a young man — as the display of holiness? And yet it's especially fitting from this age onward to take up, for a time, the first beginning of the religious life — as Jeremiah says: It is good for a man to have carried the yoke from his youth.4

Prayer's Proper Time and the Purity of Night

Both place and time matter for prayer, and the deep silence of night makes prayer freer, purer, and more pleasing as the bride seeks the Word.

It's a good way to prepare for the prayer that follows if you first express a sense of shame, saying: I am young and of no account; I haven't forgotten your righteous judgments.✦ And not only the place, but also the time, must be observed by anyone who wants to pray for themselves. A holiday time is more suitable and more fitting, especially however when deep nightly sleep brings profound silence, then prayer goes out clearly freer and purer.5 Rise up in the night, it says, in the beginning of your watches, and pour out your heart like water before the sight of the Lord your God.✦✦6 How securely prayer rises up from the night, with God alone as witness, and the holy angel who receives it to be presented at the heavenly altar! How pleasing and bright, colored with a modest blush! How calm and peaceful, disturbed by no outcry or noise! How finally clean and pure, sprinkled by no dust of earthly anxiety, tried by no praise or flattery of someone looking on! On account of this therefore the bride sought no less modestly than cautiously the privacy of the bed and of the night to pray, that is, wishing to seek the Word.7

Seeking the Word Alone

Apart from the Word nothing else should be sought, because in him are all remedies, resources, and progress for those who use all things to win him.

There's one thing needed. Otherwise you're not praying rightly if, in your praying, you seek anything apart from the Word, or fail to seek what is on account of the Word, since in him are all things. There are remedies for wounds there, resources for necessities, restoration of failings, abundance of progress — there, in short, whatever it is profitable for people to receive or have, whatever is fitting, whatever is needful. Without cause, then, is anything else sought apart from the Word, since he himself is all things. For even if it seems we are asking for these temporal things when it is necessary, if the Word is the cause — as indeed it is worthy to be — we certainly do not seek those things, but rather this, on account of which we ask for the other things. Those who are accustomed to direct all use of these things toward winning the Word know this.

The Bed and the Night as Human Weakness and Ignorance

The bed signifies human weakness and the night human ignorance, so the Word's power and wisdom are urgently sought against them, as the psalms and the Apostle show.

Even so, don't shrink from searching out further the hidden meaning of this little bed and this present time, in case some spiritual truth may lie buried there that's worth bringing into the open. And if you'd like to take it this way: by 'bed' human weakness is being figured, and by the nighttime darkness an ignorance that is equally human; so it follows — and it's entirely fitting — that God's power and God's wisdom, the Word, should be sought all the more urgently against both as the original evil. After all, what could be more fitting than for power to be set against weakness, and wisdom against ignorance? And so that no doubt about this interpretation may linger in simpler hearts, let them hear what the holy Prophet says about these things: 'May the Lord bring him relief on his bed of pain; you have turned over all his bedding in his weakness.'✦ And that's what he means by the bed. As for the night of ignorance — what's clearer than what another psalm says again and again: 'They did not know, they did not understand; they walk in darkness'?✦ That psalm is plainly describing the ignorance into which the whole human race is born. This, I believe, is the ignorance the blessed Apostle confesses he was born into — and boasts of having been snatched from — when he says, 'He has rescued us from the power of darkness.'✦

Children of Light

Because we are not children of night or darkness but of light, we must live accordingly.

And so he used to say: We are not children of night or of darkness; and again to all the chosen: Live as children of light.✦✦

Read the original Latin

Non est quod a me iam quaeratur, cur quaerat anima Verbum: satis superque id intimatum supra. Age, prosequamur reliqua praesentis capituli, duntaxat quae ad mores spectant. Ubi primam nunc adverte sponsae verecundiam, qua nescio an quidquam gratius adverti in moribus hominum queat. Hanc primo omnium libet quodam modo in manibus sumere, et quasi speciosum quemdam florem decerpere loco, nostrisque apponere adolescentibus. Non quia non sit et in provectiori aetate omni studio retinenda, quae est certe omnium ornatus aetatum; sed quod tenerae gratia verecundiae in teneriori aetate amplius, pulchriusque eniteat. Quid amabilius verecundo adolescente? Quam pulchra haec, et quam splendida gemma morum in vita et vultu adolescentis! quam vera et minime dubia bonae nuntia spei, bonae indolis index!

Virga disciplinae est illi, quae pudendis affectibus imminens, lubricae aetatis motus, actusque leves coerceat, comprimat insolentes. Quid ita turpiloquii, et omnis deinceps turpitudinis fugitans? Soror continentiae est. Nullum aeque manifestum indicium columbinae simplicitatis: et ideo etiam testis innocentiae. Lampas est pudicae mentis iugiter lucens, ut nil in ea turpe vel indecorum residere attentet, quod non illa illico prodat. Ita expunctrix malorum, et propugnatrix puritatis innatae, specialis gloria conscientiae est, famae custos, vitae decus, virtutis sedes, virtutum primitiae, naturae laus, et insigne totius honesti. Rubor ipse genarum, quem forte invexerit pudor, quantum gratiae et decoris suffuso afferre vultui solet?

Usque adeo genuinum animi bonum verecundia est, ut et qui male agere non verentur, videri tamen verecundentur, dicente Domino: Omnis qui male agit, odit lucem. Sed et qui dormiunt, nocte dormiunt; et qui ebrii sunt, nocte ebrii sunt : opera nimirum tenebrarum, et digna latebris, tenebris occultantes. Interest tamen, quod occulta dedecoris, quae verecundia horum non habere, sed prodere erubescit, sponsae verecundia omnino non operit, sed exspuit, sed propellit. Idcirco ait Sapiens: Est pudor adducens peccatum, et est pudor adducens gloriam. Quaerit sponsa Verbum verecunde quidem, quia in lectulo, quia per noctes; sed haec verecundia habet gloriam, non peccatum. Quaerit hoc ad purificationem conscientiae, quaerit ad testimonium, ut possit dicere: Gloria mea haec est, testimonium conscientiae meae. In lectulo meo per noctes quaesivi quem diligit anima mea Verecundia tibi, si advertis, et loco signatur, et tempore. Quid tam amicum verecundo animo quam secretum?

Porro secretum et nox, et lectulus habet. Denique orare volentes iubemur intrare cubiculum, utique secreti gratia. Id quidem ad cuatelam, ne coram orantibus laus humana orationis furetur fructum, frustretur effectum. Sed doceris nihilominus verecundiam sententia hac. Quid tam proprium verecundiae, quam proprias vitare laudes, vitare iactantiam? Patet quod signanter et ad verecundiam orantibus petere secretum indixerit pudoris filius et magister. Quid tam indecorum, maxime adolescenti, quam ostentatio sanctitatis? Cum tamen ab hac potissimum aetate aptum profecto capiatur temporaneumque religionis exordium, Ieremia dicente: Bonum est homini, si portaverit iugum ab adolescentia sua.

Bona commendatio secuturae orationis, si praemittas verecundiam, dicens: Adolescentulus sum ego et contemptus, iustificationes tuas non sum oblitus.

Nec modo locum, sed et tempus observare oportet eum, qui sibi orare voluerit. Tempus feriatum commodius aptiusque; maxime autem cum profundum nocturnus sopor indicit silentium, tunc plane liberior exit puriorque oratio. Consurge in nocte, inquit, in principio vigiliarum tuarum, et effunde sicut aquam cor tuum ante conspectum Domini Dei tui. Quam secura ascendit de nocte oratio, solo arbitro Deo, sanctoque angelo, qui illam superno altari suscipit praesentandam! Quam grata et lucida, verecundo colorata rubore! Quam serena et placida, nullo interturbata clamore vel strepitu! Quam denique munda atque sincera, nullo respersa pulvere terrenae sollicitudinis, nulla aspicientis laude seu adulatione tentata! Propter hoc ergo sponsa non minus verecunde, quam caute, et lectuli secretum petebat et noctis, orare, hoc est Verbum quaerere volens.

Unum est enim. Alioquin non recte oras, si orando praeter Verbum aliquid quaeras, aut quod propter Verbum non quaeras, quoniam in ipso sunt omnia. Ibi remedia vulnerum, ibi subsidia necessitatum, ibi resarcitus defectuum, ibi profectuum copiae, ibi denique quidquid accipere, vel habere hominibus expedit, quidquid decet, quidquid oportet. Sine causa ergo aliud a Verbo petitur, cum ipsum sit omnia. Nam et si ista temporalia, cum necesse est, postulare videmur, si Verbum in causa est, ut quidem dignum est, non utique illa, sed hoc potius quaerimus, propter quod alia postulamus. Norunt hoc, qui omnem usum harum rerum ad promerendum Verbum dirigere consueverunt.

Non pigeat tamen scrutari adhuc secreta lectuli huius et temporis, si forte in his aliquid lateat spirituale, quod venire ad medium prosit. Et si placet sentire lectuli quidem nomine humanam figurari infirmitatem, nocturnis autem tenebris ignorantiam aeque humanam; consequens est et congruum satis, ut Dei virtus et Dei sapientia Verbum contra utrumque originale malum instantius requiratur. Nempe quid convenientius, quam ut infirmitati virtus, ignorantiae sapientia opponatur? Et ne quid simpliciorum cordibus de hac interpretatione resideat dubium, audiant quid super hos sanctus Propheta dicat: Dominus opem ferat illi super lectum doloris eius, universum stratum eius versasti in infirmitate eius. Atque id quidem de lectulo. Iam de ignorantiae nocte quid manifestius, quam quod in alio identidem loquitur psalmo: Nescierunt neque intellexerunt, in tenebris ambulant? pro certo exprimens ipsam, in qua nati sunt, totius humani generis ignorantiam. Ipsa est, ut opinor, cui se beatus Apostolus et fatetur natum, et gloriatur ereptum, dicens: Qui eruit nos de potestate tenebrarum.

Unde et dicebat: Non sumus filii noctis neque tenebrarum; item ad omnes electos: Ut filii, inquit, lucis ambulate .

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩John.3.20 — For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds may not be exposed.
  2. ↩1Thess.5.7 — For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.
  3. ↩Song.3.1 — On my bed, night after night, I sought the one my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him.
  4. ↩Song.3.1 — On my bed, night after night, I sought the one my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him.
  5. ↩Ps.118.19-Ps.118.20 — Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. Ps.118.20 — This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it.
  6. ↩Lam.3.41 — Let us lift up our hearts with our hands toward God in the heavens.
  7. ↩Ps.61.9 — So I will sing praise to your name forever, paying my vows day by day.
  8. ↩Ps.41.4;Ps.41.3 — The LORD sustains him on his bed of illness; you turn all his lying down in his sickness. Ps.41.3 — The LORD will keep him alive and preserve him; he will be called blessed in the land. Do not give him over to the will of his enemies.
  9. ↩Ps.82.5;Ps.82.5 — They neither know nor understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. Ps.82.5 — They neither know nor understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
  10. ↩Col.1.13 — He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves.
  11. ↩1Thess.5.5 — For you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.
  12. ↩Eph.5.8 — For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩gratia here in the ablative likely means 'for the sake of' privacy; rendered 'gift of privacy' to capture the devotional sense of secrecy as grace.
  2. 2 ↩cuatelam is a rare form; sense uncertain but context suggests 'safeguard, precaution.' furetur and frustretur are ambiguous between deponent and passive; rendered as passive subjunctive ('be stolen / be frustrated').
  3. 3 ↩pudoris filius et magister is a compressed phrase; likely refers to Christ (or possibly a penitent figure) as one born of and teaching shame/modesty. indixerit is uncertain in lemma/mood; rendered 'indicated' as perfect subjunctive in an indirect statement.
  4. 4 ↩Jeremiah quotation: 'Bonum est homini, si portaverit iugum ab adolescentia sua' — candidate allusion to Lamentations 3:27 (Vulgate). Moses resolution pending.
  5. 5 ↩The series of comparative terms (commodius aptiusque; liberior puriorque) is rendered with natural modern comparatives rather than literal '-er' forms, preserving the rhetorical build-up.
  6. 6 ↩The quotation closely echoes Lamentations 3:41 (Vulg. Threni 3:41): 'Levemus corda nostra cum manibus ad dominum in caelis'; the surrounding context of nocturnal prayer and pouring out the heart also resonates with Psalm 61:9 (Vulg. 62:8) and Psalm 141:3 (Vulg. 142:2). Final resolution belongs to a later stage.
  7. 7 ↩The bridal imagery (sponsa) is retained as a metaphor for the devotional soul; 'Verbum' is rendered 'Word' as a Christological reference.

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