Quod in omnibus creaturis quoddam vestigium divinae charitatis appareat: et ideo quasi ad Sabbatum, id est ad requiem, omnia tendant.
The Divine Presence in All Creation
God's love is present everywhere in creation, holding all things together in harmonious peace.
Moreover, if you contemplate every creature from the first to the last, from the highest to the lowest, from the greatest angel to the tiniest worm, you will surely perceive the divine goodness — which we call nothing other than God's love — not by being poured into one place, not by spreading out through space, not by moving from point to point, but through the stable and incomprehensible presence of a substance that remains in itself simple, containing all things, surrounding all things, penetrating all things, joining what is lowest to what is highest, bringing opposites together — cold with hot, dry with wet, rough with smooth, hard with soft — binding all in a kind of harmonious peace, so that in the whole created order nothing hostile or contrary can exist, nothing unfitting, nothing disruptive, nothing to mar the beauty of the universe itself, but rather in the tranquility of that order which God has established for it, all things rest in a kind of perfect peace.
Disorder Serves the Beauty of Order
What breaks divine order is itself contained by God's power and serves to heighten the beauty of what is good.
Hence anything that swells up and breaks beyond the order of divine goodness is at once caught up by the order of God's unconquerable power, so that although it is restless and disordered in itself, it nonetheless does not disturb the tranquility of the universe — it actually contributes to it greatly, since by comparison with it, things that are beautiful are judged more beautiful, and things that are good are judged better.
All Things Seek Their Proper Place
Each creature naturally seeks its own order and finds rest only within it.
This is why each thing reaches toward its own order, seeks its own place; outside its proper order it is restless, but once set in order it rests.
The Stone and the Oil: Elements Seeking Rest
A stone falls to the ground and oil rises to the surface, each seeking the rest proper to its nature.
For if you release a stone into the air, does it not immediately, as though compelled by force, sink by its own weight toward solid ground — there alone expecting to find rest, where it will neither slide sideways nor fall further by resistance from anything solid beneath it? But if you pour oil beneath other liquids, it immediately, unable to bear being underneath, rises to the surface, and does not cease its effort until it rests on top of the others, enjoying the stillness proper to its own nature.
Plants and the Soil of Their Flourishing
Vegetables and shrubs seek the soil suited to their nature and show by their growth that they desire nothing further.
What of vegetables? What of shrubs? Don't they seek out the soil in which they will bear fruit most abundantly and richly — some choosing firmer ground, some softer, some richer, some clayey, some sandy — as if by instinct? And when they have been placed or transplanted, set or replanted according to the order of their nature, they show by the very voice of their growth that they desire nothing further.
Bodies, Parts, and the Peace of Composition
Each body's parts are bound in natural unity, and disturbing that arrangement disturbs its peace until a new rest is found.
Finally, if you look carefully at any single body, you'll see plainly that it's made up of its own distinct parts, and that those parts are held together by a kind of bond of unity, preserving the order proper to its nature and resting in it as if in a certain peace. So if you try to move any one of those parts out of the condition in which it naturally exists, the peace among the parts is somehow disturbed — until, having been drawn into whatever arrangement you choose, they settle once more into a renewed tranquility and come to rest.
Irrational Creatures and the Limit of Desire
Animals labor for safety and satisfaction but, once satisfied, rest completely, lacking reason to desire beyond the senses.
And what effort do irrational living beings put into guarding their safety, avoiding destruction, and seeking satisfaction for their bodily appetites? Yet once that satisfaction is attained, since they have nothing further to desire, they rest completely. Lacking reason and knowledge, they can't even desire anything that goes beyond the sense of the flesh.
Read the original Latin
Porro si omnem creaturam a prima usque ad novissimam, a summa usque ad imam, a summo angelo usque ad minimum vermiculum subtilius contempleris, cernes profecto divinam bonitatem, quam non aliud dicimus, quam ejus charitatem; non locali infusione, non spatiosa diffusione, non mobili discursione; sed substantialis praesentiae stabili et incomprehensibili in se permanente simplicitate omnia continentem, omnia ambientem, omnia penetrantem, ima superis conjungentem, contraria contrariis, frigida calidis, siccis humida, lenibus aspera, duris mollia, concordi quadam pace foederantem; ut in ipsa creaturae universitate nihil adversum, nihil possit esse contrarium; nihil quod dedeceat, nihil quod perturbet, nihil sit quod ipsam universitatis pulchritudinem decoloret, sed in ipsius ordinis tranquillitate, quem ipsi universitati praefixit, cuncta quasi tranquillissima quadam pace quiescant. Unde id quod tumescens foras ordinem excedit divinae bonitatis, excipitur mox ab ordine ejus invictissimae potestatis, ut quanquam in se inquietum sit et inordinatum, tranquillitati tamen ipsius universitatis non modo non obsit, sed etiam prosit plurimum, dum comparatione ejus, quae pulchra sunt pulchriora; quae bona sunt judicantur esse meliora. Hinc est, quod singula quaeque ad suum ordinem tendunt, sua loca petunt, extra ordinem suum inquieta sunt, ordinata quiescunt. Nam si lapidem libres in aera, nonne mox quasi vim passus proprio pondere se deponit ad solida, ibi tantum requiem habiturus, ubi nec deflectet in latera, nec in ima solidi alicujus oppositione labatur? At si oleum caeteris suffundas liquoribus, continuo suae dejectionis impatiens penetrat ad superiora, nec alias deponit conatum, quam caeteris supereminens ordinis sui quiete potiatur. Quid olera, quid arbusta? Nonne quo feracius uberiusque fructificent, haec solidiorem, haec molliorem, haec pinguiorem, haec argillosam, haec arenosam quasi appetunt terram? Quae cum fuerint secundum naturae suae ordinem posita vel transposita, plantata vel transplantata, nihil se ulterius affectare, ipsius incrementi sui voce testantur.
Denique si singula quaeque corpora diligenter attendas, cernes nimirum singula suis constare partibus; partes partibus quasi unitatis quodam vinculo colligari, ordinem suae servare naturae, in eo quasi quadam pace quiescere; ita ut si velis ab eo modo, in quo quaeque res est, eam transferre, pax partium quodammodo perturbetur, donec abductae in eum quem velis modum, quadam iterum assumpta tranquillitate quiescant. Porro animantibus irrationalibus quis labor est tueri salutem, vitare perniciem, carnalium appetituum quaerere satietatem: qua adepta, cum nihil habeant ultra quod appetant, conquiescant? Rationis quippe, scientiaeque expertia, quod sensum carnis excedat, ne appetere quidem possunt.
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
Reorder one love at a time, daily
Use the study map with the free Chosen Portion app's daily readings to work through Aelred at a sustainable pace.
Aelred wrote the Mirror as a rule for daily interior discipline in community, and Chosen Portion carries that discipline forward as a short ordered reading each day.
- All 3 books and 102 chapters mapped into 4 weekly themes with page-level pointers
- Aelred's choice-motion-fruit test, turned into a one-page self-examination worksheet
- 16 discussion questions ready for personal journaling or a 4-session small group