Quod post Salvatoris adventum Dei in homine renovetur imago: et quod non hic sed in futuro speranda sit ipsius renovationis perfectio.
The Mediator's Work of Reconciliation
Through Christ the Mediator, the debt of human nature is cancelled, the powers are stripped, and the Father is reconciled, restoring memory, understanding, and love.
And now, through the Mediator between God and humanity — Christ Jesus, the man — the debt to which human nature was held bound has been cancelled; the record of that bond, by whose guarantee the dreadful pride of the ancient enemy held us in its grip, has been destroyed; the rulers and powers to which divine justice had consigned us have been stripped bare; and God the Father has been reconciled at last by that singular sacrifice on the cross. So memory is restored at last through the teaching of sacred Scripture, understanding through the sacrament of faith, and love through the daily increase of charity.✦
The Perfect Image and Its Eschatological Home
The perfect reformation of the image — unclouded memory, knowledge, and love — is not possible now but is to be hoped for in the eternal homeland.
The perfect reformation of the image would be this: if forgetfulness did not interrupt memory, if no error clouded knowledge, if no disordered desire disrupted love. But where will this happen, and when will this be? This peace, this tranquility, this happiness is to be hoped for in our true homeland — where forgetfulness has no place for those who live in eternity; where no creeping error steals upon those who enjoy the truth; where no impulse of disordered desire disturbs those absorbed in divine love.
A Cry of Longing for the Eternal Trinity
The soul breaks into doxological address to the eternal Trinity, naming the peace and blessedness found only in God.
O eternal and true love, O true and dear eternity, O eternal, and true, and dear Trinity! Here is rest, here is peace, here is blessed tranquility, here is serene happiness, here is blessed and serene joy.
The Soul's Self-Examination and the One Thing Needed
The soul is rebuked for its distractions and recalled to the one necessary thing.
What are you doing, O human soul, what are you doing? Why are you being swept away through so many distractions? Furthermore, one thing is necessary.✦
All the World Cannot Satisfy
Rhetorical questions expose the vanity of seeking excellence, knowledge, delight, or abundance anywhere in this fallen world.
Why pile up many words? Whatever you seek among many things is found in one. Whether to excel, to know, to delight, to abound — it is found here, and found perfectly here, and nowhere but here. Is it in this pool of misery and filth that true excellence is to be found? Is it in this region of the shadow of death that perfect knowledge is to be found?✦ Is it in this place of horror and desolate wilderness that true delight is to be found — true abundance, amid so many hardships? And what excellence is there in the world that fear does not cast down?
True Excellence, Knowledge, Delight, and Abundance Are in God Alone
Worldly knowledge and glory are shown to be hollow, and true perfection is located only where nothing higher remains to be sought.
How great is the knowledge of a man who cannot even grasp himself? In the end, if you delight in the flesh, even the horse and the mule do this, creatures that have no understanding. If in glory, if in riches — when you have perished, you will not take everything with you, nor will your glory go down with you. There, then, is true excellence, where there is nothing higher to strive after; there is true knowledge, where nothing remains unknown; that is true delight which is never diminished by disgust; that is true abundance which is never exhausted.
Compunction and the Pilgrim's Lament
The soul cries out in sorrow for its exile and longs to appear before the face of God.
Woe to us, because we have departed from you, Lord! Alas for me, because my time as a stranger here has been prolonged!1 (Psalm 119.)
Wings Like a Dove and the Shelter of the Rock
The soul longs to fly to God's presence, yet asks in the meantime to grow feathers in the nest of Christ's discipline and to embrace the Crucified and drink His blood.
When will I come and appear before your face?✦ (Psalm xli.) Who will give me wings like a dove's? I will fly away and rest.✦ (Psalm liv.) Let my soul grow feathers in the meantime, Lord Jesus — let it grow feathers, I beg you — in the nest of your discipline; let it rest in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow of the ruined wall.✦✦ In the meantime, let it embrace you, the crucified one; let it drink a draught of your most precious blood.
A Threefold Meditation to Guard Memory, Knowledge, and Love
The soul asks that meditation on Christ crucified seize memory, knowledge, and love so that forgetfulness, error, and disordered desire do not prevail.
Let this sweet meditation seize my memory, so that forgetfulness doesn't swallow it whole. Let me count myself as knowing nothing in the meantime except the Lord, and him crucified, so that empty error doesn't lead my knowledge away from the firm ground of faith. Let this wonderful love of yours claim my whole love for itself, so that worldly desire doesn't devour it.✦
A Prayer for the Remembrance of All the Earth
The soul widens its desire beyond itself, praying that the prophetic word be fulfilled: all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.
What then? Is this what I would have wished for myself alone? Lord, I pray — let that prophetic word be fulfilled: 'All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord' (Ps. xxi).
Memory as Hidden in the Mind of God
The prophetic word 'they will remember' is interpreted: memory is hidden in God's rational mind, to be restored rather than newly inserted, for even the fool cannot fully deny God.
'They will remember,' it says. He understood memory, then, as hidden — not buried entirely — in the rational mind of God, so that you would perceive not so much something new inserted as something ancient restored. For unless reason somehow naturally sparkled even a little within the very memory of God, I don't think there would be any basis on which even a fool could say in his heart, 'There is no God' (Psal.✦
Closing Scriptural Citation
A final scriptural reference number closes the chapter.
13.
Read the original Latin
Porro jam per Mediatorem Dei et hominum hominem Christum Jesum soluto debito, cui obnoxia tenebatur humana natura, deleto chirographo, cujus cautione astrictos nos tenebat antiqui hostis dira superbia; exspoliatis principibus et potestatibus, quibus nos addixerat divina justitia, pacato denique Deo Patre illa singulari in cruce hostia, reparatur tandem memoria per sacrae Scripturae documentum, intellectus per fidei sacramentum, amor per charitatis quotidianum incrementum. Perfecta imaginis reformatio, si memoriam oblivio non interpolet, scientiam nullus error obnubilet, amorem nulla cupiditas interpellet. Sed ubi istud, et quando istud? Haec pax, haec tranquillitas, haec in patria speretur felicitas, ubi nullus locus oblivioni viventibus in aeternitate: nulla erroris subreptio fruentibus veritate; nulla cupiditatis impulsio divina absorptis charitate. O aeterna et vera charitas, o vera et cara aeternitas: o aeterna, et vera, et cara Trinitas! Hic hic requies, hic pax, hic felix tranquillitas, hic tranquilla felicitas, hic felix et tranquilla jucunditas. Quid agis, o anima humana, quid agis? Quid per diversa raptaris?
Porro unum est necessarium. Ut quid multa? Quidquid appetis in multis, in uno est. Si excellere, si scire, si delectari, si abundare; totum hic et perfecte hic, et nusquam nisi hic. Nunquid enim in hoc lacu miseriae et luto faecis vera excellentia? Nunquid in hac regione umbrae mortis perfecta scientia? Nunquid in hoc loco horroris et vastae solitudinis vera delectatio, inter tot aerumnas vera abundantia? Porro quae in mundo excellentia, quam timor non dejicit?
quanta hominis scientia, qui nec seipsum capit? Denique, si delectaris in carne, hoc et equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus. Si in gloria, si in divitiis; cum interieris, non sumes omnia, neque descendet tecum gloria tua. Ibi ergo vera excellentia, ubi nihil superius quod ambiatur: ibi vera scientia, ubi nihil ignoratur: illa vera delectatio, quae fastidio non minuitur: illa vera abundantia, quae nunquam exhauritur. Vae nobis, quia recessimus a te, Domine! Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est! (Psal. cxix.)
Quando veniam, et apparebo ante faciem tuam? (Psal. xli.) Quis dabit mihi pennas, sicut columbae; et volabo, et requiescam? (Psal. liv.) Plumescat interim, Domine Jesu, plumescat, quaeso, anima mea in nido disciplinae tuae; pauset in foraminibus petrae, in caverna maceriae. Amplectatur te interim crucifixum; sumat tui dulcissimi sanguinis haustum.
Occupet interim memoriam meam haec suavis meditatio, ne ex toto eam oblivio obscuret; judicem me interim nihil scire, nisi Dominum, et hunc crucifixum, ne scientiam meam a soliditate fidei vanus error abducat: vendicet sibi totum amorem meum haec tua mira dilectio, ne illum cupiditas mundialis absorbeat. Quid ergo? Mihi soli id optaverim? Impleatur, Domine, quaeso: impleatur illud propheticum: Reminiscentur et convertentur ad Dominum universi fines terrae (Psal. xxi). Reminiscentur, inquit. Absconditam ergo, non sepultam omnino, in mente rationali, Dei intellexit memoriam, ut non tam novum aliquid insertum quam illud antiquum sentias reparatum. Nisi enim naturaliter quodammodo in ipsam Dei memoriam vel modicum ratio scintillaret humana, puto non esset, unde vel insipiens diceret in corde suo: Non est Deus (Psal.
xiii).
Scripture echoes
- ↩Col.2.14 — having canceled the written code, the regulations that were against us and stood opposed to us, he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.
- ↩Luke.10.42 — Few things are needed, or only one. For Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.
- ↩Ps.22.4;Ps.24.4 — But you are holy, enthroned upon the praises of Israel. Ps.24.4 — The one with clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to what is false, and has not sworn deceitfully.
- ↩Ps.41.2 — Blessed is the one who has regard for the poor; in the day of trouble, the LORD delivers him.
- ↩Ps.54.7 — He will turn evil back upon my enemies; in your faithfulness, put an end to them.
- ↩Song.2.14 — O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding place of the steep path, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.
- ↩Isa.2.10 — Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of his majesty.
- ↩1Cor.2.2 — For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
- ↩Ps.13.1 — To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
Notes
- 1 ↩incolatus carries the sense of sojourning or exile as a stranger/foreigner, echoing the Psalmist's lament about prolonged exile from God's presence.
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