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← Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity)/Book 1 · Speculum caritatis — Liber I
Chapter 7SpCar.1.7

Quod mentis affectu homo a Deo recesserit.

Embracing the Poor Christ

The soul, awed by God's unsearchable knowledge, humbly embraces the poor Christ who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, confessing that all its strength and wisdom are found only in the weakness and folly of the incarnate Lord, and longs to run after the fragrance of His ointments.

Your knowledge, Lord, is wonderful to me — strengthened beyond what I can reach (Ps.✦ 138). In the meantime I will embrace you, Lord Jesus — the small one embracing the small, the weak one embracing the weak, a person embracing a person, or more precisely, the poor one. For you too, Lord, are a poor one, sitting upon a donkey, and upon a colt, the foal of a donkey (Matt.✦✦ 21). So then I will embrace you, Lord. For all my greatness is nothing unless it is something small of yours; all my strength is whatever is weak in you; all my wisdom is whatever is foolish in you.✦ I will run, Lord, into the fragrance of those ointments (Song.✦

Following the Fragrance into the Garden

The soul, revived by the healing fragrance of Christ's ointments, resolves to follow Him — not to the exalted mountains of spices or the garden of His burial, but to the quiet place where He now rests in a sweet Sabbath stillness.

1). Are you surprised that I call them ointments — these things that heal the sick, strengthen the feeble, and gladden the sorrowful? So then, Lord Jesus, stirred by the fragrance of these ointments and revived by their sprinkling, I will follow you. I will follow you, Lord, even if not on the mountains of spices, where your bride found you (Song of Songs 8). 8); or in the garden, Lord, where your flesh was sown (John 18). 18). There, indeed, of salt; here, you sleep.1 Here, Lord, here you sleep; here you lie down; here you keep a sweet, quiet Sabbath.

Burying the Flesh and Taking Up the Cross

The soul prays to be buried with Christ in chastity so that sin no longer reigns in the body, recognizes that Christ came to the garden only from the cross, and longs to take up that cross and follow — yet laments that the Lord has departed, not by physical distance but by the turning of the mind's affection away from Him.

Let my flesh be buried with you, Lord, so that since I now live in the flesh, I may not live in myself, but in you, who handed yourself over for me.✦ Let myrrh of chastity be joined to you, Lord, so that sin may no longer reign in my mortal body, and I may not become like a beast of burden, rotting away in its own dung.✦ But how did you come into the garden?✦ From where, if not from the cross? Oh that I, too, Lord, might take up your cross and follow you!✦ But how am I to follow you? How, you say, did you depart from me?✦ I think, Lord, not by the step of feet, but by the affection of the mind.

The Burden of Self-Possession and the Return to the Father

The soul confesses that in withdrawing its inner substance from God to possess itself, it became a burden to itself and a place of misery and darkness, and so resolves to rise and return to the Father with the prodigal son's words of confession.

I didn't want to keep my soul's substance directed toward you, so I took it back for myself; and wanting to possess myself without you, I lost even myself.2 And I've become a burden to myself; I've become for myself a place of misery and darkness, a place of horror and a region of want.3 I will rise, therefore, and go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you (Luke✦4 xv).

Read the original Latin

Mirabilis facta est, Domine, scientia tua ex me; confortata est, et non potero ad eam (Psal. cxxxviii). Amplectar interim te, Domine Jesu, parvus parvum, infirmus infirmum, homo hominem, amplius dicam, pauperem. Nam et tu, Domine pauper, sedens super asinam, et super pullum filium asinae (Matth. xxi). Sic ergo te amplectar, Domine. Nam tota magnitudo mea, non nisi quod parvum est tui; tota fortitudo mea, quod infirmum est tui; tota sapientia mea, quod stultum est tui. Curram, Domine, in odorem unguentorum istorum (Cant.

1). Miraris quod unguenta appellem quae infirmum sanant, roborant debilem, maestum laetificant? Sequar ergo te, Domine Jesu, horum unguentorum excitatus odore, refocillatus aspergine. Sequar te, Domine, etsi non in montibus aromatum, ubi te invenit sponsa tua (Cant. viii); vel in horto, Domine, ubi seminata est caro tua (Joan. xviii). Illic quidem salis; hic dormis. Hic, Domine, hic dormis: hic cubas, hic dulce quoddam Sabbatum sabbatizas.

Consepeliatur tibi, Domine, caro mea, ut quod jam vivo in carne, non vivam in me, sed in te, qui tradidisti temetipsum pro me. Conjungatur tibi, Domine, pudicitiae myrrha, ut jam non regnet peccatum in meo mortali corpore, nec fiam velut jumentum in proprio computrescens stercore. Sed unde venisti in hortum? Unde, nisi de cruce? Utinam, Domine, et ego accipiam crucem tuam, et sequar te. Sed quomodo sequar te? Quomodo, inquis, recessisti a me? Puto, Domine, quia non pedum passu, sed mentis affectu.

Nolens enim substantiam animae meae servare ad te, accepi eam ad me, et volens meipsum possidere sine te, perdidi et me. Et ipse factus sum mihimetipsi gravis; factus sum mihimet locus miseriae et tenebrarum; locus horroris et regio egestatis. Surgam ergo, et ibo ad Patrem meum, et dicam ei: Pater, peccavi in coelum, et coram te (Luc. xv).

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.138.6;Ps.140.6 — For though the LORD is high, He sees the lowly, but the proud He knows from afar. Ps.140.6 — The arrogant have hidden a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net along the path, and set traps for me. Selah.
  2. ↩Matt.21.1-Matt.21.7 — And when they had come near to Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, Matt.21.2 — saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. Matt.21.3 — And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and he will send them at once. Matt.21.4 — Now this took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, saying, Matt.21.5 — And "Say to daughter Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Matt.21.6 — So the disciples went and did just as Jesus had commanded them. Matt.21.7 — They brought the donkey and the colt, and they laid their garments on them, and he sat on them.
  3. ↩Zech.9.9 — Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king comes to you; he is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
  4. ↩1Cor.1.18-1Cor.1.25 — For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1Cor.1.19 — For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will set aside." 1Cor.1.20 — Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 1Cor.1.21 — For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through its wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the proclaimed message. 1Cor.1.22 — For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, 1Cor.1.23 — but we proclaim Christ crucified: to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, 1Cor.1.24 — but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1Cor.1.25 — For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
  5. ↩Song.1.3-Song.1.4 — The fragrance of your oils is good; your name is poured oil; therefore young women love you. Song.1.4 — Draw me after you—let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers. We will rejoice and be glad in you; we will remember your love more than wine. The upright love you.
  6. ↩Gal.2.20;Eph.5.25 — I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Eph.5.25 — Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.
  7. ↩Rom.6.12 — Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.
  8. ↩John.18.1;Song.4.16 — When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. Song.4.16 — Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its choice fruits.
  9. ↩Matt.16.24;Mark.8.34;Luke.9.23 — Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Mark.8.34 — And calling the crowd with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Luke.9.23 — Then he said to all, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."
  10. ↩Ps.22.1 — For the Director. Upon the Doe of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.
  11. ↩Luke.15.18-Luke.15.19 — I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.' Luke.15.19 — I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The phrase 'salis' is ambiguous in the Latin: it may be the genitive of 'salt' (sal) or a less common form. The context suggests a reference to salt as a substance, possibly alluding to the salt of the earth or the salt of the sacrifice.
  2. 2 ↩Substantiam animae meae — 'the substance of my soul' — is rendered as 'my soul's substance' to preserve the metaphysical weight: the speaker treated the soul's God-given orientation as a possession to be redirected, not merely an emotion.
  3. 3 ↩The threefold 'place of' (locus) construction — misery and darkness, horror, want — is rendered with concrete spatial language to capture the speaker's sense of self as a desolate dwelling. The shift from mihimetipsi (dative of disadvantage) to mihimet is preserved in the repeated 'to/for myself.'
  4. 4 ↩Direct quotation of the prodigal son's confession (Luke 15:18–19). The Latin reads in coelum ('against heaven') and coram te ('before you'), matching the Vulgate. Citation marker (Luc. xv) follows in the next sentence.

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