Quod ex his quae inserta sunt, quid charitas, quid cupiditas in proficiente operetur, possit adverti.
The Struggle Between Love and Cupidity
The soul newly turned to God is lifted by the infusion of love yet weighed down by cupidity and the natural gravity of disordered attachment.
So far, we have perhaps not uselessly set down these things: if they are all examined attentively, diligently, and finally with humility, it will be — unless I am mistaken — very easy to see that anyone who has turned to God, through the fresh infusion of love, is raised up by an eager effort and by certain very light movements of the mind toward higher things, but that by cupidity pressing downward, and by the natural weight of everything to which it has clung always urging toward what is lowest, that person labors somewhat even in the very act of striving upward.12
The Deep Roots of Vice
The deeper vice has rooted itself in the soul, the harder it is to uproot and the more difficult the ascent toward God becomes.
And the more deeply the pernicious shrub has fixed its roots in the very recesses of the soul, the greater the difficulty in tearing them out, and consequently the less ease in rising upward.3
The Diligent Farmer of the Heart
Just as a skilled farmer clears an overgrown field more quickly than a lazy one clears a partly weeded one, so the fervent soul, armed with discernment and spiritual discipline, uproots vice more swiftly and finds the Lord's yoke sweet and his burden light.
But just as someone who is lazy, idle, and unskilled in farming slowly clears and cleanses his field — even if it is overgrown with thorns and thistles only in part — while someone who is diligent, careful, and skilled in this discipline, even if the entire surface of the field has been taken over by a thick mass of brambles, uproots it more quickly and makes the barren and unfruitful ground fertile and rich: so indeed, someone who renounces the world — if he is slow, lukewarm, and less careful about his own purification, even though he is found to be less polluted by the world — will progress more slowly toward the serenity of conscience and the freedom of love. But if he is burning in spirit, diligent, careful, and established in the virtue of discernment, having taken up the tools of spiritual exercises, he will powerfully tear out the offspring of vice from the field of his own heart; he will more quickly breathe in the breezes of a purer conscience; and with the yoke of cupidity shaken off and the burden of passions laid down, he will find that the Lord's yoke is sweet and his burden is light.✦456
Read the original Latin
Hactenus haec forte non inutiliter inseruimus: quae omnia si attente, si diligenter, postremo si humiliter inspiciantur, erit, ni fallor, perfacile intueri, conversum quemlibet ex nova charitatis infusione, alacri conatu, ac levissimis quibusdam mentis suae motibus ad altiora sustolli, sed cupiditate deorsum premente, et omne cui inhaeserit naturali pondere ad ima semper urgente, in ipso suo conatu, nonnihil laborare. Et quanto frutex perniciosa altius in ipsis animae recessibus radices infixerit, tanto in earum avulsione major difficultas, proinde in ascensione minor facilitas. Sed sicut piger quis ac desidiosus, ac agriculturae imperitus, agrum suum parva licet ex parte tribulis ac spinis obsitum, tardius evacuat et emundat: impiger autem ac sollicitus ac hujus disciplinae industrius, etiamsi omnem agri superficiem occupaverit, veprium densitatem citius eradicat, ac de sterili et infecundo pinguem reddit et uberem: sic nimirum abrenuntians quis mundo, si tardus, si tepidus, si suae purgationis minus fuerit curiosus, quanquam in saeculo minus existit inquinatus, tardius in conscientiae serenitatem, ac charitatis proficiet libertatem: at si fervens spiritu, si diligens, sollicitus, si discretionis virtute fundatus, assumptis spiritualium exercitiorum instrumentis, vitiorum genimina ab agro sui cordis potenter evellat, in auras conscientiae purioris citius respirabit, ac jugo cupiditatis excusso, ac onere deposito passionum, inveniet, quia jugum Domini suave est, et onus ejus leve.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.11.30 — For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Notes
- 1 ↩charitatis rendered 'love' per lexeme policy default; the theological-virtue sense is strong here, but 'love' is preferred unless a charity/love footnote is warranted.
- 2 ↩conversum rendered 'turned to God' to capture the sense of conversion/turning; the Latin is more literally 'a converted one' or 'one who has turned.'
- 3 ↩frutex perniciosa rendered 'pernicious shrub' — a metaphor for cupidity or disordered desire taking root in the soul.
- 4 ↩Closing allusion to Matthew 11:30 ('jugum enim meum suave est, et onus meum leve est') — candidate scripture allusion, pending Moses resolution.
- 5 ↩libertatem rendered 'freedom' in the phrase 'charitatis...libertatem' — capturing the sense of love's liberating expansiveness.
- 6 ↩abrenuntians mundo rendered 'renounces the world' — the dative 'mundo' is the object of renunciation in the monastic profession sense.
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