Quanta sit in voluptatum contemptu victoriaque jucunditas.
The Joy Beyond the Flesh
Restraining the flesh's desires brings not only freedom from labor but deep joy and mastery over gluttony.
And so the one who has experienced it will testify that it is not only free from all labor, but filled with the deepest joy — suffused with the sweetness of chastity — even though it is burdensome to restrain with the bridle of temperance the natural urges and impure desires that rise up from the concupiscence of the flesh.1 Similarly, it is not only pleasant but positively glorious when the desire of gluttony has been overcome — to see oneself not as a slave to one's own belly, but as its master, rejoicing in that wondrous exultation.2
Learning Contentment in All Things
The soul trained in detachment learns to be self-sufficient in every circumstance, whether in want or in abundance.
But I have learned, in whatever circumstances I find myself, to be self-sufficient: I know how to be humbled, and I know how to have more than enough; everywhere and in all things I have been instructed — both to hunger and to be satisfied, both to abound and to go without (Phil.✦3 iv).
Divine Love Dissolves All Hardship
When the love of the flesh is consumed by divine love, outward affliction loses its power to trouble the mind.
But if the love of the flesh has been completely put to sleep, or at least absorbed by the fire of divine love, there will be no hardship in outward things, because the mind of the one whose love cannot be dissolved will not be troubled by affliction.4
Contempt of Senses, Freedom of Soul
The truly detached soul regards scents, sights, and sounds with indifference, finding in their contempt a freedom equal to the harm such pleasures cause.
As for the allurements of scents — although some people shamefully abuse them — I will say no more about them, since those of whom we now speak care little or nothing about either having or losing such things.5 Furthermore, the pleasure of eyes and ears brings no small labor to very many — a pleasure that by no means rightly belongs to the yoke of the Savior, since a perverse habit as a whole produces it rather than anything rightly ordered.6 Because they find it burdensome to cut away this pleasure — having never experienced the gentleness of the Lord's yoke — they prefer to complain about its harshness. Yet contempt of pleasures surely confers no less freedom on those who despise them than those vain and frivolous things produce sweetness — things that only cause harm.7
Read the original Latin
Sicque probabit expertus, non modo nullius laboris, imo summae esse jucunditatis, pudicitiae suavitate perfundi, quanquam onerosum sit naturalia incentiva immundaque desideria, quae de concupiscentia carnis emergunt, freno temperantiae cohibere. Similiter non solum jucundum, sed insuper gloriosum, cum gulae fuerit concupiscentia superata, non se servum sui ventris, sed dominum intueri, illa mira exsultatione tripudians. Ego autem didici, in quibus sum, sufficiens esse: scio humiliari, scio et abundare; ubique et in omnibus institutus sum, et esurire, et satiari; et abundare, et penuriam pati (Philipp. iv). Sed et amor carnis si fuerit perfecte sopitus, vel certe igne divini amoris absorptus, nullus erit in exterioribus labor, quia non poterit mens ejus afflictione turbari, cujus non potest dilectione dissolvi. Illecebris sane odorum licet nonnulli turpiter abutantur, quia tamen hi, de quibus nunc sermo est, vel parum vel nihil in eorum appetitu vel amissione laborant, hinc plura loqui supersedeo. Porro oculorum auriumque voluptas plurimis non modicum laboris importat, qui nequaquam recte jugo Salvatoris ascribitur, cum totum perversa potius pariat consuetudo. Quam quia abscindere sentiunt onerosum, de Dominici jugi, cujus non experti sunt lenitatem, malunt asperitate causari; quae cum in voluptatum contemptu consistat, non minorem profecto contemnentibus confert libertatem, quam vana illa et ludicra damnosa pariunt suavitatem.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Phil.4.12 — I know what it is to be brought low, and I know what it is to have abundance. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret — both to be filled and to go hungry, both to have plenty and to be in need.
Notes
- 1 ↩pudicitiae rendered as chastity (not modesty) to preserve the virtue sense; jucunditas as joy (not mere pleasantness) to match the superlative summae.
- 2 ↩gulae concupiscentia rendered as desire of gluttony to capture both the appetite and its disordered pull; tripudians as rejoicing captures the embodied, exultant sense.
- 3 ↩Candidate allusion to Philippians 4:12; verse citation incomplete in source — parenthetical Philipp. iv follows in the next sentence.
- 4 ↩amor carnis rendered as love of the flesh (not lust) to preserve the broader Pauline resonance; sopitus as put to sleep captures the image of desire lulled into dormancy; dilectione as love (not affection) to keep the theological weight.
- 5 ↩illecebris odorum rendered as allurements of scents (not perfumes) to keep the broader sensory sense; appetitu as having and amissione as losing preserve the paired contrast.
- 6 ↩voluptas rendered as pleasure (not delight) to keep the negative valence; jugo Salvatoris as the yoke of the Savior preserves the biblical image; consuetudo as habit (not custom) to capture the ingrained pattern.
- 7 ↩asperitate causari rendered as complain about its harshness — causari here has the sense of finding fault or making excuses; ludicra as frivolous captures the trivial, performative quality.
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