LXVI. O dulcissime amator (Symphonia virginum)
A Plea for Purity
The virgin soul begs the sweetest lover for help in guarding virginity, confesses the weight of Adam's sin, and cries out to Christ for raising up.
O sweetest lover, O sweetest embracer: help us guard our virginity. We are risen in dust, alas, alas, and in the sin of Adam. It's very hard to resist what the taste of the fruit has awakened. Raise us up, Savior Christ.
Longing to Follow the Immaculate King
The soul expresses ardent desire to follow Christ, laments the heaviness of imitating the innocent King, yet trusts in His merciful search for beauty in wretchedness, and calls upon Him as bridegroom and consoler.
We long ardently to follow you. O how heavy it is for us wretches to imitate you, the immaculate and innocent King of angels. Yet we trust in you, that you desire to seek out a jewel in rottenness. Now we call upon you, our bridegroom and consoler, who redeemed us on the cross.
Betrothed in Blood, Sighing in Exile
United to Christ through betrothal in His blood and having rejected man for the Son of God, the soul sighs in tearful exile, longing to see Him and remain with Him.
In your blood we are united to you through our betrothal, rejecting man and choosing you, the Son of God. O most beautiful form, O most sweet fragrance of longed-for delights, we are always sighing after you in this tearful exile. When will we see you and remain with you?
Embracing the Absent Bridegroom and His Victory
Though in the world, the soul embraces Christ in heart and mind as present, recalls His mighty descent through heaven and victory over death, and asks for fellowship with Mary to remain in the sweetest bridegroom who rescued them from the devil.
We are in the world, and you are in our mind, and we embrace you in our heart, as though we had you present. Mightiest lion, you broke through heaven, descending into the virgin's chamber, and you destroyed death, building up life in the golden city.✦ Give us fellowship with her, and to remain in you, O sweetest bridegroom, who drew us away from the jaws of the devil, our first parent who seduced us.
Read the original Latin
O dulcissime amator, o dulcissime amplexator: adiuva nos custodire virginatem nostram. Nos sumus orte in pulvere, heu, heu, et in crimine Ade. Valde durum est contradicere, quod habet gustus pomi. Tu erige nos, salvator Christe. Nos desideramus ardenter te sequi. O quam grave nobis miseris est te immaculatum et innocentem regem angelorum imitari. Tamen confidimus in te, quod tu desideres gemmam requirere in putredine. Nunc advocamus te sponsum et consolatorem, qui nos redemisti in cruce.
In tuo sanguine copulate sumus tibi cum desponsatione repudiantes virum et eligentes te, filium dei. O pulcherrima forma, o suavissime odor desiderabilium deliciarum, semper suspiramus post te in lacrimabili exilio. Quando te videamus et tecum maneamus? Nos sumus in mundo, et tu in mente nostra, et amplectimur te in corde, quasi habeamus te presentem. Tu fortissimus leo rupisti celum descendens in aulam virginis et destruxisti mortem edificans vitam in aurea civitate. Da nobis societatem cum illa et permanere in te, o dulcissime sponse, qui abstraxisti nos de faucibus diaboli primum parentem nostrum seducentis.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rev.5.5 — And one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep. Behold, the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so as to open the scroll and its seven seals.'
Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations) companion
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