De conditione humanæ miseriæ.

The Universal Burden of Misery

No one in this life escapes tribulation; true blessedness belongs to those who suffer for God.

You are wretched wherever you are, and wherever you turn, unless you turn to God. Why are you troubled, because things don't go the way you wish and desire? Who is there who has everything according to their own will? Neither I, nor you, nor anyone on earth. No one in the world is without some tribulation or distress — be it king or pope. Who is it who has it better? Surely the one who can suffer something for God.

The Vanity of Worldly Prosperity

Outward success is empty and burdensome; the spiritual person keenly feels the misery of bodily existence.

Many weak and sickly people say, "Look what a good life that man has — how rich, how great, how powerful and exalted!" But turn your attention to the goods of heaven, and you'll see that all these temporal things are nothing — or rather, they're uncertain and deeply burdensome, because they're never possessed without anxiety and fear.¹ It's not human happiness to have an abundance of temporal things — moderation is enough. Truly, it's misery to live on this earth. The more a person wants to be spiritual, the more bitter this present life becomes, because they feel more keenly and see more clearly the disordered affections of human corruption.² To eat, to drink, to keep watch, to sleep, to rest, to labor, and to submit to the other necessities of nature — this truly is great misery and affliction for a devout person, who would gladly be freed and released from all sin.

The Inner Person Weighed Down

The soul groans under the body's demands, yet many remain so earthly-minded they would trade eternity for this life.

The inner person is greatly weighed down by bodily necessities in this world. That is why the Prophet devoutly asks to be set free from these things, saying, "From my necessities deliver me, Lord."³ But woe to those who do not recognize their own misery and corruptible life. For some embrace this life to such an extent — though they can scarcely obtain even the necessities by working or by begging — that if they could live here forever, they would care nothing at all about the kingdom of God.

The Saints' Heavenly Focus

Foolish souls love what is perishable, but the saints fixed their whole desire on eternal, invisible goods.

O you fools, you faithless at heart, buried so deep in the earth that you taste nothing but what is fleshly. But the wretched will feel it keenly in the end — how worthless and empty was the thing they loved. But the saints of God and all the devoted friends of Christ paid no attention to what pleased the flesh or what flourished in this present time. But their whole hope and purpose strained toward the eternal good things. Their whole desire was carried toward what endures and is invisible, lest by love of visible things they be drawn down to what is lowest.

The Call to Present Resolve

Now is the time to act and endure trial; through patience and God's mercy, mortality will give way to life.

Don't lose confidence, brother, in making progress toward spiritual things. You still have time and opportunity — why do you want to put off your resolve? Get up, start right now, and say: Now is the time to act, now is the time to fight, now is the right time to make amends. When you're doing badly and feeling troubled, that's the time to earn your reward. You have to pass through fire and water before you reach a place of refreshment; unless you do violence to yourself, you won't overcome what's wrong in you.^✦ As long as we carry this fragile body, we can't be without sin, nor can we live without weariness and pain. We'd gladly have rest from every misery, but because through sin we lost our innocence, we also lost true happiness. So we need to hold fast to patience and wait for God's mercy, until this iniquity passes away and mortality is swallowed up by life.^✦^✦

Human Frailty and Instability

Human nature is so fragile that resolutions made in the morning are broken within the hour, and grace laboriously gained is quickly lost.

O how great is human frailty, which is always prone to vice. Today you confess your sins, and tomorrow you commit again the very things you confessed. Now you resolve to be on your guard, and an hour later you act as if you had resolved nothing at all. Rightly, then, can we humble ourselves and never think anything great of ourselves, because we are so fragile and unstable. Quickly, too, what was scarcely acquired at last through much labor by grace can be lost through negligence.⁴

A Final Warning and Hope

Since we grow lukewarm so quickly, we must not presume upon peace but continue training toward holiness with hope of future progress.

What will become of us in the end, since we grow lukewarm so early in the day? Woe to us if we want to turn aside to rest as though peace and security were already here, when not even a trace of true holiness has yet appeared in our way of life. It would be well for us to keep training ourselves, like good novices, toward the best character, if only there were some hope of future correction and greater spiritual progress.

Read the original Latin

Miser es ubicumque fueris, et quocumque te verteris, nisi ad Deum te convertas. Quid turbaris quia non succedit tibi sicut vis et desideras? Quis est qui habeat omnia secundum suam voluntatem? Nec ego, nec tu, nec aliquis hominum super terram. Nemo est in mundo sine aliqua tribulatione, vel angustia, quivis Rex, vel Papa. Quis est, qui melius habet? Utique qui pro Deo aliquid pati valet.

Dicunt multi imbecilles et infirmi, Ecce quam bonam vitam ille homo habet, quam dives et quam magnus, quam potens et excelsus. Sed attende ad cælestia bona, et videbis quod omnia ista temporalia nulla sunt, sed magis incerta, et valde gravantia, quia nunquam sine solicitudine, et timore possidentur. Non est hominis felicitas habere temporalia ad abundantiam, et sufficit ei mediocritas. Vere miseria est vivere super terram. Quanto homo voluerit esse spiritualior, tanto præsens vita sit ei amarior, quia sentit melius, videt clarius humanæ corruptionis affectus. Nam comedere, bibere, vigilare, dormire, quiescere laborare et cæteris necessitatibus naturæ subjacere vere magna miseria est, et afflictio homini devoto, qui libenter esset absolutus et liber ab omni peccato.

Valde enim gravatur interior homo necessitatibus corporalibus in hoc mundo. Unde Propheta devote rogat quatenus ab istis liber esse valeat, dicens, De necessitatibus meis erue me, Domine. Sed væ non cognoscentibus suam miseriam et corruptibilem vitam. Nam in tantum quidam hanc amplectuntur, licet etiam vix necessaria laborando aut mendicando habeant, ut si possent hic semper vivere, de regno Dei nihil curarent.

O insani, et infideles corde, qui tam profunde in terris jacent, ut nihil nisi carnalia sapiant. Sed miseri adhuc in fine sentient graviter, quam vile, et nihilum erat, quod amaverunt. Sancti autem Dei, et omnes devoti amici Christi non attenderunt, quæ carni placuerunt, nec quæ in hoc tempore floruerunt. Sed tota spes eorum, et intentio ad æterna bona anhelabat. Ferebatur totum desiderium eorum ad mansura et invisibilia, ne amore visibilium traherentur ad infima.

Noli frater amittere confidentiam proficiendi ad spiritualia. Adhuc enim habes tempus et horam, quare vis procrastinare propositum tuum? Surge, et in instanti incipe, et dic: Nunc est tempus faciendi, nunc tempus pugnandi est, nunc tempus aptum est emendandi. Quando male habes et tribularis, tunc tempus promerendi. Oportet te transire per ignem et aquam, antequam venias ad refrigerium, nisi tibi vim feceris, vitium non superabis. Quamdiu istud fragile corpus gerimus, sine peccato esse non possumus nec sine tædio et dolore vivere. Libenter haberemus ab omni miseria quietem, sed quia per peccatum perdidimus innocentiam, amisimus etiam veram beatitudinem. Ideo oportet nos tenere patientiam, et Dei exspectare misericordiam, donec transeat iniquitas hæc, et mortalitas absorbeatur a vita.

O quanta fragilitas humana, quæ semper prona est ad vitia. Hodie confiteris peccata tua, et cras iterum perpetras confessa. Nunc proponis cavere, et post horam ita agis, quasi nihil proposuisses. Merito ergo nosmetipsos humiliare possumus, nec unquam aliquid magni de nobis sentire, quia tam fragiles et instabiles sumus. Cito etiam potest perdi per negligentiam, quod multo labore vix tandem acquisitum est per gratiam.

Quid fiet de nobis adhuc in fine, qui tepescimus tam mane. Væ nobis si sic volumus declinare ad quietem, quasi jam pax sit et securitas, cum necdum appareat vestigium sanctitatis veræ in nostra conversatione. Bene opus esset quod adhuc institueremus, tanquam boni novitii, ad mores optimos, si forte spes esset de futura emendatione, et majori spirituali profectu.

Scripture echoes

↩Ps.66.12 — You rode over our heads as over a beast; we went through fire and through water, yet You brought us out to abundance.
↩Isa.28.15 — Because you have said, 'We have cut a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have made an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have hidden ourselves.'
↩1Cor.15.54 — But when this perishable puts on imperishability, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.'

Notes

1 ↩gravantia is a rare form; rendered as burdensome based on context and the weight of solicitudo/timore in the clause.
2 ↩affectus rendered as affections in the sense of disordered inclinations or attachments, following the approved lexicon for affectio in negative contexts.
3 ↩Quotation: 'De necessitatibus meis erue me, Domine.' Candidate allusion to Psalm 25:17 (Vulgate) or similar psalmic petition. Final resolution deferred to Moses stage.
4 ↩gratia rendered as grace per lexeme policy (divine gift/effect).