Quod non sit importunus in negociis.
Entrusting All to God
Christ invites the soul to place every concern in His hands and to wait for His perfect timing.
Son, always entrust your cause to me; I will arrange it well in its own time. Wait for my ordering, and you will see the benefit that follows.
The Prayer of Surrender
The soul responds by gladly yielding all affairs to God and asking freedom from clinging to future outcomes.
Lord, I gladly entrust all my affairs to you, because my own thinking can accomplish so little. If only I would not cling so much to future outcomes, but instead would promptly offer myself to your good pleasure.1
The Fickleness of Desire
Christ warns that human desires shift constantly, so even small acts of self-abandonment matter greatly.
My son, a person often turns over in his mind something he desires, but once he has it, he begins to feel differently—because his feelings about that very thing do not last, but rather drive him from one thing to another.23 So it is no small thing, even in the smallest matters, to let go of yourself.4
Self-Denial and the Enemy's Snares
True freedom comes through self-denial, yet the devil relentlessly tempts, so the soul must watch and pray.
True progress for a person lies in self-denial, and the person who has denied himself is truly free and secure. But the ancient enemy, opposing every good thing, does not stop tempting; and day and night he devises heavy snares, hoping he might somehow cast the unwary into a trap of deception. "Watch and pray," says the Lord, "so that you do not enter into temptation."✦5
Read the original Latin
Fili, committe mihi semper causam tuam, ego bene disponam in tempore suo. Exspecta ordinationem meam et senties exinde profectum.
Domine, satis libenter omnes res tibi committo, quia parum potest cogitatio mea proficere. Utinam non multum adhærerem futuris eventibus, sed ad beneplacitum tuum me incunctanter offerrem.
Fili mi, sæpe homo rem aliquam agitat, quam desiderat: sed cum ad eam pervenerit, aliter incipit sentire, quia affectiones circa idem non sunt durabiles, sed magis de uno vel in aliud nos impellunt. Non est ergo minimum etiam in minimis se relinquere.
Verus profectus hominis est abnegatio sui ipsius, et homo abnegatus valde liber est et securus. Sed antiquus hostis, omnibus bonis adversans, a tentatione non cessat, et die noctuque graves molitur insidias, si forte in laqueum deceptionis possit præcipitare incautum. Vigilate et orate, dicit Dominus, ut non intretis in tentationem.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.26.41 — Watch and pray, so that you do not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Notes
- 1 ↩futuris eventibus: ablative of reference, 'future events/outcomes'; the pairing of futurus with eventus is a periphrastic way of saying 'what will happen.'
- 2 ↩affectiones rendered as 'affections' per lexeme policy for affectio: here the sense is disordered attachment/inclination, not positive devotional affection.
- 3 ↩cum with subjunctive (pervenerit) read temporally ('when') rather than causally; quia introduces the reason clause ('because').
- 4 ↩se relinquere ('to abandon/leave oneself behind') carries the force of self-denial and detachment from self-will, not merely stepping aside.
- 5 ↩Direct quotation of Christ's words in Gethsemane; cf. Matthew 26:41 / Mark 14:38.