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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 3 · On Inward Consolation
Chapter 48Imit.3.48

De die æternitatis, et hujus vitæ angustiis.

The Radiant Day of Eternity

The soul contemplates the eternal day of heaven—unending, unchanging, and illuminated by divine truth—and longs for its full dawning, recognizing that on earth it is seen only dimly, as through a mirror.

O most blessed dwelling of the heavenly city! O brightest day of eternity, which no night can darken, but which supreme truth always illuminates!✦ A day always joyful, always secure, never turning into its opposite. O, would that this day had dawned, and all these temporal things had come to an end! It shines indeed to the saints with perpetual, splendid brightness, but to those sojourning on earth, only from afar and through a mirror.✦1

The Weariness of Exile

The soul contrasts the joy known to the citizens of heaven with the bitter, entangled misery of earthly life, cataloguing the sins, passions, fears, and labours that weigh down the exiled children of Eve.

The citizens of heaven know how joyful that life is; the exiled sons of Eve groan because this life is bitter and wearisome. The time we live in is short and evil, full of sorrows and distresses: a person is stained by many sins, entangled by many passions, bound by many fears, stretched thin by many cares, and distracted by many curiosities; tangled up in many vanities, surrounded by many errors, worn down by many labors, burdened by many temptations, enfeebled by pleasures, and tormented by poverty.2

Longing for God Alone

A cascade of ardent questions pours forth—when will labour end, when will the soul be free from vice, when will it know undisturbed peace and behold God's glory?—culminating in the confession of a poor exile left behind in a hostile land.

Oh, when will there be an end to all these many labors? When will I be freed from the wretched slavery of vice? When will I remember you alone, Lord? When will I rejoice in you with my whole heart? When will I be without any hindrance, in true freedom, without any burden of mind or body? When will there be solid peace — peace undisturbed and secure, peace within and peace without, peace firm on every side? Good Jesus, when will I stand to behold you? When will I contemplate the glory of your kingdom? When will you be all things in all things for me?✦ Oh, when will I be with you in your kingdom, which you prepared for your beloved from all eternity? I am left behind, a poor exile in a hostile land, where there are daily wars and the greatest misfortunes.

The Inner War of Spirit and Flesh

The soul pleads for consolation in its exile, confessing the painful tension between its desire to cling to heavenly things and the downward pull of temporal burdens and un-mortified passions.

Console my exile, soften my grief, because toward you my every desire sighs. For the whole weight on me is whatever this world offers for comfort — I long to enjoy you intimately — but I cannot grasp it. I long to cling to heavenly things, but temporal matters weigh me down, along with passions not yet brought to death.3 With my mind I want to rise above all things; yet to the flesh I am compelled, against my will, to be subject. So I, unhappy man, fight against myself and have become a burden to my own soul — while the spirit reaches upward, the flesh seeks only what is below.

Prayer Against Distraction

The soul laments its distraction in prayer, calls on God with scriptural pleas to scatter temptation and gather the senses, confesses its habitual wandering, and reflects on how love shapes thought.

O, what I suffer within, while I turn my mind to heavenly things — and soon a crowd of carnal temptations and thoughts comes rushing in on me as I pray. "My God, don't withdraw from me, and don't turn away in anger from your servant."✦4 "Flash your lightning and scatter them; send forth your arrows, and let all the enemy's phantasms be thrown into confusion."✦5 Gather all my senses back to you; make me forget everything in the world; grant me quickly to cast away and despise the phantasms of vice. Come to my aid, eternal Truth, so that no vanity may sway me. Come, heavenly sweetness, and let all impurity flee from your presence. Forgive me too, and mercifully indulge me, as often as I turn over something other than you in prayer. For I truly confess it, because I have been accustomed to holding myself very distractedly. For often I am not where I stand or sit bodily, but rather where my thoughts carry me. I am where my thought is; where my thought frequently is, there is what I love. What comes quickly to my mind is what naturally delights me or pleases me from habit.

Where Your Treasure Is

Drawing on Christ's words about treasure and heart, the soul examines how love directs thought—toward heaven, world, flesh, or spirit—and blesses the one who, through spiritual fervour, masters nature and offers pure prayer with all earthly things shut out.

This is why you, eternal Truth, have spoken openly: "Where your treasure is, there your heart is also."✦ If I love heaven, I gladly think about heavenly things. If I love the world, I rejoice in the world's prosperity and grieve over its troubles. If I love the flesh, I most often dwell on what belongs to the flesh. If I love the spirit, I'm delighted to think about spiritual things. Whatever I love, I gladly speak and listen about those things, and I carry images of them home with me. But blessed is the person who, for your sake, Lord, grants all creatures permission to depart, who masters the pull of nature and crucifies the desires of the flesh through the fervor of the spirit — so that with a clear conscience they may offer you pure prayer, and may be worthy to stand among the choirs of angels, with all earthly things shut out both outside and within.

Read the original Latin

O, supernæ civitatis mansio beatissima. O, dies æternitatis clarissima, quam nox non obscurat, sed summa veritas semper irradiat. Dies semper læta, semper secura et nunquam statum mutans in contraria. O, utinam dies illa illuxisset, et cuncta hæc temporalia finem accepissent. Lucet quidem Sanctis perpetua claritate splendida, sed non nisi a longe per speculum peregrinantibus in terra.

Norunt cæli cives, quam gaudiosa sit illa; gemunt exules filii Evæ quod amara et tædiosa sit ista. Dies hujus temporis parvi et mali, pleni doloribus et angustiis: ubi homo multis peccatis inquinatur, multis passionibus irretitur, multis timoribus stringitur, multis curis distenditur, et multis curiositatibus distrahitur, multis vanitatibus implicatur, multis erroribus circumfunditur, multis laboribus atteritur, multis tentationibus gravatur, deliciis enervatur, egestate cruciatur.

O, quando erit finis horum multorum laborum? Quando liberabor a misera servitute vitiorum? Quando memorabor, Domine, tui solius? Quando ad plenum lætabor in te? Quando ero sine omni impedimento in vera libertate, sine omni gravamine mentis, et corporis? Quando erit pax solida, pax imperturbabilis et secura pax intus et foris, pax ab omni parte firma? Jesu bone, quando stabo ad videndum te? Quando contemplabor regni tui gloriam? Quando eris mihi omnia in omnibus? O, quando ero tecum in regno tuo, quod præparasti dilectis tuis ab æterno? Relictus sum pauper et exul in terra hostili, ubi bella quotidiana et infortunia maxima.

Consolare exilium meum, mitiga dolorem meum, quia ad te suspirat omne desiderium meum. Nam onus totum mihi est, quidquid hic mundus offert ad solatium, desidero te intime frui, sed nequeo apprehendere. Opto inhærere cælestibus, sed deprimunt res temporales, et immortificatæ passiones. Mente omnibus rebus superesse opto, carni autem invite subesse cogor. Sic ego infelix homo mecum pugno et factus sum mihimetipsi gravis, dum spiritus sursum, et caro quærit esse deorsum.

O, quid intus patior, dum mente cælestia tracto et mox carnalium tentationum et cogitationum turba occurit oranti. Deus meus, ne elongeris a me neque declines in ira a servo tuo. Fulgura coruscationem tuam et dissipa eas, emitte sagittas tuas et conturbentur omnes phantasiæ inimici. Recollige omnes sensus meos ad te; fac me oblivisci omnium mundanorum; da cito abjicere et contemnere phantasmata vitiorum. Succurre mihi, æterna Veritas, ut nulla me moveat vanitas. Adveni, cælestis suavitas, et fugiat a facie tua omnis impuritas. Ignosce quoque mihi, et misericorditer indulge, quoties præter te aliud in oratione revolvo. Confiteor etenim vere, quia valde distracte me habere consuevi. Nam ibi multoties non sum, ubi corporaliter sto, aut sedeo, sed ibi magis sum, ubi cogitationibus feror. Ibi sum, ubi cogitatio mea est; ubi est frequenter cogitatio mea, ibi est id quod amo. Hoc mihi cito occurrit, quod naturaliter delectat aut ex usu placet.

Unde tu, Veritas æterna, aperte dixisti: Ubi enim est thesaurus tuus, ibi est et cor tuum. Si cælum diligo, libenter de cælestibus penso. Si mundum amo, felicitatibus mundi congaudeo, et de adversitatibus ejus tristor. Si carnem diligo, quæ carnis sunt sæpissime imaginor. Si spiritum amo, de spiritualibus cogitare delector. Quæcumque enim diligo, de his libenter loquor et audio, atque talium imagines mecum ad domum reporto. Sed beatus ille homo qui propter te, Domine, omnibus creaturis abeundi licentiam tribuit, qui naturæ vim facit et concupiscentias carnis fervore spiritus crucifigit, ut serenata conscientia, puram tibi orationem offerat, dignusque sit angelicis interesse choris, omnibus terrenis foris et intus exclusis.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩John.1.5 — And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
  2. ↩1Cor.13.12 — For now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
  3. ↩1Cor.15.28 — When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all.
  4. ↩Ps.21.2 — O LORD, in your strength the king rejoices, and in your salvation how greatly he exults!
  5. ↩Ps.143.6 — I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a weary land. Selah.
  6. ↩Matt.6.21 — For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩"Through a mirror" echoes 1 Corinthians 13:12 — "Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate" — the classic Pauline formulation of earthly, indirect knowledge of divine realities.
  2. 2 ↩Vanitatibus rendered as 'vanities' per approved lexeme policy for vanitas; here in the sense of emptiness/futility rather than self-admiration.
  3. 3 ↩immortificatæ: rare medieval form, rendered as 'not yet brought to death' to capture the sense of passions not mortified/subdued.
  4. 4 ↩The quoted span echoes Psalm 21:2 (Vulgate) / Psalm 22:1 (Hebrew): Deus meus, ne elongeris a me. The ne…neque construction is a paired negative prohibition.
  5. 5 ↩The quoted spans echo Psalm 143:6 (Vulgate) / Psalm 144:6 (Hebrew): Fulgura coruscationem tuam et dissipa eas, and Psalm 34:3–4 / Psalm 35:3–4 for the arrows and scattering imagery. Phantasiæ inimici reflects the spiritual-combat tradition.