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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 3 · On Inward Consolation
Chapter 5Imit.3.5

De mirabili affectu divini amoris.

A Prayer of Praise and Longing

The soul blesses God, gives thanks for His consolation, and longs for His coming as its glory, hope, and refuge.

I bless you, heavenly Father, Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, who have deigned to remember me, poor as I am. O Father of mercies and God of all consolation, I give you thanks, for you sometimes refresh me, though I am unworthy of any consolation, with your own consolation.✦ I bless you always and glorify you with your only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, unto ages of ages, amen.✦ Come then, Lord God, my holy lover — when you come into my heart, all my inmost parts will exult.✦ You are my glory and the exultation of my heart; you are my hope and my refuge in the day of my tribulation.✦

Petition for Healing and Strength

Acknowledging weakness in love and virtue, the soul asks God to visit, instruct, free it from disordered passions, and make it fit to love, suffer, and persevere.

But because I'm still weak in love and imperfect in virtue, I need to be strengthened and consoled. So visit me more often, and instruct me with your disciplines. Free me from evil and corrupt passions, and heal my heart from every disordered affection, so that, inwardly healed and thoroughly cleansed, I may be made fit to love strongly, strong to suffer, and steadfast to persevere.1

The Greatness and Power of Love

Love is praised as the supreme good that lightens every burden, impels to great works, rises above worldly attachments, and finds its rest only in God.

Love is a great thing, a wholly good thing, which alone makes what is burdensome light and carries every uneven weight with perfect balance: it bears a burden without feeling it as a burden, and makes every bitter thing sweet and savory. The noble love of Jesus drives us to great works and always stirs us toward what is more perfect. Love wants to rise upward and not be held back by anything low. Love wants to be free and detached from every worldly affection, lest its inner vision be hindered, lest it become entangled through some temporal advantage or succumb to some disadvantage.2 Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller, nothing better in heaven and on earth; for love is born from God and can find its rest only in God, above all created things.✦

The Freedom and Vigilance of Love

Love flies freely, gives all for all, looks beyond gifts to the Giver, knows no measure, feels no burden, and keeps watch even when the lover fails—like an unquenchable flame.

The one who loves flies, runs, rejoices, is free, and is held by nothing. Love gives all things for all, and possesses all things in all, because it rests in the one highest Good above all things, from which every good flows and proceeds.3 Love does not look at the gifts but turns itself toward the Giver, above all good things. Love often knows no measure but burns beyond every good. Love feels no burden, counts no labors, reaches for more than it can manage, and does not complain of impossibility — because it judges that all things are permitted and possible to it.4 Love is strong enough, then, for all things — it accomplishes much and brings it to completion. But where the lover fails and lies down, love itself keeps watch — and though sleeping, it sleeps lightly; though wearied, it is not relaxed; though pressed hard, it is not crushed; though shaken, it is not thrown into confusion. No, like a lively flame and a burning ember, it bursts safely upward and passes through.5

The Cry of Burning Love

The one who loves knows the voice of love's great cry to God—the burning affection that declares, 'You are all mine, and I am yours.'

If anyone loves, they know what this voice is crying out. A great cry in the ears of God is the burning affection of the soul that says this. God, my God, my love, you are all mine, and I am yours.

Yearning to Be Lost in Love

The soul prays to be expanded in love, to taste its sweetness, to be carried above itself in fervor, to sing love's song, and to love God above all else.

Expand me in love, so that with the deepest mouth of my heart I may learn to taste how sweet it is to love, to melt and swim in love. Let me be held by love, carried above myself through excessive fervor and wonder. Let me sing love's song; I will follow you, my beloved, into the heights. My soul falls short in praising you, rejoicing out of love. Let me love you more than myself, and myself only for your sake, and all who truly love you, in you, as the law of love commands, shining from you.✦

The Marks of True Love

Love is described as swift, sincere, humble, obedient, self-forgetful, devoted to God, and trusting even in dryness—for no one truly lives in love without suffering.

Love is quick, sincere, devout, prudent, patient, and strong, and it never looks out for itself. Wherever someone looks out for himself, that's where he falls away from love. Love is careful, humble, and upright — not soft, not frivolous, not chasing after vain things — sober, steady, chaste, quiet, and guarded in every sense. Love is submissive and obedient to those placed over us, holding itself in low regard and despised; it is devoted to God, eager to please Him, and trusting — always placing its hope in Him, even when God doesn't taste sweet to it, because without suffering, no one truly lives in love.6

The Lover's Willing Endurance

A true lover must be ready to endure all things and embrace whatever is hard and bitter for the sake of the beloved, without being turned aside.

Whoever isn't prepared to endure all things and to stand firm in the will of the beloved isn't worthy to be called a lover. The lover must willingly embrace all that is hard and bitter for the sake of the beloved, and must not be turned aside from him by any adverse turn of events.7

Read the original Latin

Benedico te, Pater cælestis, Pater Domini mei Jesu Christi, qui mei pauperis dignatus es recordari. O, Pater misericordiarum, et Deus totius consolationis, gratias tibi ago, qui me indignum omni consolatione quandoque tua recreas consolatione. Benedico te semper et glorifico cum unigenito Filio tuo, et Spiritu Sancto paracleto in sæcula sæculorum, amen. Eia, Domine Deus, meus amator sancte, cum tu veneris in cor meum, exultabunt omnia interiora mea. Tu es gloria mea et exultatio cordis mei, tu spes mea et refugium in die tribulationis meæ.

Sed quia adhuc debilis sum in amore et impefectus in virtute, ideo necesse habeo confortari et consolari. Propterea visita me sæpius, et instrue disciplinis tuis. Libera me a passionibus pravis et malis, et sana cor meum ab omnibus affectionibus inordinatis, ut intus sanatus et bene purgatus aptus efficiar ad amandum, fortis ad patiendum, stabilis ad perseverandum.

Magna res est amor, magnum omnino bonum quod solum leve facit esse onerosum, et fert æqualiter omne inæquale: nam onus sine onere portat, et omne amarum dulce ac sapidum efficit. Amor Jesu nobilis ad magna operanda impellit, et desideranda semper perfectiora excitat. Amor vult esse sursum, nec ullis infimis rebus retineri. Amor vult esse liber, et ab omni mundana affectione alienus, ne internus ejus impediatur aspectus; ne per aliquod commodum temporale implicationes sustineat, aut per incommodum succumbat. Nil dulcius est amore, nil fortius, nil altius, nil latius, nil jucundius, nil plenius, nil melius in cælo et in terra, quia amor a Deo natus est, nec potest nisi in Deo super omnia creata quiescere.

Amans volat, currit, lætatur, liber est, et non tenetur. Dat omnia pro omnibus, et habet omnia in omnibus, quia in uno summo super omnia quiescit, ex quo omne bonum fluit et procedit. Non respicit ad dona, sed ad donantem se convertit super omnia bona. Amor sæpe modum nescit, sed super omne bonum fervescit. Amor onus non sentit, labores non reputat, plus affectat, quam valet, de impossibilitate non causatur, quia cuncta sibi licere posse arbitratur. Valet igitur ad omnia, et multa implet, et effectui mancipat. Ubi vero amans deficit et jacet, amor vigilat, et dormiens dormitat, fatigatus non laxatur, arctatus non arctatur, territus non conturbatur, sed, sicut vivax flamma et ardens favilla, sursum erumpit secureque pertransit.

Si quis amat, novit quid hæc vox clamat. Magnus clamor in auribus Dei est ardens affectus animæ, quæ dicit. Deus, Deus meus, amor meus, tu totus meus, et ego tuus.

Dilata me in amore, ut discam interiori cordis ore degustare, quam suave sit amare et in amore liquefieri et natare. Tenear amore vadens supra me præ nimio fervore et stupore. Cantem amoris canticum; sequar te dilectum meum in altum. Deficit in laude tua anima mea, jubilans ex amore. Amem te plus quam me, nec me nisi propter te, et omnes in te, qui vere amant te, sicut jubet lex amoris, lucens ex te.

Est amor velox, sincerus, pius, prudens, longanimis, virilis, et seipsum nunquam quærens. Ubi enim seipsum aliquis quærit, ibi ab amore cadit. Est amor circumspectus, humilis et rectus, non mollis, non levis nec vanis intendens rebus, sobrius, stabilis, castus, quietus, et in cunctis sensibus custoditus. Est amor subjectus et obediens Prælatis, sibi vilis et despectus, Deo devotus et gratificus fidens, et semper sperans in eo, etiam cum sibi non sapit Deus, quia sine dolore non vivitur in amore.

Qui non est paratus omnia pati, et ad voluntatem stare dilecti, non est dignus amator appellari. Oportet amantem omnia dura et amara propter dilectum libenter amplecti, nec ob contraria accidentia ab eo deflecti.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩2Cor.1.3 — Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
  2. ↩Rom.16.27;Gal.1.5;Heb.13.21 — to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be glory forever. Amen. Gal.1.5 — to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Heb.13.21 — equip you with every good thing to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
  3. ↩Ps.107.9 — For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good.
  4. ↩Ps.71.5-Ps.71.7;Ps.94.22 — For you are my hope, O Lord GOD, my confidence from my youth. Ps.71.6 — On you I have leaned from the womb; from my mother's belly you have upheld me. My praise is continually of you. Ps.71.7 — I have been a sign to many, and you are my strong refuge. Ps.94.22 — But the LORD has become my stronghold, and my God is the rock of my refuge.
  5. ↩Song.8.6-Song.8.7 — Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion is fierce as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a flame of Yah. Song.8.7 — Many waters cannot quench love, and rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly despised.
  6. ↩Matt.22.37-Matt.22.39 — And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' Matt.22.38 — This is the great and first commandment. Matt.22.39 — And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩affectio rendered as 'affection' with the qualifier 'disordered' to capture the negative sense of inordinatis; see lexeme policy for affectio.
  2. 2 ↩affectio rendered as 'affection' per lexeme policy: disordered attachment in negative context.
  3. 3 ↩The repeated omnia/omnibus plays on 'all' as both gift and ground; the translation preserves the threefold repetition to keep the rhetorical force.
  4. 4 ↩Licere posse — 'to be permitted and possible' — captures love's bold confidence without endorsing presumption; the tone is descriptive of love's inner logic, not prescriptive.
  5. 5 ↩The contrast between the lover (amans) who fails and love (amor) that persists is deliberate: the person may falter, but divine love at work in the soul does not.
  6. 6 ↩The clause 'cum sibi non sapit Deus' (literally 'when God does not taste sweet to it/him') captures the experience of spiritual dryness; rendered to preserve the sensory metaphor of tasting while keeping the devotional sense clear.
  7. 7 ↩Accidentia (accidentia) rendered as 'turn of events' to capture the sense of things befalling or happening to someone, rather than the modern philosophical sense of 'accidents.'