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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 3 · On Inward Consolation
Chapter 50Imit.3.50

Qualiter homo desolatus debet se in manus Dei offerre.

Blessing God in Poverty and Pain

The soul blesses God, acknowledges its poverty and suffering, and confesses that all good comes from God alone.

Lord God, holy Father, be blessed now and forever, because just as you willed, so it has come to pass, and what you do is good. Let your servant find joy in you, not in himself or in anyone else, because you alone are true joy. You are my hope and my crown, my gladness and my honor, Lord.✦ What does your servant have that he hasn't received from you, without any merit of his own?✦ Everything you have given and everything you have made is yours. "I am poor and in toils from my youth," and my soul is saddened, sometimes even to tears, and at times my spirit is also troubled within itself by the sufferings that press upon it.✦12

Longing for God's Peace

The soul yearns for the peace and joy that only God can give, and laments its weakness when God seems distant.

I long for the joy of peace; I beg you for the peace of your children, who are nourished in the light of consolation that comes from you. If you give peace, if you pour in holy joy, your servant's soul will be full of song and devoted to praising you. But if you withdraw yourself, as you so often do, your servant will not be able to run in the way of your commandments; instead, he will fall to his knees and strike his breast, because things are not as they were yesterday and the day before, when your lamp shone over his head and, under the shadow of your wings, he was protected from the temptations that assailed him.

Accepting the Hour of Trial

The soul accepts suffering as ordained by the Father, embracing outward humiliation for the sake of inward communion with God.

Father, just and always to be praised, the hour has come for your servant to be tested. Father, worthy to be loved, it's fitting that in this hour your servant should suffer something for you. Father, perpetually to be venerated, the hour has come that from eternity you foreknew would come, so that for a short time your servant may fall away outwardly; but may he always live with you within. Let him be lightly esteemed for a little while, let him be humbled and fail before men, let him be crushed by sufferings and weakened by infirmities, so that once more with you in the dawn of new light he may rise again, and be glorified in heavenly things.34 Holy Father, this is how you ordained it, and this is how you willed it, and what you commanded has come to pass.

The Grace of Suffering and the Value of Humiliation

Suffering for God's sake is a grace, and humiliation teaches the soul to seek God alone and to revere His just judgments.

This, you see, is grace shown to your friend: to suffer and be troubled in the world for love of you, whenever and from whomever and in whatever way you have allowed it to happen.56 Without your counsel and providence, and without cause, nothing happens on earth. "It is good for me, Lord, that you have humbled me, so that I may learn your just decrees," and cast away all elation of heart and all presumptuous thoughts.78 It is useful to me that shame has covered my face, so that I would seek you rather than men for consolation.9 I have also learned from this to tremble at your inscrutable judgment, for you afflict the just along with the wicked, but not without equity and justice.1011

God the Only Comforter and Healer

The soul thanks God for afflicting it, recognizing God as the sole physician who strikes and heals, and submits to His discipline.

Thank you, because you did not spare me from my evils but wore me down with bitter blows, inflicting pains and sending distresses from without and within.12 There is no one under all heaven who can comfort me except you, Lord my God, heavenly physician of souls — you who strike and heal, who lead down to the depths and bring back again.✦1314 Your discipline be upon me, and your rod — it will teach me.1516

Surrender to God's Correcting Hand

The soul places itself entirely in God's hands for correction, trusting God's omniscience and asking to be conformed to His will.

See, beloved Father, I am in your hands; I bow beneath the rod of your correction. Strike my back and my neck, so that I may bend my crookedness to your will. Make me a devout and humble disciple, just as you have been accustomed to do well, so that I may walk at every nod of yours. To you I entrust myself and all that I have, for correction. It is better to be corrected here than hereafter. You know all things, each one individually, and nothing in any human conscience is hidden from you. Before things happen, you already know what is to come, and there is no need for anyone to teach or warn you about the things that take place on earth. You know what serves my progress and how much tribulation serves to purge away the rust of my vices. Do with me what your good pleasure desires, and do not look down upon my sinful life, known to no one better and more clearly than to you alone.

A Prayer for True Discernment

The soul asks for the grace to know, love, and value what God values, and to judge by spiritual rather than outward sight.

Grant me, Lord, to know what must be known, to love what must be loved, to praise what supremely pleases you, to esteem what appears precious to you, and to blame what is base in your sight. Don't let me judge by the sight of outward eyes, or form opinions by the hearing of the ears of unskilled people, but discern in true judgment between visible and spiritual things, and above all else always seek the will of your good pleasure.

The Vanity of Human Esteem

Human judgment is deceptive and worldly praise is vain; true worth is measured only by what one is before God.

People's senses are often deceived in their judgments, and lovers of the world are deceived by loving visible things alone. How is a person made better by that, just because someone else thinks him greater? The deceitful person deceives the deceitful, the vain person the vain, the blind person the blind, the weak person the weak — exalting them all the while, and truly confounding them all the more by praising them to no purpose. For as much as each one is in your eyes, so much he is, and no more — says the humble Saint Francis.17

Read the original Latin

Domine Deus, sancte Pater, sis nunc et in æternum benedictus, quia sicut vis ita factum est, et quod facis bonum est. Lætetur in te servus tuus, non in se, nec in aliquo alio, quia tu solus lætitia vera, tu spes mea, et corona mea, tu gaudium meum, et honor meus, Domine. Quid habet servus tuus, nisi quod a te accepit, etiam sine merito suo? Tua sunt omnia, quæ dedisti et quæ fecisti. Pauper sum et in laboribus a juventute mea, et contristatur anima mea, nonnunquam usque ad lacrymas, quandoque etiam conturbatur spiritus meus a se propter imminentes passiones.

Desidero pacis agudium, filiorum tuorum pacis flagito, qui in lumine consolationis a te pascuntur. Si das pacem, si gaudium sanctum infundis, erit anima servi tui plena modulatione, et devota in laude tua. Sed si te subtraxeris sicut sæpissime soles, non poterit currere viam mandatorum tuorum, sed magis ad tundendum pectus genua incurvantur, quia non est illi sicut heri, et nudiustertius, quando lucebat lucerna tua super caput ejus, et sub umbra alarum tuarum protegebatur a tentationibus irruentibus.

Pater juste, et semper laudande, venit hora, ut probetur servus tuus. Pater amande, dignum est, ut hora hac patiatur pro te aliquid servus tuus. Pater perpetuo venerande, venit hora quam ab æterno præsciebas affuturam, ut ad modicum tempus succumbat foris servus tuus; vivat vero semper apud te intus, paululum vilipendatur, humilietur et deficiet coram hominibus, passionibus conteratur et languoribus, ut iterum tecum in aurora lucis novæ resurgat, et in cælestibus clarificetur. Pater sancte, tu sic ordinasti, et sic voluisti, et hoc factum est quod præcepisti.

Est hæc enim gratia ad amicum tuum, pati et tribulari in mundo pro amore tuo, quotiescumque et a quocumque et quomodocumque id permiseris fieri. Sine consilio et providentia tua, et sine causa nihil fit in terra. Bonum mihi, Domine, quod humiliasti me ut discam justificationes tuas, et omnes elationes cordis atque præsumtiones abjiciam. Utile michi, quod confusio cooperuit faciem meam, ut te potius quam homines ad consolandum requiram. Didici etiam ex hoc inscrutabile judicium tuum expavescere, qui affligis justum cum impio, sed non sine æquitate et justitia.

Gratias tibi, quia non pepercisti malis meis, sed attrivisti me verberibus amaris, infligens dolores et immittens angustias foris et intus. Non est qui me consoletur ex omnibus quæ sub cælo sunt, nisi tu, Domine Deus meus, cælestis medicus animarum, qui percutis et sanas, deducis ad inferos et reducis. Disciplina tua super me et virga tua ipsa me docebit.

Ecce, Pater dilecte, in manibus tuis ego sum; sub virga correctionis tuæ me inclino: percute dorsum meum et collum meum, ut incurvem ad voluntatem tuam tortuositatem meam. Fac me pium et humilem discipulum, sicut bene facere consuevisti, ut ambulem ad omnem nutum tuum. Tibi me et omnia mea ad corrigendum committo: melius est hic corripi quam in futuro. Tu scis omnia et singula, et nihil te latet in humana conscientia. Antequam fiant, nosti ventura, et non opus tibi est ut quis te doceat aut admoneat de his quæ fiunt in terra. Tu scis quid expediat ad profectum meum et quantum deservit tribulatio ad rubiginem vitiorum purgandum. Fac mecum desideratum beneplacitum tuum et ne despicias peccaminosam vitam meam, nulli melius et clarius quam tibi soli notam.

Da mihi, Domine, scire quod sciendum est, hoc amare quod amandum est, hoc laudare quod tibi summe placet, hoc reputare quod tibi prætiosum apparet, hoc vituperare quod tibi sordescit. Non me sinas secundam visionem oculorum exteriorum judicare, neque secundum auditum aurium hominum imperitorum sententiare: sed in judicio vero de visibilibus et spiritualibus discernere atque super omnia voluntatem beneplaciti tui semper inquirere.

Falluntur sæpe hominum sensus in judicando; falluntur et amatores sæculi visibilia tantummodo amando. Quid enim homo inde melior, quia reputabitur ab homine major? Fallax fallacem, vanus vanum, cæcus cæcum, infirmus infirmum decipit, dum exaltat et veraciter magis confundit, dum inaniter laudat. Nam quantum unusquisque est in oculis tuis, tantum est et non amplius, ait humilis sanctus Franciscus.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.15.5 — He does not lend his money at interest, and does not take a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken.
  2. ↩1Cor.4.7 — For who makes you different? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you had not received it?
  3. ↩Ps.89.16 — Happy are the people who know the shout of joy; O LORD, they walk in the light of your face.
  4. ↩Deut.32.39 — See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life; I have wounded and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from my hand.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The opening clause 'Pauper sum et in laboribus a juventute mea' echoes Psalm 89:16 (Vulgate 88:16) and Psalm 39:13 (Vulgate 38:16), and is closely paralleled in the Vulgate Psalter. The quoted span is marked as a candidate scriptural quotation pending Moses resolution.
  2. 2 ↩anima rendered as 'soul' per lexeme policy (interior person before God). spiritus rendered as 'spirit' for the inner life under trial.
  3. 3 ↩succumbat foris rendered 'fall away outwardly' — the Latin plays on the contrast between outward collapse and inward communion with God; 'succumb' carries the sense of yielding/giving way, not necessarily apostasy.
  4. 4 ↩vilipendatur rendered 'lightly esteemed' — the term carries the sense of being treated as worthless or despised; the passive subjunctive is rendered with 'let him' to preserve the prayerful optative force.
  5. 5 ↩gratia rendered as 'grace' per lexeme policy (divine gift/effect).
  6. 6 ↩amor rendered as 'love' per lexeme policy.
  7. 7 ↩Quoted span 'Bonum mihi…quod humiliasti me ut discam justificationes tuas' is a candidate allusion to Psalm 118:71, 75 (Vulgate). Final resolution deferred to tx-08 Moses pass.
  8. 8 ↩justificationes rendered as 'just decrees' to capture the sense of God's righteous ordinances in the Psalm context.
  9. 9 ↩confusio rendered as 'shame' — the sense is the humbling confusion that covers one's face, not mere embarrassment.
  10. 10 ↩inscrutabile judicium rendered as 'inscrutable judgment' — preserving the theological weight of God's unsearchable ways.
  11. 11 ↩The relative pronoun qui ('who/that') introducing the clause about afflicting the just is rendered as 'for' to capture the explanatory force in contemporary English.
  12. 12 ↩Gratias rendered 'thank you' rather than 'thanks' to preserve the direct, prayerful address. pepercisti ('you spared') is rendered negatively ('did not spare me from') to capture the force of non pepercisti malis meis — God did not hold back the evils but instead used them as chastisement.
  13. 13 ↩The quoted clause 'who strike and heal, who lead down to the depths and bring back' echoes Deuteronomy 32:39 (Vulgate: ego percutiam et ego sanabo, deducam ad inferos et reducam). This is a candidate allusion pending Moses resolution.
  14. 14 ↩medicus animarum rendered 'physician of souls' — animarum (gen. pl. of anima) follows the approved lexeme policy for soul. inferos rendered 'the depths' to capture the substantive sense of the lower regions/Sheol without the modern connotation of 'hell' as damnation.
  15. 15 ↩Disciplina tua super me et virga tua ipsa me docebit closely echoes Psalm 141:5 (Vulgate: virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa me consolata sunt) in structure, though the verb shifts from consolare to docere. The pairing of disciplina and virga is a common biblical motif of correction (cf. Prov 13:24, 22:15; Ps 23:4). Candidate allusion pending Moses resolution.
  16. 16 ↩virga rendered 'rod' — the standard biblical and devotional term for God's correcting staff. The emphatic ipsa ('itself') is rendered through the dash and pronoun 'it' to preserve the emphasis that the rod itself, not merely the experience, will be the teacher.
  17. 17 ↩The quotation attributed to Saint Francis is not directly traceable to the major Franciscan corpus (e.g., Regula non bullata, Testament, Admonitions). It may reflect a later devotional tradition or a paraphrase circulating in Devotio Moderna circles. Preserved as a candidate attribution.