"O wondrous creature...?

 “O wondrous creature, inferior only to the Creator, how much will you debase yourself? Do you love the world? But you yourself are superior to the world. Do you admire the sun? But you yourself are brighter than the sun. Do you philosophize about the harmony of the revolving heavens? But you are more sublime than the heavens. Do you examine the mysterious causes of the creation? But no creature is a greater mystery than you. Do you doubt it, when you may pass judgement on all creatures, yet none of them on you? But if you wish to judge them, then do not love them. Do not love to judge them. Love him who set you over, not under, all creatures. He set you over them not that through them you might be happier, but that he might be the one through whom you would be superior, subjecting all things to you as a crowning honor and keeping himself for you as rewarding happiness. Why then do you pursue fleeting beauties, when your own beauty neither fades with age nor grows shabby with poverty, nor becomes wan with illness, nor is ruined even by death itself? Seek what you seek, but not there. You are seeking, that nothing may elude your will and that thus you may find rest. Then seek this. Where, you ask? Not in health of the body, for if you love it so much you seek rest there, realize with what efforts you acquire it if you do not have it, and with what painful remedies painful diseases are driven out. If you enjoy good health, consider how much care is required to maintain it; and how many disease, fevers, plagues, and finally deaths, lie in wait for it.”

*Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity (Cistercian Publications:1990), pp.124-125.

 

Comments

  1. Reedmerino@gmail.comJune 24, 2025 at 7:04 PM

    Beautiful and profound. Amazing how such "primitive and prescientific" could think and express themselves so much more deeply than most of us more "advanced" human beings!

    ReplyDelete

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