"Ye who long pain and sorrow bear, | praise God and on Him cast your care!"

Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
praise God and on Him cast your care!

     William Henry Draper, "All creatures of our God and king" (1899/1919), stanza free.  Free translation of the "Canticle of the Sun" ("canticum solis" or "laudes creaturarum"), by St. Francis of Assisi.  St. Francis of Assisi:  writings and early biographies:  English omnibus of the sources for the life of St. Francis, ed. Marion A. Habig, trans. Raphael Brown, Benen Fahy, Placid Hermann, Paul Oligny, Nesta de Robeck, Leo Sherley-Price (Quincy, IL:  Franciscan Press, Quincy University, 1991), vol. 1, p. 131 (127-131):

All praise be yours, my Lord, through those who grant pardon
     For love of you; through those who endure
     Sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,
     By you, Most High, they will be crowned.

Francis of Assisi:  early documents, vol. 1, The saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, OFM Cap, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, OFM Conv, and William J. Short, OFM (New York:  New City Press, 1999), 114 (113-114):

Praised by you, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
     and bear infirmity and tribulation.
     Blessed are those who endure in peace
          for by You, Most High, shall they be crowned.

Critical edition of the original:  Die Opuscula des hl. Franziskus von Assisi, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 13, ed. Kajetan Esser; 2nd ed. Engelbert Grau (Grottaferrata:  1989), 129, which I haven't yet checked, but which is supposed to read:

Laudato si, mi signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo tuo amore, et sostengo infirmitate et tribulatione.  Beati quelli ke ‘l sosterrano in pace, ka da te, altissimo, sirano incoronati.

Brian Maloney, Francis of Assisi and his 'Canticle of Brother Sun' reassessed, The new Middle Ages (New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), xxi-xxii:

Laudato si', mi' Signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo Tuo amore | e sostengo infirmitate et tribulazione. | Beati quelli ke 'l sosterrano in pace, | ka da Te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati. 

Some fragments of Irenaeus lifted from Polanco on von Balthasar

"man, falling away from God altogether, should cease to exist. For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man [is the vision of] God."

"in toto deficiens a Deo homo, cessaret esse.  Gloria enim Dei vivens homo:  vita autem hominis visio Dei."

     Irenaeus, Adv. haer. IV.xx.7, trans. Roberts & Rambaut, ANF 1, modification mine.  Latin ed. Harvey (1857), vol. 2, p. 219.



"The flesh is designed as receptive and capable of containing the power of God, and since the beginning has hosted God's art."

Εὑρεθήσεται δὲ καὶ δεκτικὴ ἅμα καὶ χωρητικὴ ἡ σὰρξ τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ δυνάμεως· εἰ γὰρ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀπεδέξατο τὴν τέχνην τοῦ θεοῦ. . . .

"Invenietur autem perceptrix et capax caro virtutis Dei, quae ab initio percepit artem Dei".

     Irenaeus, Adv. haer. V.iii.2, trans. Balthasar, trans. Polanco, p. 123.  Greek & Latin ed. Harvey (1857), vol. 2, p. 326.  Roberts & Rambaut:  "And that flesh shall also be found fit for and capable of receiving the power of God, which at the beginning received the skilful touches of God".



"The real man is the soul in the body and grace in both . . . and, in the same way, neither is the eschatologically saved man a completed soul, freed from the body, but exclusively in flesh resurrected."

     von Balthasar on Irenaeus, Herrlichkeit II/1, 64, trans. Polanco, p. 123.

Cf. Anthony Esolen, In the beginning was the Word:  an annotated reading of the Prologue of John (Brooklyn, NY:  Angelico Press, 2021), 30:  "Superbia diaboli est moriens homo, . . . the devil's pride is a man dying inside."

Ps 31:22

I had said in my alarm,

     'I am driven far from thy sight.'

But [in fact (אָכֵ֗ן)] thou didst hear my supplications,

     when I cried to thee for help.

     Ps 31:22 RSV.  In the Septuagint and Vulgate "But in fact" (אָכֵ֗ן) becomes "Therefore" (ergone, Divine Office:  ideo; διὰ τοῦτο):

Therefore thou has heard the voice of my prayer (Douay-Rheims).... 

Therefore you listened to the voice of my petition (NETS)....

"conduct her along the narrow byways of time to the eternal joy of your kingdom"

"With mighty hand and outstretched arm you led your people Israel through the desert.  Now, as your Church makes her pilgrim journey in the world, you always accompany her by the power of the Holy Spirit and lead her along the paths of time to the eternal joy of your Kingdom [(eamque per temporis semitas in gaudium aeternum regni tui conducis)] through Christ our Lord."

     "Eucharistic Prayer for Use in Masses for Various Needs II:  God Guides His Church along the Way of Salvation," Missale Romanum, 3rd typical edition (CTS new daily missal, people's edition (London:  Catholic Truth Society, 2012), 1136|1137).  The phrase "per temporis semitas" is very close to the "in temporis semitis" of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation of John Paul II Pastoris gregis (On the Bishop, Servant of the Gospel of Christ for the Salvation of the World) 12, 16 October 2003:

the Bishop will be able to show his brothers and sisters that he is their father, brother and friend only if he has entered the dark yet luminous cloud of the mystery of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Radiant with the light of the Trinity, he will be a sign of the merciful goodness of the Father, a living image of the love of the Son, and transparently a man of the Spirit, consecrated and sent forth to lead the People of God along the paths of history on their pilgrimage to eternity [(ut Dei Populus in temporis semitis ad aeternitatem peregrinans ducatur)].

I was unable to turn "temporis semit*" up in the Vulgate at Bible Gateway, and indeed this Eucharistic Prayer appears to be a post-Vatican II composition.  In Mt 7:14 the phrase is "arcta via" ("narrow . . . way").
     For some moving images, see the amazing series of photographs by Amos Chapple in Alan Taylor, "The shepherds of the Tusheti Mountains," The Atlantic, 31 October 2017.

The question is how to become "capable and fit" for such friendship

"Angels have not, nor affect not other knowledge of one another, then they lift to reveal to one another.  It is then in this onely, that friends are Angels, that they are capable and fit for such revelations when they are offered."

     John Donne to S^r H[enry]. G[oodyer]., Letters to severall persons of honour (London, 1651), 109-110, as quoted by David Marno in Death be not proud:  the art of holy attention (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 90.

"'if your right hand causes you to sin'"

"all they that continue in their evill wayes. . . . must depart:  how far?  first, they must be avoided, Declinate, saith S. Paul, I beseech you brethren, marke them diligently which cause division and offences, and avoid them.  And this corrects our desire in running after such men, as come with their owne inventions, Schismaticall Separatists, Declinate, avoid them; if hee be no such, but amongst our selves, a brother, but yet a worker of iniquity, If any one that is called a brother, be a Fornicator, or covetous, with such a one eate not.  If we cannot starve him out, wee must thrust him out; Put away from among you, that wicked man.  No conversation at all is allowed to us, with such a man, as is obstinate in his sin, and incorrigible; no not to bid him God speed, For he that biddeth him God speed, is partaker of his evill deeds.  In this divorce, both the generality, and the distance is best exprest by Christ himselfe, If thine eye, thine hand, thy foote offend thee, amputandi & projiciendi, with what anguish or remorse soever it be done, they must bee cut off, and being cut off, cast away; it is a divorce and no super-induction, it is a separating, and no redintegration.  Though thou couldest be content to goe to Heaven with both eyes, (thy selfe, and thy companion) yet better to goe into Heaven with one, thy selfe alone, then to endanger thy selfe to be left out for thy companions sake."

     John Donne, Sermon on Ps. 6:8-10, April, May, or June of 1623, John Donne Sermons 6.

"a firm and certain knowledge"

"As attention exercises, [Donne's poems] are aimed at allowing the speaker to think a religious doctrine with a certainty that is subjective and existential.  In other words, they are meant to create a very specific kind of knowledge:  faith."

     David Marno, Death be not proud:  the art of holy attention, Class 200:  new studies in religion (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 33.  The headline comes from Calvin (whom, by the way, Marno has just quoted on p. 25).