Vigils Reading

WHEN THE LORD CRIES OUT

IN OUR HEARTS

From “Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah” by St Aelred of Rievaulx3

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Wishing to make his soldiers lightly armed for this spiritual war, our

leader says, Those who do not renounce all their possessions cannot be my

disciples. And again, Those who do not hate their father and mother and wife

and children, and even their own soul, cannot be my disciples. And so the

lightly armed soldiers…are those who disentangle themselves from all this

world’s affairs and riches, from all their longings and even from their own will.

They can thus safely resist the…vices into which they had fallen and nakedly

follow the naked Christ.

When these lightly armed soldiers feel themselves attacked by natural

provocations, demonic suggestions, or their own thoughts, they send forth to

God a loud wail of the heart and a wretched lamentation of voice with tears and

sighs, saying with the prophet, I am terribly afflicted and lowly; I roared out

my complaint from my heart…

Thanks be to you, good Jesus! Truly, your compassion is over all your

works! If inwardly where God sees, a person’s heart turns to God and is

crushed, then God’s heart will soon turn to that person. God’s heart expresses

his goodness and compassion. My heart will cry out to Moab. Moab wails in

repentance; Christ cries out in mercy. Moab wails in fear; Christ cries out by

showing pity. Moab wails in confession; Christ cries out with forgiveness. Moab

seeing the strong wind coming, fears and wails; Christ, stretching out his hand

and crying out, rebukes the hesitating, trembling one, saying You of little faith,

why did you doubt? The cry thus answers the wail, desire answers desire, mercy

answers the wretched one; the doctor, the sick one; compassion, the one

laboring and in pain.

Further…the depths of Scripture…are opened to us when the Lord cries

out in our hearts… The more outer persecution or inner disturbance saddens

us, the more does divine consolation from the sacred writings cheer us. For

whatever has been written was written for our instruction, so that we might

have hope through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures. I say to you,

brothers, nothing adverse can happen, nothing so sad or so bitter can take place,

which does not quickly vanish or is not more easily endured as soon as the

sacred page is opened to us. This is the field to which Isaac went to meditate

when the day was already drawing to a close; Rebecca met him there and

relieved his pain with her sweetness.

How often does day give way to evening for me, good Jesus! How often

does unbearable pain take the place of what little consolation I have, just as the

dark of night succeeds daylight. All things turn to boredom, and everything that

I see is a burden. If someone speaks, I barely hear; if someone knocks, I barely

perceive it. My heart grows as hard as a rock, my tongue clings to my palate,

and my eyes dry up. What then? I go out, of course, to the field to meditate, I

reflect on the sacred book, and I fix my meditations in wax. Then suddenly,

Rebecca comes to meet me. In other words, your grace, good Jesus, scatters the

darkness with your light, drives away boredom, and breaks up the hardness.

Soon tears follow sighs, and heavenly joy accompanies tears. Unhappy are

those who do not enter this field and rejoice in this way when some sadness

disturbs them!

3 Aelred of Rievaulx. Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah. CF 83. Trans. Lewis White.

Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2018. 256-265.7