A Letter from Anselm to the Princess Adelaide, Accompanying a Collection of Prayers and Selections from the Psalms

12. Prayer to St John the Evangelist (2)

to ask for the love of God and those near him.

St John,

one of the great apostles of God,

one of the great lords of the kingdom of God,

one of those who are very rich in love,

loving God, and loved by him,

the richest in love of those whom God loves.

John, wealthy with such blessed riches,

and rich with such blessed wealth.

See, here is a soul that is wretched but Christian,

poor, and in need of those riches with which you are rich.

Hungry, I plead at the gate of your clemency,

a beggar, I ask alms of your rich store.

Out of that which is able to satisfy you and many

without being diminished

at least share with me as much as will enable me to live.

Rich friend of God,

grant to the soul of a poor servant of God who loves you

from the wealthy store-room of your heart

that which is little to you but great to me,

easy to you, vital to me;

give me alms, that my Lord who has been pleased

to enrich you in order to make many rich

may deign through you to revive even this dying life.

My soul is poor, my lord, beloved of our Lord;

I am forced to confess it and I blush to do so.

It is poor in the love of God in both ways –

it loves God so much less than it ought,

and it has so much less of the love of God than it needs.

Of course, I confess that on the one hand I am most unjust

and on the other that God is just;

in both ways I know myself to be very wretched

in the just judgement of God.

Just and merciful God, when I say this,

I am not forgetting the many good gifts of your love

from the beginning of my creation,

nor am I ungrateful for them,

but my soul will always call itself poor and needy

until it is filled with your love in both ways.

Indeed that is in itself the best,

the most gracious of all your benefits to me,

that the sweet taste of you here has aroused desire in me,

so that ‘my soul refuses to be consoled’

except by your fullness.

It is not enough to pray for this

by the poor love of this sinner of yours;

to obtain this I call upon the merits of one

who loves you much and is loved by you.

Therefore you who are good with sweetness

and sweet with goodness,

from whom all good things do come,

make him favourable to me and you to him,

or rather may you both hear my entreaties,

so that through you both I may follow on

to be filled with the good that I desire.

Lord, I know and admit that I am not worthy of your love,

but surely you are not unworthy of my love?

Therefore grant to me, Lord,

by the merits of him from whom you have honour,

that I may be made worthy out of my unworthiness.

But he prays for me more powerfully,

for he is able to do more,

he whom you love, Lord Jesus.

Leaning on your dear heart he prays for me,

and there you hear my desire,

through him who is close to you.

St John, dear to Jesus Christ, my Lord,

the servant of your friend begs you,

according to the name of his Lord, your beloved,

to obtain for him that two-fold love of God.

Get for me, I beg you, grace

so that I may be worthy to love him

as I am loved by him.

For surely, friend of God, if he loves us because of you,

he will pay out mercy to us;

and if we love him through you,

he will repay that with grace.

Surely, sir, if you turn him to loving us,

you make us that much more your debtors,

and if you bring us near to loving him,

you yourself repay all our debt.

And surely, blessed John, however much you do

to make him love others,

there will be no less love for you;

and whatever you do to make others love him,

so much the more you repay that debt.

Then have mercy, sir, upon your suppliant,

so that I may be indebted to you for so much good

and you may restore to God a soul.

Do this, sir, I beseech you, do this,

for if you refuse, nothing but damnation will result;

but save your servant by your grace

that he may come to the glory of God.

Good and most dear disciple,

why should you, so rich, refuse one so poor,

you, so powerful, refuse this request

which brings evil to no one

and is liable to lead to so much good?

For if my sins stand in the way of that which I desire,

why do not your merits assist my prayers the more?

100

Are my sins potent for ill, and your merits impotent to help?

Let it not be so, sir, lest I be compelled to realize

that which I shudder even to say.

Why should my petition be refused

on account of my sins,

105

when I ask not trusting in my own deserts but yours?

Why, I say, when the merits that are offered to him

are greater than the sins that offend him?

For I am sure, sir, that if you will

your grace will count for so much before God who loves you

110

that he will forgive my sins

and by loving me he will make me his beloved.

So do this, blessed John,

so that he who loves you may also love me,

through the wideness of that love which you taught,

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and which you have,

and by which you envy no one,

but rather wish that the good you rejoice in

may belong to all men.

Do this in exchange for the love that you owe him,

120

so that you may set free for him even my love with yours,

for you owe him not only your love

but that of many more.

Therefore, blessed John,

you are experienced in that blessedness of yours,

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for just as no one is able to give to God

before he is in debt,

so no one can give back more than he is in debt for.

So however many love God, your lover, through you,

they will not be able to balance the debt.

130

I beg you, sir, do not reject one who asks

to be numbered among them.

Kindle love in my darkness and make me glow.

Help me to shine, hear my prayer.

Lord Jesus, by whom I long to be loved,

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John, whose intercession I ask,

my desire constrains me thus

so that my heart desires to constrain you;

indeed not against your own will but of your own accord,

not unwillingly but willingly.

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Therefore suffer me and spare me,

if what love plans, love may enforce.

Sustain me, I say,

because the love of the love of God constrains me.

Jesus and John,

145

I believe and know that you love each other,

but how can I experience this

if you do not grant what I ask of you both?

Jesus, how can I prove

your love for him, or for me, or my love for you both

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unless through him you grant me what I long for –

to be loved of you and to love you?

John, how can I know that he loves you

if you do not grant me to be loved also?

Or that you love him

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if you do not help me to love him too?

(Excuse my daring, beloved of God,

for it is this love of yours that urges me to speak so.)

So you, Lord God, and you, his beloved John,

do not love only yourselves in your blessedness,

160

but also us sinners in our misery.

We share your joy – do you share our sufferings.

Do not keep to yourselves the enjoyment of so much good,

but let some of it flow down to us

to be spread abroad among us,

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and enrich and rejoice our souls.

John, lover and beloved of God,

you are secure in that blessed fullness of glory

which is your mutual love.

Behold this poor man,

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a beggar for the two-fold love of God;

grant it to him liberally,

for you know you have it in great abundance

and you see me in great need.

You know, sir, what you yourself have written

175

in your Epistle

of whosoever has this world’s goods

and sees that his brother has need,

and shuts up his bowels of compassion to him;

what then, sir, if anyone has the goods of eternal life

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and sees a soul near him have need?

Will he shut up his bowels of compassion to him?

Merciful teacher, if you have wished

that the bowels of compassion

of those that have this world’s goods

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should not be shut to the needs of sufferers,

surely this is much more true

of those who have better goods,

to those whose need is even greater?

I hear you teach that we must open our hearts

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and I see that you have the riches of loving God

and being loved by him,

and you see in what need my soul is.

Lo, here is the one who teaches this, and has this wealth,

in the presence of one who is in need,

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and they gaze at each other.

If then, sir, your gaze has more good in it

than my prayer has devotion,

let your gaze become my prayer.

For you have not written

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‘If any see his brother have need and praying,

and shuts his heart against him’,

but ‘If any sees his brother have need!’

Act, then, sir, seeing my need; for indeed you see just that.

O soul, my soul,

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draw together all your love,

and bring it before him.

Cry, groan from the depths of your soul in his sight,

‘You see me’,

and a second time repeat the words with importunity,

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‘You see me – see me!’

John, you see me; there is no doubt that you see me.

Then look on me!

Sir, see me, and know me,

look and have pity upon me!

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You see and you know.

See in order that I may know it.

You see and know my need,

see that I may know your goodness.

Look, look on me, since you do see me!

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At once I know, even now I experience that you see me.

I know, I experience it.

How my intellect charges me with what it hears.

I know well, sir, that you have ordained

that one should open one’s heart to one’s brother,

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but whether I am that brother or that neighbour

I dare not assert though I long to be.

I do not want to claim that which is not right for me.

Jesus, John’s master, look on us.

Near to the waters my soul longs with thirst;

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but there is nothing for it to drink

unless something flows from the fount.

Fount of mercy, flow from yourself through John

so that I may drink of you in him.

Good Lord, make answer on my behalf.

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I go back to the fount itself, I can do no other.

Near to the fount of life no thirsting soul perishes.

Do not block the way of the thirsty to drink.

The one who is full of love hears your thought

and your thirsty one drinks your mercy through him.

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Say to him, ‘John, who seems to you to have been neighbour

to him that fell among thieves?’

And, blessed John, do you answer

in the words the human race applied to the Samaritan

and give thanks to him –

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reply, ‘He that had mercy upon him.’

Good Jesus, you have begun to help my prayer,

now into your hands I commend it,

so that your perfect goodness may perfect it.

Speak, I pray you, to your beloved John

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to show him me, your servant,

and say to him, ‘Go and do thou likewise.’

Hope and rejoice,

rejoice and love, O my soul!

He whom so doubtfully you asked to hear you

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himself prepares for you an intercessor.

As a beggar I prayed through another

because I had no confidence before him myself;

and lo, he himself takes care of me,

and prays where I myself failed.

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What goodness, piety, and love!

See, he shows how much he loves me –

he comes near to me so that I may love him!

So I press on and I hope,

not in myself but in him,

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for he listens to my desire who thus crowns my prayer.

‘My heart and my flesh’ rejoice in him and love him,

‘and all that is within me’ bless him. Amen.

A Letter from Anselm to the Princess Adelaide, Accompanying a Collection of Prayers and Selections from the Psalms

(Schmitt, vol. 3, Letter 10, pp. 113–4)

To the worthy and royal lady, Adelaide, who is noble by birth but more noble still by a holy life; greetings from her brother, Anselm. May you add to the lustre of your earthly nobility the glory of virtue, so that in everlasting bliss you may be united to the King of Kings.

I send herewith the ‘Flowers from the Psalms’ which from your high estate you deigned to command me to choose for you, for the love of God. I have executed the task, out of my low estate, as well and quickly as possible. Insofar as your order was a result of your devotion to God, just so far has my obedience been successful. I hope and pray that God Almighty will so preserve and nourish that same devotion in you, that on earth your heart may be filled with his dearest love and in heaven be fulfilled with the sight of his face. It is a poor and mean gift that I am sending to you who are rich and noble; do not despise it, coming from my poverty and insignificance. It is not encrusted with gold and jewels, but it has been made with loving faithfulness and it is given with faithful love.

After the ‘Flowers from the Psalms’ I have added seven prayers. The first of them is not so much a prayer as a meditation, in which briefly the soul shakes itself free from sin, despises it, is humbled by it, is troubled by fear of the Last Judgement and concludes by breaking out in tears and sighs. In the prayers proper, those to St Stephen and St Mary Magdalene tend more to the increase of love, if they are said from the depths of the heart and at a slow pace. And indeed in all seven I beg you, as your servant and loving friend, to give them your whole attention, and to do it as well as you are able, so that with humility of mind and the feeling of fear and love the sacrifice of prayer may be offered.

Farewell, now and in eternity, in God.

Farewell, and receive this little book which I am sending as a pledge of my faithfulness before God, with my prayers, for what they are worth.

At the end of my letter I add what I urge on you in them all: despise everything that will have to be left behind, even while you have it, with your whole mind set on things above; and strive only for that which can be kept for ever, as long as you have it not, with a humble mind. I pray the Holy Spirit to persuade you of all I want to urge upon you, in whom I say for the third time, farewell.

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