It's the Same with Us
A Homily by Radulphus Ardens
This translation piece aims to be a faithful yet fresh presentation of the original it represents. As such, while remaining close to the original meaning of the text, unfitting equivalences are avoided in favor of words and phrases that bring forth the author’s meaning. The text in its original language is presented after the translation.
The text is just a small excerpt from a Latin homily on the Transfiguration of the Lord. The work was composed by a certain clergyman named Radulphus, a preacher who was granted the epithet “Ardens”—“the Ardent”. The text can be found in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, Volume 57 (1854), column 1417.
Translation:
“But lifting their eyes, they saw no one but only Jesus” (Mt 17:8). From this event they were certain that the voice from the cloud had designated only Jesus and bore witness to him alone. What then happens afterwards to the apostles happens daily in us, my brothers. For when, with the mouth of the heart in contemplation by divine inspiration or by sacred reading, we hear the power and magnitude of God, our conscience fears and trembles, irresolute as we are. Met face-to-face with—that is to say, in the awareness of—our own particular inconstancy, we are cast down to the ground. However, lest there be dejection unto despair, Jesus is present with his familiar kindness. He approaches us by suffering with us, he touches us by granting us his grace, he raises us up to things divine by setting right our longings, he comforts us by providing us the pledge of his love. So, lifting our eyes we see nothing but only Jesus—that is to say, lifting the pupil of our contemplation towards God, we don’t see in him anything but salvation, with which he desires that all men be saved (1 Tim 2:4). Hence, we ought to love him more than dread him.
Original Text
Levantes autem oculos neminem viderunt nisi solum Jesum. Ex quo certum habuerunt vocem de nube solum Jesum demonstrasse, et ei soli testimonium perhibuisse. Porro quod tunc contingit apostolis, quotidie, fratres mei, contingit in nobis. Cum enim in contemplatione ab inspiratione vel lectione divina ore cordis, Dei audimus potentiam et magnitudinem, nostrae fragilitatis conscientia timet et concitatur, et in faciem, id est in notitiam propriae infirmitatis humiliatur; sed ne usque in desperationem dejiciatur, adest Jesus solita clementia sua, et accedit nobis compatiendo, tangit nos, gratiam suam nobis conferendo, erigit nos ad coelestia desiderium nostrum dirigendo, consolatur nos, fiduciam sui amoris nobis praestando, ut levantes oculos nostros non videamus nisi solum Jesum, id est aciem nostrae contemplationis ad Deum levantes, non videamus in eo nisi salvationem qua cupit omnes homines salvos fieri (I Tim. II). Unde eum magis diligere quam horrere debemus.