On Prayer to God

"The purpose of the prayers and the meditations [of Anselm] is to stir up the mind of the reader to the love or fear of God, or to self-examination. The are not to be read in a turmoil, but quietly, not skimmed or hurried through, but taken a little at a time, with a deep and thoughtful meditation" (pg. 89)

Almighty God, merciful Father, and my good Lord,

have mercy on me, a sinner.

Grant me forgiveness of my sins.

Make me guard against and overcome

all snares, temptations, and harmful pleasures. (5)

May I shun utterly in word and indeed,

whatever you forbid,

and do and keep whatever you command.

Let me believe and hope, love and live,

according to your purpose and your will. (10)

Give me heart-piercing goodness and humility;

discerning abstinence and mortification of the flesh.

Help me to love and pray to you,

praise you and meditate upon you.

May I act and think in all things according to your will (15)

purely, soberly, devoutly,

and with a true and effective mind.

Let me know your commandments, and love them,

carry them out readily, and bring them into effect.

Always, Lord, let me go on with humility to better things (20)

and never grow slack.

Lord, do not give me over

either to my human ignorance and weakness

or to my own deserts,

or to anything, other than your loving dealing with me.

Do you yourself in kindness dispose of me, (25)

my thoughts and actions, according to your good pleasure,

so that your will may always be done

by me and in me and concerning me.

Deliver me from evil (30)

and lead me to eternal life

through the Lord.

St. Anselm, "Prayer to God," trans. Sister Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. (1973).

On Faith, Reason, And Understanding

I acknowledge, Lord, and I thank you, that you have created in me this image of you so that I may remember you, think of you, and love you. Yet this image is so eroded by my vices, so clouded by the smoke of my sins, that it cannot do what it was created to do unless you renew and refashion it. I am not trying to scale your heights, Lord; my understanding is in no way equal to that. But I do long to understand your truth in some way, your truth which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to believe; I believe in order to understand. For I also believe that "Unless I believe, I shall not understand.”

- St. Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianpolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1995).

On Anselm: Remembering, Thinking, And Loving

I know Anselm takes some flack for the ontological argument. But it is really only from a partial reading from Chapter 2 of the Proslogion. However, if you reads the intro to the Proslogion you might agree: Anselm would have been appalled at the use of his work in "proving" God. Follow the argument from the prologue and perhaps you might see a different voice from Anselm. Chapters 16-26 are amazing. It's a short work; give it a go and let me know what you think. Anyways, the point is this: Anselm truly loved God, and I sometimes find myself reiterating his thoughts. Consider this excerpts from Chapter 1; they read like a prayer:

"Let me seek you in loving you; let me love you in finding you. Let me find you in loving you; let me love you in finding you. "I acknowledge, Lord, and I thank you, that you have created in me this image of you so that I may remember you, think of you, and love you. Yet this image is so eroded by my vices, so clouded by the smoke of my sins, that it cannot do what i twas created to do unless you renew and refashion it."

- St. Anselm, Proslogion, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Co.1995).

On Anselm's Tension Between God's Transcendence and Immanence

Taking into consideration Nietzsche's "Madman" (c.f. The Gay Science Bk. III, 125), I advance Anselm as a charitable and glorious alternative:

Truly, Lord, this is the 'inaccessible light which you dwell' (1 Tim. 6:16) For surely there is no other being that can penetrate this light so that it might see you there. Indeed, the reason that I do not see it is that it is too much for me. And yet whatever I do see, I see through it, just as a weak eye sees what it sees by the light of the sun, although it cannot look at that light directly in the sun itself. My understanding cannot see that light. It is too dazzling; my understanding does not grasp it, and the eye of the soul cannot bear to look into it for long. It is dazzled by its splendor, vanquishes by its fullness, overwhelmed by its vastness, perplexed by its extent. O supreme and inaccessible light, O complete and blessed truth, how far you are from me while I am so close to you! How far you are from my sight while I am so present to yours! You are wholly present everywhere, and yet I do not see you. "In you I move and in you I have my being" (Acts 17:28), and yet I cannot come into your presence. You are within me and all around me, and yet I do not perceive you.

Still, O Lord, you are hidden from my soul in your light and happiness, and so it still lives in its darkness and misery. It looks around, but it does not see your beauty. It listens, but it does not hear your harmony. It smells, but it does not perceive your fragrance. It tastes, but it does not know your savor. It touches, but it does not sense your softness. For you have these qualities in you, O Lord God, in your own ineffable way; and you have given them in their own perceptible way to things you created. But the senses of my soul have been stiffened, dulled, and obstructed by the long-standing weakness of sin.

- St. Anselm, Proslogion, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995), Ch 16f.