Laude XC. Sopr'onne lengua, Amore
The opening lines of this laude impact strongly on the reader because of their beauty and ease of memorization:
Sopr’onne lengua Amore,
bontà senza figura,
lume for de mesura
resplende nel mio core.
(lines 1-2)
Love beyond all telling,
indescribable goodness,
light of infinite intensity
shines in my heart.
These are the verses of a great poet who, after a life of struggle and pain, had achieved the perfect joy of St Francis and the bliss that Jesus promised to the poor in spirit. Have you ever met a happier person than the one described in these verses? This exhilarating condition is what Edgar Morin describes as “the feeling of fusion with the Absolute”.
This opening is followed, in orderly sequence, by a series of perceptions…
1. …that turned his life and his awareness of the truth upside-down:
Or, parme, fo fallanza,
non se’ quel che credea,
tenendo non avea
veretà senza errore.
(lines 7-8)
I know now that I was wrong:
you're not what I thought,
that truth was flawed.
This is, surely, what Morin described as “the paradoxical state in which one finds oneself lost”.
2. ...that derive from fully attaining Gospel poverty of spirit:
Però c’ha sé perduto
tutto senza mesura,
possede quell’altura
de summa smesuranza;
(lines 39-40)
For having lost herself
without measure,
the soul rises to heights
beyond measure
True transformation involves gaining God by losing oneself. The experience of God requires, firstly, complete renunciation of the ego, what Jesus called being ‘poor in spirit’ – something Jacopone himself actualised in the last decade of his life.
3. ... that overturned all his parameters of judgment and evaluation:
Emprima che si gionto,
pensa che è tenebrìa
che pensi che sia dia,
che luce, oscuritate.
(lines 63-64)
Before being united [with God]
she considered as night
what she now sees is day,
and light what is instead darkness.
“Before attaining the experience of God”, Jacopone seems to say, “if you have not reached the point where nothing is left of your ego and your presumption, then everything that seems true to you will be false; true love is not in you as long as you are concerned for yourself and appearing to be right”.
4. ... that showed him how to relate to God:
Donqua, te lassa trare,
quando esso te toccasse
se forsa te menasse
veder sua veritate;
(lines 75-76)
So let yourself be drawn
when he touches you;
maybe he will lead you
to see his truth
To experience God, you must let yourself be taken, almost by surprise. The initiative does not rest with us. We must learn an attitude of receiving, as one receives a gift – like one who knows how to hope; like one who loves with trust...
5. …that finally gave him peace of heart:
La guerra è termenata,
de le vertù battaglia,
de la mente travaglia;
cosa nulla contende.
(lines 129-130)
The war is over —
the struggles of virtue,
the labours of the soul:
all have been vanquished
The experience of God allows Jacopone to look back over his life and make the most satisfying observation: “The war is over”. As Jesus promised, “you will find rest for your soul”.
6. ... that showed denying oneself does not weaken us, but gives us an invincible strength:
Alta nichilitate,
tuo atto è tanto forte,
c’apre tutte le porte,
entra ne lo ’nfinito;
(lines 171-72)
Lofty nothingness,
your force is so strong,
that it opens all doors,
and enters the infinite;
7. ... that revealed a wonderful unity:
Possedi posseduta
en tanta unione,
non c’è divisione
che te da lui retragga;
tu bevi e se’ bevuta…
(lines 195-97)
In being possessed you possess,
in a union
where no division
separates you from him.
As you drink, you are being drunk…
Teresa of Avila, it is said, heard Jesus say: “Teresa, look for yourself in me, and look for me in yourself”. Jacopone has learned that in Christ, the gulf between divine and human is cancelled out, disappears.
8. ... that defined poverty of spirit as the way to see the Truth:
Però pregam Madonna
che de te sì n’ammanti,
davanti a lei far canti,
amar senza fallura
veder senza figura
la somma veritate
co la nichilitate
del nostro pover core.
(lines 239-42)
Therefore we ask the Madonna
to cover us with you [i.e. nothingness],
that our song might rise before Him
and we might love with purity,
and see without images
the deepest and highest Truth
through the nothingness
of our poor hearts.