Sentimental Hate Speech: The Prioress’s Tale “She was so charitable and so pitous, She wolde weke if that she saugh a mous Kaught in a trappe if it were deed or bledde.” (General Prologue)

Vignette: Spiritual Anxiety The Last Judgment: Christ, the Virgin, and Saint John (Stefan Kochner, c. 1435)

Alma redemptoris mater Alma Redemptoris Mater, quæ pervia cæli Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti, Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quæ genuisti, Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore Sumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere. Loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again. To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners. Ave Maria Avé María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus. Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus, nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae. Ámen.

Miracles of the Virgin (from John of Morigny’s Book of Flowers, c. 1300) When I, John, was about fourteen years old and lived in the city of Chartres in the close of the blessed Mary, very near to the church, about a stone’s throw away, this vision was shown to me as to one born out of due time. On a certain night I was placed as though in ecstasy, whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows. And lo, I saw a certain horrible figure, and it seemed to me absolutely certain that it was the enemy of the human race. And that figure rose up against me, wishing and craving to suffocate me. When I saw it I fled aghast in great fear from its terrible face, and it pursued me hither and thither, and could not catch me, and yet pressed upon me as it followed, so that I left the house I was in, fleeing from the face of my persecutor. And when I went outside it did not cease to follow; and retreating in great fear, with altered course I ran towards the church of the blessed Mary. I entered it through the right hand door of the main entrance on the west front, and when I was in the church, I immediately lifted my eyes--I was next to the door at some distance from it --towards the image of the blessed virgin Mary. And lo, suddenly the devoted virgin Mary counseled me sweetly with a sign of her arm that I should come to her. After seeing this I ran to her quickly and fled as though to the true comfort and refuge of sinners, guarding myself under her protection and under her hand. And I did not see my persecutor the devil any more after that; I had completely evaded his hand by the invocation, help and protection of the blessed Mary, the glorious undefiled mother of God. I was placed in such tranquility I immediately woke up.

Psalm 8 For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

John 12:24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Reversal: a fundamental Christian structure (Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter One) For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.