I bought a book on sale that I had never heard of, The Crown of Monks by Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel. Turns out Smaragdus (760-840) was a Benedictine monk at an abbey in north-east France. The introduction explains that this book is a florilegium. Well, that helped a lot. I had to look that up to discover that florilegium is derived from two Latin words flos (flower) and legere (to gather), literally a gathering of flowers. That’s sort of a fancy way of saying it’s a collection of excepts from various writings. The Crown of Monks organizes excerpts, including Bible quotations, according to various topics, for example, prayer, simplicity, patience, speech and hope.

That reminded me I had been working on my own florilegium for years. I have a note book where I jot down various prayers, poems, saying and what not else. Here’s one prayer that I first learned about 60 years ago.

God be in my head and in my understanding.
God be in my eyes and in my looking.
God be in my mouth and in my speaking.
God be in my heart and in my thinking.
God be at my end and my departing.
Sarum Primer, 1527

I love that prayer. There is something very gentle yet profound about it. How often do we ask God to be in our speaking? It might be a better world to live in if we did.

I commend creating your own florilegium. It may prove an interesting spiritual experience.

Read Psalm 19:14 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne