NEUOFFENBARUNGTo sing to the Lord on a cloudy day
1. However dull there may be a day from the earliest morning until the latest evening; an image, yes, a most glorious image it remains nevertheless for a heart that only loves You, oh Holy Father.
2. What could be more faithful to present the present sad and sorrowful time to our sensual eyes than just such a real gloomy day, since the glorious light from the sun must work it’s way through all the masses and masses and layers and layers only laboriously and endlessly broken and completely torn, to grant comfort to yet a few on the ground of the faithless earth.
3. Who does not know the endless masses and layers of clouds for the heart, for the spirit and for the spiritual life, which now everywhere cloud the heavens of living faith even most densely?
4. Therefore, you gloomy day are to me welcome, welcome, a hospitable friend; for you preach the purest truth to the little ones and the big ones without fear and without consideration, so that they are to see how now their hearts are well constituted.
5. But if we want to illuminate and show each other how love and faith stand, no one dares to come out with the purest truth, because he must always take into account and always consider with whom he is speaking.
6. Oh you times, you times, how hard it is to argue with you now! The brothers no longer recognize each other, and neither wants to hear the other, while every one thinks himself more than his brother, and no-one trusts the other. And if even the wiser would like to proclaim something to the less wise, he must always pay attention to a thousand considerations; otherwise he has found the judge in his brother.
7. And if such has happened, then woe to the poor, the wiser brother; for then he too is ruthlessly condemned to legal punishments, either with threatening words, yes, not seldom even in deed.
8. For the flattering lies, only for these are always given ample premiums; but for a purest truth, no-one wants to pay the most disdainful heller.
9. That is why you are so dear to me, oh most gloomy day, in that you proclaim the purest truth completely without consideration and show in the clearest mirror, which is formed there from the masses and masses of densest clouds, to the wisest eye at least, how there is constituted now all the most deceptive world.
10. Oh You holy, most loving Father! How shall I thank You for such sublime grace that You have let me recognize such a faithful prophet in this day that seems most unkind to me?!
11. Now I will certainly not call any of the gloomy days unkind anymore; for they are messengers from You and proclaim with a clearly audible voice to the most sinful earth, what she indeed carries for generations, how many resemble the dullest day here and some seek the sun of life, but they are always unable to find it’s position due to the dullness.
12 But although we can see, as if by an inner light, how things stand now for mankind on earth, such an admonishing messenger is always welcome to us, for he tells us more in a second than we are able to show ourselves with difficulty in many tedious hours.
13 So take then, Oh Most Holy Father, also the most heartfelt thanks for this. For You are always the purest love, and everything You give us is good; so also such a gloomy clouded day. Oh let more often the earth become just such days; they are indeed very faithful guardians and teachers of the people, who find nothing but only the world beautiful. I thank you, oh most Holy Father, therefore also for the gloomy day. Amen, Amen