In his fourteenth-century Summa praedicantium, Johannes de Bromyard offers this lovely description of a creation returning thanks:
“For if the flowers continuously taking in the rays of the sun ceaselessly render back bright colors and scent, it follows by a stronger reason that we who day and night constantly receive benefits from God, both of consolation and tribulation . . . .ought to give thanks back to God . . . . .Yet many who receive youth, beauty, health and fortune give no thanks but keep on expecting more, right up to old age and the approach of death’s night, as if the flowers had decided to say, ‘We do not wish to give off odor in the day but in the night’ – which is against nature. And as that is against nature, so the words and deeds of such ingrates are against reason.”
The translation is from a 1994 JHI article by Andrew Galloway.
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