Rising And Sitting

Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere. In vanum est enim intus homini absque divina gratia laborare. Surgite postquam sederitis, qui manducatis panem doloris. Si vultis in excelso esse, estote hic humiles, ubi humilis fuit ille, qui pro nobis pauper fuit factus, ut ibi excelsi sitis, ubi ille sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris. Surrectio exaltationem significat, sessio humilitatem designat. Aliis locis sessio intelligitur ab honore judicandi, ut illic: Sedebitis vos super sedes duodecim. Item sessio humilitatem significat, ut illic: Jesus fatigatus ex itinere sedebat sic super fontem. Nam et in alio psalmo dicitur: Domine, tu cognovisti sessionem meam, et resurrectionem meam, id est, humilitatem meam et exaltationem meam. Ut ergo intelligeretur, ad quam pertineret haec sessio formam, addidit statim: Qui manducatis panem doloris. Manducant panem doloris, qui gemunt in hac peregrinatione. Coelestem ergo desiderio anhelemus patriam: hic humiliatio, illic exaltatio; hic peregrinatio, illic patria. Humiliemur sub potenti manu Dei, ut nos exaltet in tempore visitationis. Alcuinus, Expositio in Psalmos Graduales, Psalmus CXXVI Source: Migne PL 100.628d-629b

It is vain for you to rise before the light. 1 It is in vain for the interior man to labour without Divine grace. You rise up after sitting, you who eat the bread of grief. If you wish to be on high, be humble here, where He was humble who was made a poor man for us, so that you may be raised up there where He sits at the right hand of the Father. This rising signifies exaltation, sitting humility. In other places sitting is understood as the honour given to judging, so that, 'You shall sit upon twelve seats.' 2 This same sitting signifies humility, where it says, 'Jesus was weary from the journey and sat on the well.' 3 And in another Psalm it is said, 'Lord, you know my sitting and my rising,' 4 that is, my humility and my exaltation. And so that it might be understood to which sitting this line refers, he immediately added, 'You who eat the bread of grief.' They eat the bread of grief who groan in this journeying. Therefore let us gasp with desire for the fatherland. Here be humble, there be exalted, here is journeying, there is the fatherland. Let us humble ourselves under the powerful hand of God, so that he might exalt us in the time of His visitation. 5 Alcuin of York, Commentary on the Gradual Psalms, from Psalm 126 1 Ps 126.2 2 Mt 19.28 3 Jn 4.6 4 Ps 138.2 1 Pet 5.6