Meditation 17

“The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all.” 

Donne uses the word “catholic” in its secular sense, which is “all-embracing.” He underscores this clarification with the word “universal.” This introduces one of the themes of the meditation, which is the interconnectedness of all people, particularly those of the same church. He personifies the church through the gendered language “she”; this reflects the Christian tradition of the church as the metaphorical bride of Christ.

“God employs several translators.” 

This is a crucial aspect of the motif of God being the divine author of mortal lives. Just as people are written into life by God, so too are they translated into the afterlife. To effect this translation, God uses various means, such as old age, sickness, war, or execution. 

“And his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.”

The tone of this quote is welcoming and reassuring. It refers to the metaphor that God, the divine author, will gather all his followers at the end of time. Those who were like pages ripped from a book left blowing in the wind will be brought safely together. The place of safety will be a library, a metaphor for heaven. Donne claims that just as a book lying open is easier to read, so shall people be open to each other in heaven.

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” 

This states one of the meditation’s themes. People share a common humanity; therefore, each person loses a part of themselves upon the death of any one individual. Additionally, Donne shows his poetic side with the significant use of alliteration, a literary device entailing the repetition of consonant sounds: “death” and “diminishes”; and “man’s,” “me,” and “mankind.”

“Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” 

Initially coined in 1623, part of this quote—for whom the bell tolls—has lived on through the ages. Ernest Hemingway used it in 1940 as the title of his Spanish Civil War novel, and it was the title of a song about war, released by the heavy-metal band Metallica in 1984. This timelessness supports the theme of the quote itself and of the meditation: All people are interconnected by the shared inevitability of death.

“Affliction is a treasure and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough, that is not matured and ripened by it, made fit for God by that affliction.” 

Donne and his contemporaries of the Jacobean Age held strongly to the belief that the human condition is to suffer hardships. When they faced the reality that virtuous people sometimes suffer hardships while evil people prosper, they accepted this in a positive light. Their belief system did not question the fairness. If anything, they believed that the virtuous person was actually prospering more profoundly—accumulating treasure because they were preparing themselves to meet God in the afterlife. Donne’s use of the words “matured” and “ripened” suggest that becoming “fit” for God is a process. One begins life—in a physical or spiritual sense—in a green and juvenile state. It is only through the accumulation of affliction that the unripe soul matures.

“If a man carry treasure in bullion or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels.” 

This analogy develops the comparison of affliction to treasure. Donne offers a scenario—almost a parable—to clarify his point. If a wealthy man travels to a different country and brings with him vast amounts of money, but he has not converted the gold bullion into the actual currency of that country, the money is worthless. Likewise, if a person undergoes affliction but does not use it to contemplate God, they will arrive, at the end of their road, destitute.

“Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it.”

This quote is the application of the previous analogy. Having established that a man’s wealth is useless unless it is converted into day-to-day currency, Donne relates the idea to his audience. Tribulation, by his definition, makes a person wealthy. However, affliction isn’t enough. One can have all the troubles in the world and carry them everywhere, but this affliction is useless if not coined for proper currency. The coinage is in the reflection and the growth that comes from prayer associated with suffering. It is only through reflecting on the spiritual significance of their affliction that a person can find their way to heaven.