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The Servant.--Thou hast revealed to me the measureless
sufferings which Thou didst suffer in Thy exterior Man on the
gibbet of the cross, how cruelly tormented Thou wast, and
encompassed about with the bands of miserable death.
Alas! Lord, how was it beneath the cross? Or was there not one at
its foot whose heart was pierced by Thy woeful death? Or how didst
Thou bear Thyself in Thy sufferings towards Thy sorrowing Mother?
Eternal Wisdom.--Oh, listen now to a woeful thing, and let
it sink into thy heart. When, as thou hast heard, I hung suspended
in mortal anguish before them, behold, they stood over against Me,
and, with their voices, called out scoffingly to Me, wagging their
heads contemptuously, and scorning Me utterly in their hearts, as
though I had been a loathsome worm. But I was firm amidst it all,
and prayed fervently for them to My heavenly Father; behold, I,
the innocent Lamb, was likened to the guilty thieves; by one of
these was I reviled, but by the other invoked. I listened to his
prayer and forgave him all his evil deeds. I opened to him the
celestial paradise. Hearken to a lamentable thing.
I gazed around Me and found Myself utterly abandoned by all
mankind, and those very friends who had followed Me, stood now
afar off; yea, My beloved disciples had all fled from Me. Thus was
I left naked, and stripped of all My clothes. I had lost all power
Andes without victory. They treated Me without pity, but I bore
Myself like a meek and silent lamb. On whichever side I turned I
was encompassed by bitter distress of heart.
Below Me stood My sorrowful Mother, who suffered in the bottom of
her motherly heart all that I suffered in My body. My tender heart
was, in consequence, deeply touched, because I alone knew the
depth of her great sorrow, and beheld her distressful gestures and
heard her lamentable words. I consoled her very tenderly at My
mortal departure, and commended her to the filial care of My
beloved disciple, and gave the disciple in charge to her maternal
fidelity.
The Servant.--Ah, gentle Lord, who can here refrain from
sighing inwardly, and weeping bitterly? Yes, Thou beautiful
Wisdom, how could they, the fierce lions, the raging wolves, be so
ungentle to Thee, Thou sweet Lamb, as to treat Thee thus?
Tender God, oh, that Thy servant had but been there to represent
all mankind! Oh, that I had stood up there for my Lord, or else
had gone to bitter death with my only Love; or, had they not
chosen to kill me with my only Love, that I yet might have
embraced, with the arms of my heart, in sorrow and desolation, the
hard stone socket of the cross, and, when it burst asunder for
very pity, that my wretched heart, too, might have burst with the
desire to follow my Beloved.
Eternal Wisdom.--It was by Me from all eternity ordained, that
when My hour was come, I alone should drink the cup of My bitter
Passion for all mankind. But thou, and all those who desire to
imitate Me, deny yourselves, and take up, each of you, your own
cross, and follow Me. For this dying to yourselves is as agreeable
to Me as though you had actually gone with Me to bitter death
itself.
The Servant.--Gentle Lord, teach me then, how I should die with
Thee, and what my own cross is. For, truly, Lord, since Thou hast
died for me, I ought not to live any more for myself.
Eternal Wisdom.--When thou dost strive to do thy best as well as
thou dost understand it, and for so doing, dost earn scornful
words and contemptuous gestures from thy fellow men, and they so
utterly despise thee in their hearts that they regard thee as
unable, nay, as afraid, to revenge thyself, and still thou continuest not only firm and unshaken in thy conduct, but dost
lovingly pray for thy revilers to thy heavenly Father, and dost
sincerely excuse them before Him; lo! as often as thou diest thus
to thyself for love of Me, so often is My own death freshly
renewed and made to bloom again in thee.
When thou dost keep
thyself pure and innocent and still thy good works are so
misrepresented, that with the joyful consent of thy own heart thou
art reckoned as one of the wicked, and that from the bottom of thy
heart thou art as ready to forgive all the injury thou hast
received as though it never had happened, and, moreover, to be
useful to and assist thy persecutors by word and deed, in
imitation of My forgiveness of My crucifiers, then truly art thou
crucified with thy Beloved.
When thou dost renounce the love of
all mankind, and all comfort and advantage, so far as thy absolute
necessities will allow, the forsaken state in which thou dost then
stand, forsaken by all earthly love, fills up the place of all
those who forsook Me when My hour was come. When thou dost stand,
for My sake, so disengaged from all thy friends in those things by
means of which they are an impediment between Me and thee, even as
though thy friends did not belong to thee, then art thou to Me a
dear disciple and brother, standing at the foot of My cross, and
helping Me to support My sufferings.
The voluntary detachment of
thy heart from temporal things, and its devotion to Me, clothe and
adorn My nakedness. When, in every adversity which may befall thee
from thy neighbour, thou art oppressed for the love of Me, and
dost endure the furious wrath of all men from whichever side its
blast come, how fiercely soever it come, and whether thou be right
or wrong, as meekly as a silent lamb, so that, in virtue o' thy
meek heart, and sweet words, and gentle looks, thou disarmest the
malice of the hearts of thy enemies; behold even this is the true
image of My death accomplished in thee.
Yes, wherever I find this
likeness, what delight and satisfaction have I not then, and My
heavenly Father also, in man. Oh, carry but My bitter death in the
bottom of thy heart, and in thy prayers, and in the manifestation
of thy works, and then wilt thou fulfill the sufferings and
fidelity of My immaculate Mother and My beloved disciple.
The Servant.--Ah, loving Lord, my soul implores Thee to accomplish
the perfect imaging of Thy miserable Passion on my body and in my
soul, be it for my pleasure or my pain, to Thy highest praise and
according to Thy blessed will. I desire, also, in particular, that
Thou wouldst describe something more of the great sorrow of Thy
sorrowing Mother, and wouldst relate to me how she bore herself in
the hour that she stood under the cross.
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