CHAPTER XV. From The Fond Caresses Which The Soul Has Has With God Beneath The Cross, She Returns Again To His Passion
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.