I showed you
above
how we can elevate the mind from the things we sense to the
contemplation of divinity. Now you will learn a way to take these same
things as a starting point for meditation on the incarnate Word,
considering the most holy mysteries of his life and of his passion.
Everything in the universe can serve this aim. If, as I said above, you
consider in these things the most high God as the first cause that gave
them all of their being, their beauty and their superiority, then pass
from this to consider how great and immense is their goodness. Even
though he be the sole principle and Lord of everything created, he
desired to lower himself to such a level as to make himself man, to
suffer and die for mankind, allowing that men themselves take up
weapons against him in order to crucify him. In particular, many things
after this bring before the eyes of our minds these holy mysteries,
such as weapons, ropes, whips, columns, thorns, reeds, nails, hammers,
and others that were instruments of his passion.
Poor housing reminds us of the stable and the manger of the Lord. When
it rains, that divine and bloody rain comes to mind: dripping from his
most holy body, it irrigated the land of the garden. The stones we see
represent those that split at the moment of his death; the ground will
suggest the earthquake that occurred; the sun, those shadows that
obscured it. (
Matthew
27.51;
Mark
15.38;
Luke
23.44) Seeing the waters, we remember those that flowed from his
most holy side (
John
19.34). I speak in this same manner about other similar things.
Tasting wine or other drinks, recall the vinegar and gall of your Lord (
John
19.29). If sweet aromas allure you, hurry with your mind to the
stench of corpses he smelled on Calvary. When you dress, remember that
the eternal Word clothed himself with human flesh in order to clothe
you with his divinity; when you undress, think of your Christ stripped
in order to be whipped and nailed to a cross for you. Hearing the
noises and hubbub of the crowds, remember those abominable words that
thundered in his ears:
"Crucify him,
crucify him; take him away, take him away" (
John
19.6). Every stroke of the clock should remind you of that
wearisome heartbeat that your Jesus was pleased to hear when he began
to fear his approaching passion and death in the garden; or else your
should seem to hear those harsh blows by which he was nailed to the
cross.
On every occasion that sadness and sorrows present themselves to you
— be they your own, or those of another — think that they
are as nothing in comparison to the unspeakable anguish that pierced
and afflicted both body and soul of your Lord.