| Chapter 2. What Happened Before the Crucifixion | ||||
After the Last Supper, when on the Mount of Olives, I gave Myself up to the pangs of cruel death, and when I felt that he was present before Me, I was bathed in a bloody sweat, because of the anguish of My tender Heart, and the agony of My whole bodily nature. I was ignominiously betrayed, taken prisoner like an enemy, rigorously bound, and led miserable away. After this I was impiously maltreated with blows, with spittle, with blindfolding, accused before Caiphas, and pronounced worthy of death. Unspeakable sorrows of heart were then seen in My dear Mother, from the first sight she had of My distress till I was hung upon the cross. I was shamefully presented before Pilate, falsely denounced, and sentenced to die. They stood over against Me with terrible eyes like fierce giants, and I stood before them like a meek lamb. I, the Eternal Wisdom, was mocked as a fool in a white garment before Herod, My fair body was rent and torn without mercy by the rude stripes of whips, My lovely countenance was drenched in spittle and blood, and in this condition I was condemned, and miserable and shamefully led forth with My cross to death. They shouted after Me very furiously, so that: Crucify, crucify the miscreant! resounded to the skies. | ||||
The Servant. Alas! Lord, the beginning is indeed so bitter, how will it end? If I were to see a wild beast so abused I should hardly be able to bear it. With what reason, then, must not Your Passion pierce my heart and soul! But, Lord, this is a great marvel to my heart; I would needs seek Your divinity, and You showest me Your humanity; I would needs seek Your sweetness, and You settest before me Your bitterness; I would needs conquer, | ||||
You teachest me to fight. Lord, what do You mean? | ||||
Eternal Wisdom. No one can attain divine exaltation or singular sweetness except by passing through the image of My human abasement and bitterness. The higher one climbs without passing through My humanity, the deeper one falls. My humanity is the way one must go, My Passion the gate through which one must penetrate, to arrive at that which you seek. | ||||
Therefore, lay aside your faint-heartedness, and enter with Me the lists of knightly resolve: for, indeed, softness beseems not the servant when his master stands ready in warlike boldness. I will put you on My coat of mail, for My entire Passion must you suffer over again according to your strength. | ||||
Make up your mind to a darting encounter, for your heart, before you will subdue your nature, must often die, and you must sweat the bloody sweat of anguish because of many a painful suffering under which I mean to prepare you for Myself; for with red blossoms will I manure your spice garden. | ||||
Contrary to old custom, must you be made prisoner and bound; you will often be secretly calumniated and publicly defamed by My adversaries; many a false judgment will people pass on you; My torments must you then diligently carry in your heart with a motherly heartfelt love. You will obtain many a severe judge of your godly life; so also will your godly ways be often mocked as folly by human ways; your undisciplined body will be scourged with a hard and severe life; you will be scoffingly crowned with persecution of your holy life; after this, if only you will issue forth from your own will and deny yourself, and shalt stand as wholly disengaged from all creatures in the things which might lead you astray in your eternal salvation, even as a dying man when he departs hence, and has nothing more to do with this world if only you will do this, then will you be led forth with Me on the miserable way of the cross. | ||||
The Servant. Woe is me, Lord, but this is a dreary pastime! My whole nature rebels against these words. Lord, how shall I ever endure it all? | ||||
Gentle Lord, one thing I must say: could You not have found out some other way, in Your eternal wisdom, to save me and show Your love for me, some way which would have exempted You from Your great sufferings, and me from their bitter participation? How very wonderful do Your judgments appear! | ||||
Eternal Wisdom. The bottomless abyss of My hidden mysteries (in which I order everything according to My eternal providence), let no one explore, for no one can fathom it. And yet, in this abyss, what you ask about and many things besides are possible, which yet never happen. However, know this much, that, in the order in which emanated beings now are, a more acceptable or more pleasing way could not be. The Lord of nature knows well what He can do in nature. He knows what is best suited to every creature, and He operates accordingly. How should man better know the hidden things of God than in His assumed Humanity? How might he, who has forfeited all joy through irregular lusts, be rendered susceptible of regular and eternal joy? | ||||
How would it be possible to follow the unpracticed way of a hard and despised life, unless it had been followed by God Himself? If you didst lie under sentence of death, how could He, who should suffer the fatal penalty in your stead, better prove His fidelity and love towards you, or better excite you to love Him in return? Him, therefore, whom My unfathomable love, My unspeakable mercy, and My bright divinity, My most affable humanity, brotherly truth, espousing friendship, cannot move to ardent love, what else shall soften his stony heart? Ask the fair array of all created beings if ever I could have maintained My justice, evinced My fathomless mercy, ennobled human nature, poured out My goodness, reconciled heaven and earth, in a way more efficacious than by My bitter death? | ||||
The Servant. Lord, truly, I begin to perceive that it is even so, and he whom want of understanding has not blinded, and who well considers the subject, must confess it to You, and extol the beautiful ways of Your love above all ways. But still to follow You is very painful to a slothful body. | ||||
Eternal Wisdom. Be not terrified at the following of My Passion. For he whose interior is so possessed by God that suffering is easy to him has no cause to complain. No one enjoys Me more in My singular sweetness than he who stands with Me in harsh bitterness. No one complains so much of the bitterness of the husks as he to whom the interior sweetness of the kernel is unknown. For him who has a good second the fight is half won. | ||||
The Servant. Lord, Your comforting words have given me such heart, that, methinks, I am able to do and suffer all things in You. Therefore, I desire that You would unlock for me the entire treasure of Your Passion, and tell me still more about it. | ||||