Lignum vitae
Bonaventure (1217–1274)
Bonaventure's Lignum vitae (Tree of Life): forty-eight meditations on the life, passion, and glorification of Christ, ordered as twelve fruits on a mystical tree, with a closing prayer for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Latin: Quaracchi critical text; English: new ScholaThomistica translation.
Prologue
Fructus I: Fruit I. The Glory of His Origin.
Fructus II: Fruit II. Humility in His Way of Life.
Fructus III: Fruit III. Sublimity of Virtue.
Fructus IV: Fruit IV. Fullness of Piety.
Fructus V: Fruit V. Confidence in Dangers.
Fructus VI: Fruit VI. Patience under Insults.
Jesus, unknown to his friends.
- When the shepherd was seized, the sheep were scattered; when the Master was taken, the disciples fled. Peter, however, as though more faithful, followed from afar even to the court of the high priest, where at the voice of a maidservant he denied with an oath that he knew Christ; and he repeated it a third time, until, the cock crowing, the kind Master looked upon his beloved disciple with a look of mercy and grace. Moved by it, Peter went out and wept bitterly. O whoever you are who at the voice of the assailing maidservant, that is of your own flesh, have insolently denied Christ who suffered for you, whether by will or by deed, remembering the passion of your most beloved Master, go out with Peter, that you may bewail yourself most bitterly, if he who looked upon weeping Peter should ever look upon you, and be inebriated with wormwood of a twofold bitterness, compunction for yourself and compassion toward Christ, so that, cleansed with Peter from the guilt of your crime, you may be filled with Peter with the spirit of holiness.
Jesus, with his face veiled.
- Presented to the council of evildoing high priests, our high priest Christ Jesus, having confessed the truth, namely that he is the Son of God, was adjudged to death as for blasphemy and suffered countless reproaches. For that venerable face, reverenced by the elders, longed for by angels, which fills all the heavens with joy, is defiled with the spittle of polluted lips, struck by impious sacrilegious hands, covered with a veil in mockery, and the Lord of all creation is buffeted like a contemptible slave, while he with most placid countenance and submissive speech truly and gently rebuked one of the servants of the high priest who struck him on the cheek: "If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil; but if well, why strikest thou me?"
O true and loving Jesus, what soul devoted to you, seeing and hearing these things, could refrain from tears and hide the grief of inward compassion?
Jesus, handed over to Pilate.
- Utterly dreadful is the impiety of the Jews, which could not be sated with such insults, but rather, raging with savage madness, exposed the soul of the just man to an impious judge like a rabid dog to be devoured. For the high priests led Jesus bound before the face of Pilate, demanding that he who knew no sin at all be put to death by the torment of the cross. But he stood meek and silent before the judge like a lamb before his shearer, while the deceitful and impious, heaping up a mass of false charges, with tumultuous outcries demand the author of life for death and preserve for life a murderous and seditious robber, preferring the wolf to the lamb, death to life, darkness to light, as foolishly as impiously. Sweet Jesus, who could be so hard as to hear with the ear of the body or ponder in mind those dreadful cries, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him," without a groan and a cry of the spirit?
Jesus, condemned to death.
- But although Pilate knew that the Jewish people were moved against Jesus by zeal not of justice but of envy, when he openly declared that he found in him no cause of death, not even a slight one, yet, overcome by human fear, he filled his own soul with bitterness and subjected the most loving King to the judgment of a cruel tyrant, namely Herod; and when he had been mocked and sent back, by a still crueler command he ordered him to stand naked in the sight of his mockers, so that the savage scourgers might tear that virginal and most pure flesh with most atrocious lashes, cruelly inflicting stripes upon stripes, bruises upon bruises. That most precious blood flowed down over the sacred sides of the innocent and most loving youth, with no guilt at all found in him. And you, lost man, who are the cause of all this shame and crushing, how do you not burst out into weeping? Behold, the most innocent Lamb, to snatch you from the sentence of just damnation, chose for your sake to be condemned by an unjust judgment. Behold, he paid for you what he did not take; and you, my wicked and impious soul, neither pay the gratitude of devotion nor render the affection of compassion.