Lignum vitae

Jesus, despised by all.

25. After Pilate had adjudged that the wishes of the wicked should be fulfilled, it was not enough for those sacrilegious soldiers to crucify the Saviour unless they first filled their own soul with mockery. For when the whole cohort was gathered in the praetorium, stripping him of his own garments and clothing him in a scarlet tunic, they put a purple cloak about him, and with a crown of thorns set upon his head and a reed in his right hand, they mocked him with bent knee and struck him with blows, and spitting upon him, they beat that sacred head with the reed. Consider now, O pride of the human heart, which flees reproach and aspires to honors: who is this who enters, bearing the likeness of a King, and yet filled with the confusion of a most despised servant? He himself is your King and your God, who was reckoned as a leprous man and the last of men, to snatch you from eternal confusion and to heal you of the plague of pride. Woe therefore to them once and woe again, who after so splendid a mirror of humility are lifted on high in pride, holding the Son of God up to scorn anew, whom it is agreed is all the more worthy of honorificence from men the more unworthy things he endured for men.

Jesus, nailed to the cross.

26. When the wicked were now sated with the reproaches of the most meek King, our King is again clothed in his own garments, to be stripped anew, and bearing his cross for himself he is led to the place of Calvary, and there, stripped wholly, his loins covered only with a cheap cloth, and thrown down roughly upon the wood of the cross, spread out, stretched and dragged and extended on every side as a hide, he is pierced by the points of the nails, his sacred hands and feet fixed to the cross and most cruelly wounded. His garments too are given as plunder and divided into parts, the seamless tunic passing undivided by lot to one man.

See now, my soul, how he who is God blessed above all things is plunged wholly from the sole of his foot to the crown into the waters of the passion, and waters entered even unto his soul, that he might draw you wholly out of those sufferings. For crowned with thorns he is commanded to bend his back beneath the burden of the cross and to bear his own ignominy, and led to the place of punishment he is stripped of his garment, so that from the blows of the scourges across his back and sides, with the bruises and rents of his flesh laid open, he seemed as a leper, and then pierced with nails your beloved might appear to you, cut for your healing with wound upon wound. Who will grant me that my petition may come, and that God may give me what I await, that I may be pierced wholly both in mind and in flesh and fastened to the gibbet of the cross with my beloved?

Jesus, joined with thieves.

27. For the increase of confusion, ignominy of disgrace and sorrow, the innocent Lamb is lifted upon the cross outside the gate in the place of punishment for criminals, on a solemn day, at the hour of noon, in the midst of thieves as for a spectacle, his friends weeping and his enemies insulting. For both those passing by moved their heads, and those standing by heaped revilings, saying that he who had saved others could not now save himself. But one of the thieves by no means abstained from mockery of this kind, while yet the most gentle Lamb with the sweetness of devotion interceded with the Father both for those crucifying and those mocking him, and with most generous charity promised paradise to the thief who confessed and supplicated. O word of all sweetness and pardon: Father, forgive them. O word of all love and grace: This day thou shalt be with me in paradise. Breathe now in the hope of pardon, O soul, however sinful, if only you do not shrink from following the footsteps of the Lord your God suffering for you, "who in all his afflictions did not once open his mouth so as even lightly to speak a word of complaint or excuse or threat or curse against those accursed dogs, but rather poured out over his enemies a word of new blessing such as has not been heard for ages." Say therefore with great confidence: Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for my soul trusteth in thee, that perhaps in the manner of the confessing thief you may merit to hear in the moment of death: This day thou shalt be with me in paradise.

Jesus, given gall to drink.

28. Afterwards Jesus knowing that all things were accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst. And when a cup of vinegar mixed with gall was held out to him with a sponge, as John who was present attests, he added: It is consummated, as if in the taste of vinegar and gall consisted the completed fullness of the whole most bitter passion. For since through the taste of the sweet and forbidden wood the transgressor Adam became the cause of all our perdition, it was fitting and meet that by the contrary way the remedy of our salvation should be found. Since too in each of his members the darts of the sharpest sufferings warring against him multiplied, whose indignation drank up his spirit, it was fitting that the mouth and tongue, the vehicles of food and speech, should by no means remain exempt, that in our physician that prophecy might be verified: He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath inebriated me with wormwood, but that in his most sweet and most loving Mother that too might be fulfilled: He hath made me as it were desolate, wasted with sorrow all the day long. What tongue suffices to tell or what intellect to grasp the weight of your desolations, blessed Virgin?

You who, standing present at all these things set forth above and made a partaker in every way, beheld with bodily sight that blessed and most holy flesh which you had so chastely conceived, so sweetly nourished and fed with milk, so often laid in your bosom and pressed with lip to lips, now torn by the blows of the scourges, now pierced by the points of the thorns, now struck with the reed, now bruised with palms and fists, now pierced with nails and fixed to the beam of the cross and hanging grievously mangled, now held in all mockery, and at last given gall and vinegar to drink. But you also beheld with the eyes of the mind that most divine soul filled with the gall of all bitterness, now groaning in spirit, now fearing, now wearying, now in agony, now anguished, now troubled, now most sorrowful with all sadness and grief, partly for the most keen sense of bodily suffering, partly for the most fervent zeal for the divine honor taken away by sin, partly for the outpoured affection of compassion upon the wretched, and partly for the dart fixed in the depths of your heart by compassion for you, his most sweet Mother, when he saw you set before him and regarded you with devoted eyes and addressed you with gentle words, saying: Woman, behold thy son, to console your soul amid its straits, which he truly knew to be pierced by the sword of his compassion more than if you suffered in your own body.