to be scourged for thy transgressions, call to mind at once the thought of the all-sinless Jesus stripped, for thy sake, of His clothes, and for thy sake grievously scourged; and willingly get thyself ready to receive discipline in memory of the Passion of thy Lord, and to expiate thy sins. Fall humbly upon thy knees, lay by thy scapular, take off thy habit, bow thy neck, offer thy whole body to the discipline which has been ordered thee, and between the strokes, as they fall upon thee, meditate devoutly thus: " I gave my back to the smiters, and my affliction is ever in my sight: wash me yet more, O Lord, from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin: against Thee only have I sinned, and done evil in Thy sight: therefore have I justly deserved to receive discipline." It is better for thee now with good will to receive temporal punishment, than hereafter to be condemned to everlasting torments. For those who shrink now from being scourged as Jesus was, will, in the life which is to come, be shut out from the Kingdom of Christ, as children who are unworthy of it.
O altogether sweet Jesus, Who for me, the chief of sinners, wast most cruelly scourged, grant that I may gaze with a heart full of sorrow upon each wound made upon Thy sacred Body by the scourge, and that I may kiss it with heartfelt fervent love; and so may feel the savour of life, and the medicine of eternal salvation, flowing forth from thence upon me. Set me aflame with the fire of that boundless love, with which Thou didst prove that Thou lovedst me, when Thou didst vouchsafe most patiently to endure so many blows of the cruel scourge for me, Thy servant lying under condemnation. When tribulation of any kind comes upon me, grant, I pray Thee, to my
