ASPIRATION OF A SOUL CONDOLING WITH JESUS IN HIS PASSION.
Our Lord said to St. Mechtilde: Whenever any one sighs towards me with love in meditating on my Passion, it is as though he gently touched my Wounds with a fresh-budding rose, and I wound his heart in return with the arrow of my love. Moreover, if he shed tears of devotion over my Passion, I will accept them as though he had suffered for me. And how shall I obtain this gift of tears? asked the saint. Then our Lord taught her the following prayer.
O Most tender Jesus, who didst come to seek and to save that which was lost; alas, how cruelly and how unworthily has the world treated thee, and how black has been its ingratitude to thee,who didst lay down thy beloved soul for its salvation! I condole with thee, O my most loving Brother, and I compassionate thee from my inmost heart, when I call to mind the mournful desolation in which thou, most faithful of friends, wast left by all thy friends; how thou wast ruthlessly seized as a thief and a robber, and cruelly bound, and driven towards thy death, scornfully mocked by thine enemies, and assailed with insults and outrages; and didst become as a worm and no man, the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people. Who can meditate without tears on the loving gentleness with which thou went est forth to meet thine
