Therefore if any remedies are offered me, give them strength, that they may take effect in me: if not, work patience in my soul, for that is the most certain and most present remedy against all diseases and ills.
But, behold, I acknowledge thee now to be a Physician indeed. It is the office of the physician, by a potion that is even bitter, or Dy any sharp remedy, to expel the noxious humour from the body of the patient. This is what thou art doing now, O heavenly Physician, by this affliction of my body. Thy remedy, I own, is sharp and unpleasant to my flesh; but an intemperate and disobedient patient makes his physician severe.
For it is true, and why should I deny it, that I have often pampered my flesh; I have fed it with delicacies; I have contracted a vast mass of noxious bile and of vicious humour; and so thou judgest perhaps that opposite complaints are to be cured by opposite remedies. Be it. so, O Lord; let the flesh be given to destruction, so the spirit be saved. "When merry, the flesh has drawn us into sin; now that it is afflicted, oh that it may restore us to pardon! Burn it, cut it, only spare it for eternity.
PRAYER
To Christ praying in the Garden at the beginning of his Passion.
For grace and comfort at the hour of death.
My soul is sorrowful even unto death; and going a little further, he fell upon his face, praying, and saying: My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And being in an agony, he prayed the longer. And his sweat became as drops of Blood, trickling down upon the ground. O Jesus Christ, Ruler of Heaven and earth, the strength, the fortitude, and the victory of Martyrs, who through thee trample upon death, and in death rejoice like conquerors! Whence, then, that fear of thine? Whence thy so anxious supplication? Whence that so strange and unheard-of Sweat of Blood? Wert thou not offered, because it was thy own will? Was it not entirely of thy own accord that thou offeredst that sacrifice to God the Father?
Who is there but must be afraid, O Lord, if thou, whom all things fear, art afraid? Who but must fall down dead, if thou, before whom is bent every knee, fall on thy face? Who will not tremble at the sight of death, if thy fear,
