dearest crucified Jesus opened my mind that I might understand the passages of Scripture that were befitting to the times, and He raised up my spirit that I might perceive how the people were absorbed by vanity. . . . And reading, I clearly and rightly understood the abomination of desolation which penetrated the holy spot, strongly, broadly, and widely. And I was much frightened, and I was seized with sobbing, which continueth now and for ever. And I began to repeat the complaint of Jeremiah, calling on all to lament over the crimes of Jerusalem, the daughter of his nation. Then there entered into my breast a certain fire, even bodily perceivable, new, strong, strange, but very sweet. This fire endures within me up to now, and the stronger it burns the more am I in my prayers raised up to God and to the Lord Jesus the Crucified; it (the fire) never disappears except when I forget Jesus Christ, or speak vainly, or become lax in the discipline of eating and drinking (i.e., in fasting). Then am I immediately obscured perceivably, and become useless for all good works till I again turn to Jesus Christ with much groaning and many lamentations. . . . When I tremble before the judgment-seat of Christ, who so soon casts men into the hell of condemnation and again leads them back into the state of grace, then this fire returns to me and surrounds anew my inner man, so that I am prepared for everything that is good. And then I receive this suggestion which is written down and runs thus: ‘Son of man, pierce the wall.’ And I obeyed the voice of my God and I pierced the wall in a threefold fashion, that is by preaching daily to the people, by constantly hearing confessions and by writing this[1] (book) with much solicitude both by day and by night.”
It is obvious through this self-confession that it was by means of the humiliations and tribulations of his troublous life that Matthew was led to renounce the ambitions of his youth, and even to denounce strongly the corrupt system of
- ↑ i.e. the Regulae.
