It will help you very much for retaining a quiet mind in all adversity, to lay before your eyes the acts and miseries of My life, and evermore to carry within you a lively representation thereof. For if you imprint this in your mind, it will make you think of all things as bittersweet. Therefore, meditate at all times on My torments, and desire at My Hands continually, with sighs and tears, that I may vouchsafe to make a strong and an effectual impression in your heart of My Wounds and Passion, that you may see Me crucified at all times, and in all places, with a heart that suffers with Me; and let that lively representation banish from your soul all other imaginations. If you return in this sort from all outward to inward things, and shall dwell within your own self; if you behold in your heart My grievous torments, and Myself crucified; if you hear Me cry when I was replenished with all sorrow and bitterness, and not relieved with any consolation from My Father: My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? – you shall, being inflamed with the virtue of My Passion, have a desire to imitate Me, to suffer for Me, and to serve Me without any comfort at all, in contempt and resignation of yourself.They that serve Me with this mind, and are united unto Me for mere love only, and continue to be faithful to Me without any other respect but to please Me, and to have My will wholly fulfilled in them, these, I say, are most faithful and most special friends. And in whatever dryness or desolation they may seem to be, and with whatever temptations they seemed to be overwhelmed by, and, as it were, cast off and forsaken by Me, yet in truth they are still Mine, because they fight courageously, at their own charge, for My cause against the whole army of wicked temptations, which continually assault them in the warfare of this world; and will not revolt from My camp, although I sometimes strike and punish them.
But I do not altogether leave them; for seeing they have conquered all their passions, and renounced all their appetites to please Me, and have altogether forsaken themselves, and give themselves only to Me, in being subject only to My will; I must pour Myself into them, and fill, nourish, and possess their souls with My comfort, which is a hundred times better, purer, and sweeter than the worldly pleasure which they have forsaken. They cannot receive this if they seek or accept any foreign comfort that does not proceed from Me, or is not in Me. For My consolation is wonderfully sweet, and bestowed only upon those that will admit Me, and no other. It is also most pure, and therefore cannot be mixed with any consolation that is derived from My creatures. But why do I so often repeat these things to you? Truly I do it to make you more wise, watchful, and circumspect, and to the end that you should not be snared with these corrupt and earthly delights, nor have them cause you to forget Me, seeing I could never forget you, as your salvation depends only on My Providence.
~ Alloquia Iesu Christi ad Animam Fidelem, by Lanspergius ~
