[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

the mystery of baptism, so that when anyone wishes to be baptized in the name of the Lord, not only does the water of the world wash him, but the wave of Christ purifies him. Therefore, the Savior wished to be baptized, not to acquire cleanliness for himself, but to cleanse the waters for us. Furthermore, observe, faithful soul, that Christ, being baptized, saw the Holy Spirit descending upon him, heard the voice of the Father confessing him to be his Son, and saw the heaven opened. Do not understand it in such a way that the Son did not have all these things before his baptism, but rather so that he might show the sacrament of baptism, what it is worth. For the Trinity appeared in the baptism for this reason: that each one might know what he receives in baptism. For then each one receives the Holy Spirit, the filth of sins having been washed away, where he begins to be a son of God through the grace of adoption; and then the door of the kingdom of heaven is opened to him, and he becomes a companion of the whole fatherland and of the holy angels. Strive, therefore, faithful soul, that you do not shut against yourself the door of the heavenly fatherland, which has been opened to you by the divine mysteries of humanity, through allurements.

Concerning Christ's forty-day fast and his temptation by the devil

O how stupendous are your works, O Lord! You fasted, good Jesus, for forty days

and forty nights, certainly not out of an anxious necessity to repress some vices of the mind, or so that you might curb the flesh, which is rebellious to the spirit, with the harshness of fasting. For in the holy mind of the Holy One, all these things have no place and cannot have place, but so that you might macerate your innocent flesh for us out of immense charity, and that you might provide an example of fasting to the faithful, and instruct them how good fasting is and how it is a shield against the devil. Moreover, sweetest Jesus, after the fast was celebrated, when you had received hunger in the mind of our infirmity, you permitted yourself to be tempted by the devil for that cause of piety, that you might instruct us how we might overcome the temptations of the devil, which flourish especially in holy men, by your example and doctrine. In all these things, indeed, there is the reason for our salvation. You, indeed, hunger for us, and speak for us. We overcome in the mind because we are to be purged for you. For who would cast off the only-begotten of the Father, to whom no creature could offer opposition, for having entered into the struggle for us? Therefore, my faithful souls, since we have recognized the victories of the fasting Lord and the triumph of our salvation, let us sanctify our fasts with religious services. And what else is it to sanctify a fast, but to will to do just things and avoid iniquitous ones for the sake of the fast?