[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

Peter, but what Peter binds, Christ attests to it by himself. "Whatever you shall bind upon earth," etc. What a present dignity! What a worthy power! Peter shall judge, and the Almighty confirms the judgments of Peter, and the hand of the Highest is in the hand of Peter. And because only he will be made familiar to Christ who has had the familiarity of Peter, as Bernard says. Strive, devoted soul, to have the most blessed Apostle Peter as your advocate, so that he himself, as a good doorkeeper, may open the kingdom of heaven to you.

Concerning the glorification of Christ before his disciples

Recognize, faithful soul, the reason for the pious dispensation: why our Savior wished to demonstrate the clarity of his glory to his disciples. Three causes stood out most importantly. First, indeed, because the exhortation of the Savior often breathed this, and it was fitting that he who wishes to follow him should deny himself and hold the detriment of temporal things to be the lightest, because those who do not fear to lose their soul in Christ shall save it. So that, therefore, the apostles might conceive in their whole heart that fortitude of happy constancy, and might tremble at nothing regarding the harshness of the cross to be assumed, and might not blush at the torture of Christ, lest</column-break/>they believe that patience which was so sudden, that the severity of the passion did not admit the glory of power, to be shameful to themselves. Jesus took Peter and John and James his brother, more excellent than the other disciples, and, having ascended a high mountain with them apart, he demonstrated the clarity of his glory. Therefore, the Lord opened his glory before the chosen witnesses, which he clarified with such splendor, common to that form of body with the others, that his face was like the brightness of the sun and his garments were equal to the whiteness of snow. In that transfiguration, however, that was principally done so that he might take away the scandal of the cross from the orders of the apostles, and not disturb their faith. The humanity of the passion, to those to whom it had been revealed, was hidden by the excellence of his dignity. Second, it was also done by wondrous providence, because through this the hope of the holy Church is most firmly founded, so that the whole body of Christ might recognize, by this token, what kind of consortium of honor those members would be granted, which would have shone forth in the head. But the same Lord had said this while he was speaking of the magnitude of his advent: "Then the just shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Third, so that the disciples, incited by the revelation of such glory, might more easily despise worldly things and in