[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

and now might look up with more ardent desire. And there appeared to him, talking with the Lord, Moses, the legislator, and Elijah, the greatest emulator of divine honor, so that the presence of those five men might most truly fulfill what was said: "In two or three witnesses shall every word stand." What is more stable than that which the Highest Word stands upon, in whose preaching the trumpet of the Old and New Testaments sounds, and with the doctrine of the evangelist, the instruments of the ancient promises concur? Run, therefore, faithful soul, with the most ardent desire to those joys of supreme happiness which have already been shown to you enough by heavenly mysteries and confirmed by divine testimonies, saying with the prophet: "As the deer pants for the fountains of waters, so my soul pants for you, O God."

Concerning the washing of the disciples' feet by Christ

O admirable and imitable example of your humility, Lord Jesus! Great is the humility, indeed, for man to wash the feet of a man equal to himself; greater for an angel to wash [the feet of] a man; more so for God to wash [the feet of] men. And above all, this, which you, good Jesus, did, kneeling with your most holy hands, wiping their feet—you who knew that those sacred hands were to be polluted in your betrayal. Behold from this, faithful soul, the Lord of every creature, the Creator, the trembling Judge of the living and the dead,</column-break/>bending his knees before the feet of the man who is his traitor and betrayer. Learn that he is meek and humble of heart, and consider your own pride and blush at your impatience.

Concerning the Lord's Supper with the disciples

And clearly and strictly, according to the disposition of your wisdom, O Jesus, so that through the increments of time you might show the increments of your love: about to pass to the Father, when the time of your passion was pressing, you celebrated the supper with your apostles with overflowing, wondrous charity. In which, having fulfilled the legal feasts and washed their feet, in memory of your wondrous works, O merciful and compassionate Lord, you consecrated to us the sacrament of your body and blood, touching [us] with the highest charity, so that what was once offered as a price might be taken continually through the mystery. So that the memory of such a benefit might persist continually in us, you left behind your body as food and your blood as drink for the faithful to be taken under the species of bread and wine. O magnitude of clemency! O unheard-of love! And well, indeed, does John the beautiful evangelist speak of you, saying that since you loved your own until the end, that is, until the maximum excess of charity, you loved them, pouring out your whole self into their choice: body as food, blood as drink, soul as price, divinity as a taste of beatitude.