[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

came to men by the mystery of the incarnation. He did nothing that does not have a cause for our salvation or instruction. Whence, the fact that at twelve years old He sat in the temple in the midst of the doctors, hearing and questioning them, He did by a providential disposition. Not so that He himself might learn what He does not know, but so that, being questioned, He might teach. For from one and the same fountain flows both asking and answering. Also, so that through their answers He might show their blindness regarding the understanding of the divine law, and by the marvelous arguments of His own wisdom, He might overcome their perfidy. Furthermore, the fact that He sat in the temple, which is the place of doctrine, in the midst of the doctors hearing and asking them—this is not without mystery, because He gave to us the chief example of humility in this. For the power of God, and the wisdom of God, and the eternal Truth—which says, "I, Wisdom, dwell in counsel" Proverbs 8:12—deigned to come to hear men after being led into the human state, so that He might provide a form of learning for men who are endowed with the highest ingenuity, lest if any refused to become disciples of the truth, they might become masters of error. Therefore, faithful soul, strive to imitate the form of this humility of your Savior in the exercises of your studies. Both because through the steps of humility one ascends to the summits of heaven, and God, who is exalted, is reached not by pride but by humility. And because He gives His grace to the humble, and reveals the hidden arcana of His divinity to the little ones through the humility of His kindness, which He hides from the proud.

Concerning the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist

Do not wonder, faithful soul, that the son
of God wills to be baptized by a man. For
He did this not out of any anxious necessity of
abolishing any of His own sin—He who committed
no sin—but by a pious dispensation to wash away
the sins of all our thoughts, in which we offend
in many ways. He came indeed to be baptized
in the waters, the very revealers of the waters,
so that He might insinuate to us—who were
conceived in iniquity and generated in
delicts—the mystery of the second birth
which is celebrated through water and the
Spirit. He deigned to be washed in the waters of
the Jordan, so that He might sanctify the
currents of waters for the washing away of the
filth of our crimes. O admirable baptism of
Christ, where He who is immersed is the
fountain of purity! Where, while He who is
received is washed by the water, it is not
defiled by filth, but is honored by blessings.
O admirable baptism of the Savior, in which
the currents are purged rather than they
purging Him. I say that in this new kind of
sanctification, the water is not so much washing
Christ as it has been washed by Him. For even
when the Savior immersed Himself into the water,
from that moment the passage of all currents
and the fountains of all things were born again
into the mystery