[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

but what Peter binds here, Christ himself testifies to it: "Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, etc." O how powerful a dignity, how worthy a power! Peter will judge, and the Almighty confirms the judgments of Peter, and the hand of the Most High is in the hand of Peter. And because he alone is made familiar to Christ who has had perfect familiarity, as Bernard says: "Strive, devoted soul, to have the most blessed apostle Peter as an advocate, so that he, as a good porter, may open the kingdom of heaven to you."

Concerning the clarification of Christ before His disciples

Acknowledge, faithful soul, the reason for this pious dispensation: that our Savior willed to demonstrate the clarity of His glory to His disciples. There were three main causes. First, because the expectation of the Savior often breathed this, desired this: that those wishing to follow Him should deny themselves, and through hope, consider our temporal loss as most light, because he who did not fear to lose his soul in Christ would finally save it. Therefore, so that the apostles might grasp the fortitude of this happy constancy with their whole hearts, and tremble at nothing regarding the roughness of the cross to be taken up, and not blush at the torture of Christ, nor

believe that patience was something to be ashamed of—patience which was so joined to the cruelty of the passion that it did not admit the glory of power—Jesus took Peter, and John, and James his brother, who were more outstanding than the other disciples, and having ascended with them apart onto a high mountain, demonstrated the clarity of His glory. The Lord therefore opened His glory before the chosen witnesses, and He clarified that common form of His body with such splendor that both His face was like the brightness of the sun, and His garments were equal to the whiteness of snow. In which transformation, however, this was principally done: that He might remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of the apostles, and that His passion might not disturb their faith. He revealed the hidden excellence of His dignity to those who would voluntarily reveal the humanity of His passion. Second, this was also done by marvelous providence, because through this the hope of the holy Church is most firmly founded, so that the entire body of Christ might know what kind of honor it was to be given by change, and that the members might promise themselves the fellowship of that honor which had shone forth in the Head. But about which the same Lord was speaking when He spoke of the greatness of His advent: "Then the just shall shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father" Matthew 13:43. Third, so that the disciples, incited by the revelation of such glory, might more easily despise worldly things and