[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

and might thirst more ardently not for this world, if they were pleased. Moreover, Moses, the legislator, and Elijah, the greatest emulator of supreme honor, appeared speaking with the Lord, so that the presence of these five men might most truly complete what is said: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word stand" 2 Corinthians 13:1. What is more stable than this, in which the trumpet of the Old and New Testament concordantly sounds in the preaching of the supreme Word, and the instruments of ancient testimonies concur with evangelical doctrine? Run, therefore, faithful soul, with most ardent desire to those joys of supreme felicity which have already been sufficiently shown to you by heavenly mysteries and confirmed by divine testimonies, saying with the prophet: "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O God" Psalm 41:2.

O admirable and imitable example
of your humility, Lord Jesus! Great,
certainly, is the humility that man should
wash the feet of a man equal to himself,
and greater that God should wash the feet of
men in mercy. And beyond mercy, since you,
good Jesus, with bended knee, offering your
most holy hands, wiped the feet of him whose
hands you knew were to be polluted in your
betrayal. Behold from this, faithful soul,
the Lord of every creature, the maker, the
tremendous judge of the living and the dead,

bowed down at the feet of a man, His own
betrayer and traitor. Learn that He is meek and
humble of heart, and blush at your own pride,
and be ashamed of your impatience.

Thus, clearly, in the disposition of your
profound wisdom, Jesus, that you might
show the increments of your love through
the increments of time: about to pass to the
Father, when the time of your passion was
impending, you celebrated the supper with your
apostles with overflowing, marvelous charity.
In it, the legal banquets being completed,
and their feet washed, in memory of the
facies of your wonders, O merciful and
compassionate Lord, you consecrated the
sacrament of your body and blood, treating
it with the highest charity, so that it might
continually remove through a mystery what
was once offered as a price. And so that the
memory of such a benefit might always
persist in us, you left your body as food,
and your blood as drink, to be taken by the
faithful under the species of bread and wine.

O magnitude of clemency! O unheard-of
love! Well indeed does the evangelist John
speak of you in beautiful language: that since
you loved your own unto the end—that is,
unto the maximum excess of charity—you
loved, pouring out your whole self for their
election: body as food, blood as drink, soul
as price, divinity as a taste of beatitude.