[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

In which, attend, faithful soul, to the inestimable sacrament of divine piety. For eternal wisdom, which manifests itself through visible things, willed that just as bread is the refreshment of the angels through the immediate taste of divinity, so also for men who are pilgrims in this valley of mortality, through the mediating sacrament of the assumed humanity. For this reason, He indeed placed the assumed flesh as marrow for the faithful, so that through the food of the flesh, one might enter into the taste of divinity. O grace of ineffable piety! Behold, so that man might eat the bread of angels, the Creator of angels was made man, feeding both and remaining whole. That bread which gives itself to the angels for the joy of stability gives itself to men for the remedy of health. And what is the food of angels has become medicine for us. Furthermore, acknowledge, faithful soul, how prudent that divine wisdom is, lest human infirmity should shudder at the touch of flesh in the assumption; it veiled it under the species of usual and principal food, and placed it to be taken in such a way that the senses might be fostered in one, and faith might be edified in the other. For the sense is fostered in the one while it perceives the accustomed and usual food. Faith, however, is edified in the other while, in that which is seen, it recognizes what sort of thing it is which is not seen. But the species of bread and wine is proposed so that it may teach that full and perfect refreshment is in the

assumption of the body and blood of Christ, just as He himself testifies, saying: "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" John 6:56. O precious and admirable food! For what can be more precious than this banquet, or greater, in which not the flesh of calves and goats is proposed to us, as once in the law, but the true God is proposed to us to be taken? What, therefore, is more miraculous than this sacrament? For in it, bread is substantially converted into the body, and wine into the blood of Christ. For what is more salutary than this sacrament, in which vices are purged, virtues are increased, and the mind is enriched with an abundance of all charisms? Rejoice, faithful soul, and in the reception of this sacrament, exulting, sing sweetly: "O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of His passion is recalled, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us."

Concerning the captivity of Christ

Who would not wonder and be stupefied, good Jesus, how you, with the traitor, went to meet those coming with clubs and swords and seeking your soul? You went out of your own accord; with your omnipotent arm you cast them to the ground, not for the sake of defense, but so that they might acknowledge that human presumption can do nothing against you except what you, their own fault demanding, permit to happen from you. You did not shudder at the kiss of the most holy mouth of that cruel beast, Judas.