[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

Pilate, as the evangelist says, scourged him, and the soldiers, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it upon his head and clothed him in a purple garment John 19:1-2. Acknowledge, faithful soul, how much you are worth and how much you owe; and while you perceive such dignity of your redemption, it itself points out to you the sin, even the shame. Behold, for the ungodly, piety is scourged; for the fool, wisdom is mocked; for the liar, truth is denied; justice is condemned for the iniquitous; mercy is afflicted for the cruel.

Concerning the crucifixion of Christ

I am moved clearly, good Jesus, in the contemplation of your immense love which you demonstrated to the human race in your death. Since the transgression of the first man had so weakened human nature and had pierced it with a lethal wound, and there was no remedy for its salvation, nor any hope of justice, nor any form of wisdom by which the human race could be rescued from the captivity of the devil and the depth of eternal death unless medicine came to us from heaven—and although many things were ineffably sufficient to the divine piety for repairing the human race, he chose this way most especially by which, to destroy the work of the devil, he would not use the power of might, but the reason of justice. And because this contained more for the grace of man, more congruence to wisdom, more beauty, and more benefit for salvation. Hence you, good Jesus, about to complete this sacrament of life-giving human repair, when you arrived at the place where you were crucified. O with what inexplicable pain she was vexed in her mind, seeing the Lord and her Son hanging on the cross and dying a most bitter death! Hence the evangelist says: "There stood by the cross, namely of Jesus, his mother" John 19:25. Hence Augustine says she was weeping and saying: "I was seeing the one dying whom my soul loves, and I was wholly liquefied by the anguish of grief. I was weeping, saying, and saying while weeping: My son, my son, woe to me! Who shall grant me that I myself may die for you? O miserable woman, what shall I do? Shall the son die, or shall he not die? This is most sad for me. My son, my son, love of the unique one, most sweet son, do not abandon me! Drag me to yourself, this your mother who presents herself. O miserable death, do not spare me! You alone please me above all. Spare the living, slaughter the mother with the son. Son, sweetness, unique one, singular joy of my life, all my solace, make it so that I who gave birth to you to death may now die. O son, acknowledge the miserable one, hear the desolate mother, hear me I beseech you, and receive me onto your gallows, so that those who lived together in one love may pass away in one death." O truly, you were born to me, you were my father, you were my mother, you were my spouse, you were my son, you were everything to me. Now I am orphaned of a father, widowed of a spouse, desolate of a child, I lose everything. O son, what shall I do? Woe to me, woe to me, son! I do not know what I shall do, what words, dearest, where shall I turn, dearest? And many such words full of sorrows, she believes for the ages.