Mirror of the Honest Life and Eight Points of Spiritual Perfection

You must always think of Him, either placed in the manger, or wrapped in swaddling clothes, or presented in the temple by His parents, or listening in the temple and questioning the doctors the learned teachers—He who teaches all science—and afterwards subject to His parents, to whom every creature is rightfully subject. Or even teaching the crowds, or praying alone on the mountain, or hungering in the desert—He who is the bread of life and the fountain of wisdom, who feeds among the lilies and fills every living thing with blessing. Or fatigued on the journey, praying at length, and administering all things sufficiently to all, even receiving consolation from an angel—He who is the sweetness and consolation of the angels. Or at the pillar—the support of the world and the column of the whole world—bound and scourged. And He who is the glory of the angels, despised and mocked, smeared with spittle, struck with the palm of the hand on His face, crowned with a crown of thorns, sated with reproaches. At last, counted among the wicked, and hanging and dying on the cross for you.

Thus, therefore, will your beloved be a bundle of myrrh that shall abide between your breasts a reference to Song of Solomon 1:13. And thus, from all the anxieties and bitternesses of your Lord, you shall gather, as it were, a certain bundle of conceived sorrow, from which you may also fashion a bitter cup and—if I may say so—sweet tears. If, however, at any time you are kindled with most ardent love for Christ and wish, with the Apostle, to know and taste more deeply of those things which are above, you shall briefly lift the eyes of your mind to the victory of the Resurrected One and to the majesty of Him sitting and reigning in the glory of the Father. Yet, do not make a long stay there, lest, if you are a scrutineer of His majesty for too long, you be overwhelmed by His glory.

Of the detestation of pride.