beautiful, nor a mother so unhappy. He endured shame, pain, and cold
before all the world, for He was naked, and it was cold, and He was
exhausted by His wounds. He was nailed with large nails to the wood
of the cross, and was so strained that His veins were burst. He was
lifted up and shaken upon the cross, so as to make His wounds bleed,
His head was crowned with thorns, and His ears heard the fierce Jews
crying out, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" and many other shameful
words. His eyes saw the obstinacy and wickedness of the Jews, and
the distress of His mother, and His eyes were extinguished under the
bitterness of pain and death. His mouth and palate were hurt by the
vinegar and gall, and all the sensitive parts of His body wounded by
the scourge.

Behold then Christ, our Bridegroom, wounded to death, abandoned by
God and the creatures, dying on the cross, hanging from a post, with
no one to care much for Him except Mary, His unhappy mother, who
nevertheless could not aid Him. And Christ suffered moreover
spiritually, in His soul, from the hardness of the Jews' hearts and
those who made Him die, for in spite of the prodigies and miracles
which they saw, they remained in their wickedness; and He suffered
by reason of their corruption and the vengeance which God was about
to inflict upon them, in body and soul, for His death. He suffered
moreover for the grief and misery of His mother and disciples, who
were in great sadness. And He suffered because His death would be
wasted for many men, and for the ingratitude of many, and for the
blasphemies of those who would curse Him who died for love of us.
And His nature and interior reason suffered because God withdrew
from them the inflow of His gifts and consolations, and abandoned
them to themselves in such distress. Therefore Christ complained and
said, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?