Chapter 77: Of the Armorial bearings of Christ, the Cross, the Nails, the Spear, and the Crown of Thorns

I BLESS You, and give thanks to You, O Lord Jesus Christ, King of all kings, for the triumphant insignia of Your Royalty, to wit, the Cross, the Nails, the Spear, the Crown of Thorns, the Reed, the Cord, the Pillar (to which You were bound, and were then cruelly scourged after You had been stripped naked), and for all the other instruments of torture and accessories of Your sacred Passion. It was for us miserable sinners that You did endure it, to the intent that You might thereby confound the devil and the lovers of this world with all its pomps and vanities; that You might show mercy and grant forgiveness of sins to all who truly repent and believe in You; and that You might win for them, after the general Resurrection of the dead (when every one must be judged, both just and unjust), the hope of eternal salvation and the glorious bliss of Heaven with Your Holy Angels.

Then shall appear great signs in Heaven and on earth, and then shall be displayed the Wounds of Your sacred Passion, with the Standard of the Cross, and the other achievements of Your escutcheon; full of joy and comfort shall they be to the saved, but to the lost full of terror and dismay. Then shall all the elect rejoice exceedingly; the lowly, the innocent, the devout, the chaste, the simple, the obedient, the meek; those who have often suffered wrong for Your Name's sake; those who in their meditations have often mourned over Your Passion and sacred Wounds, as if they had themselves endured Them, and have thanked You fervently for Them all. Then too shall greatly fear and lament for themselves the proud, the covetous, the envious, the gluttonous; those who give themselves up to fleshly lusts; those who seldom or never meditate upon Your Passion and Your Wounds; those who never compassionate Them, but prefer thinking about their own gain and advantage to pondering Your benefits and Your cruel Wounds.

From such perverse and unthankful men keep me, O Lord; and number me with the pure and innocent sheep of Your flock, for whom, in Your love, You did vouchsafe to be crucified, to die, and to be wounded with many Wounds.

O most gentle Jesus, clothe me with the power of Your might, invest me with the sacred badges of Your most cruel Passion, that everywhere and at all times I may be sustained against the snares and the temptations of the evil spirit, who assails me on the right hand and on the left in a thousand different ways and manners, all of them bad and wicked. To Your Passion then, O Lord, do I humbly fly for refuge; and heartily do I pray that of You I may be comforted and powerfully assisted.

O loving Jesus, our Helper and Defender in all the trials and temptations of this imperfect life, raise high, I pray You, before my eyes the royal standard of Your holy Cross, the sign of eternal salvation, the Sceptre of Your Godhead, the shield and the bow of Your Manhood, the impregnable fortress, the most dread thunderbolt, the most sharp javelin against the roaring and the onslaught of the devil; against the din of the world and the incitements of the flesh; against vices of every kind and every evil thought; against that spirit of blasphemy and utter despair, which longs to overwhelm me, and would so often withhold me from invoking Your most sweet Name, O Jesus, and those of Your holy Mother Mary and of Your Saints; that tries to blacken the story of their lives and their good report; and what is yet worse, would entice from the right faith one who is a true believer, and keep him from venerating and from loving Your holy Cross.

May Your Cross, O Jesus, You mightiest of kings, be to me salvation, peace, and life; a shield, a sword and a spear; a strong tower against the face of the enemy; an impregnable wall against the deceit of the old serpent; a light in the house; a guide in the path; a sure defence within and without, above and below, in all the many stumbling-blocks and dangers which everywhere beset me. May Your sweet and beloved Cross be to me rest in labour, comfort in sorrow, medicine in sickness, ointment in pain; may it be to me my protection when I am alone, my safeguard when I am with others, my light in darkness, my gladness at mid-day; and at eventide may it be to me praise and honour, power and glory. May Your lovely and glorious Cross be to me in bitterness sweetness; in sickness health; in my agony steadfast faith; in the hour of my departure my one hope; at the day of judgement my support; from Hell my safeguard; from all its pains my warrant of discharge; into the glories of Heaven my passport with the holy Angels.

Further, in all my troubles thrust into me, I pray You, O patient Jesus, those holy Nails, which as You hanged on the Cross were so cruelly driven into You. May They be to me as keepers of my heart, of my lips and of all my senses; may They be my defence against the evil spirits, of whom by day and by night I am in fear: on seeing the image of Your Nails may those spirits flee from me as if they were sharp arrows, and let me rest in Your peace, or pray, or earnestly meditate on the anguish caused by Them when They were in the Body of Jesus Christ, my Lord; may those spirits not dare to vex me with vile imaginations as I meditate on the sacred Wounds, so cruel and so deep. Which You did endure in Your Hands and in Your Feet.

Thrust also, I pray You, into my side, whether I am waking or sleeping, that holy and sharp Spear with which after Your death You were so cruelly pierced; may it keep my heart, so that inwardly compassionating You, I may hang with You upon the Cross, and may eschew what is earthly, may shut my eyes to all unprofitable things, and may fix my thoughts wholly upon the things of God, and upon Your sacred Wounds. So wound my heart, I pray You, O my God, that nothing that is impure may find a home in it.

O Jesus Christ, supreme object of love, sure Hope of believers, Strength of those who fight, the victors' Crown, Wisdom of the wise, and Light of the ignorant, show, I pray You, to me, who am an exile in the prison-house of the flesh, that holy and blessed Crown of Thorns Which in mockery was so cruelly forced and pressed down upon Your sacred Head, while Your most holy Blood was trickling down on all sides from the many Wounds which it caused. May the copious stream of Blood caused by this holy but most cruel of crowns be to me a complete washing away of all my sins; may it draw from my eyes a flood of tears; may it soften unawares the hardness of my heart. May the remembrance of this holy and blessed Crown ever present with me, and its picture ever vividly stamped upon my mind; may the contemplation of Your Wounds and the thought of the terrible pain which they caused You, drive out of my mind all evil things, and all unclean thoughts, and chase away and put an end to whatever it is that troubles me. A violent headache suppresses all bodily desires. May then pain such as You did feel when the cruel Crown of Thorns was first pressed down upon Your Head take possession of me; may it find a place in the inmost recesses of my heart; may it vibrate through my every limb, may it rack me with pain, and purge away from my soul all the filth which by a long course of foolishness I have allowed to settle there. May it break down and annihilate in me every inordinate desire; may it turn into dust everything that seems to me lovely, and into dirt everything that seems to me precious: may it turn into rottenness all that now seems flourishing; may it turn all that now seems delightful into wormwood of the bitterest, everything joyous into wailing, everything laughable and jocose into derision and contempt.

How beautiful is the world to come, and how splendid will be the crown of heavenly glory that will be given to the chaste and devout soul, which in this world often and sadly meditates upon the Crown of Thorns of Jesus, and ever keeps in mind and mourns over his cruel Wounds. I believe, O Lord, that at the hour of death such a soul will, when quitting this weary life, have great hope of forgiveness and feel sure of obtaining mercy, if it keep ever in remembrance Your sacred Passion.

For the sake, therefore, O Lord, of each of Your Wounds, forgive me too, I pray You, all my sins, whether they be of my life past or those which I daily commit, even as You did forgive, solely of Your grace and mercy, those of holy Mary Magdalene, who shed many tears at the thought of her sins, and particularly at the thought of the sacred Wounds endured by You at Your Passion, on account of our sins which are, alas, so many and so grievous. Your love and Your mercy, O most merciful Jesus, have far outweighed all our sins whether new or old, by reason of Your bowels of mercy and the thousand thousand stripes of the Wounds which You did so patiently endure at the hands of wicked men; and all these were seen by Your holy Mother, and by Your dearly loved Mary Magdalene, with their own eyes, and were by them bedewed with many tears.

Rend then, O Lord, my heart still further with the thought of Your scourging, and of Your tight binding with cords to the stony pillar, before the eyes of the crowd that mocked and derided You, that pitied You not, that had no sense of shame, but longed to tear You with their teeth as if they had been mad dogs worrying a harmless sheep; that piled stripes upon stripes, and added anguish to anguish, while not a murmur passed Your lips, no, not even a cry " Alas, alas, why do you scourge me so cruelly? "

O how great, how unspeakable was Your patience, O Lord Jesus, in enduring such torments, such bleeding wounds; and all in order that You might pay the penalty of my sins! It was I, O Lord, who had sinned; it was in my stead that You were scourged. It was I who had wrought iniquity; it was I who in so many ways and so often had offended; it was You Who had done no wrong at all, Who were unjustly condemned by the ungodly. I often laugh about nothing, and You by base men are made a laughing-stock. I like to strut in fine clothes, but You hang naked between thieves. I have good food and drink; but to You upon the Altar of the Cross are offered bitter gall and vinegar. I have a soft bed to sleep upon; but You are buried as an outlaw in a tomb of hardest rock. Often do I pass Your Cross without shedding- a tear; but Mary Magdalene and the other holy women never ceased to weep till they saw You rising from the dead, and could fall low and clasp Your sacred Feet.

Give me grace, O loving Jesus, to meditate on these things, and with holy Mary Magdalene, who loved You so well, and with Your other disciples so to weep, that at the last day, when the trumpet shall sound, I may be found worthy to rise in glory, and to find a place with Your elect in the Kingdom of everlasting bliss. Amen.

May Your most glorious escutcheon, O Lord Jesus Christ, be my sure defence, both within and without, against all the darts of the enemy, and against all the flatteries and frowns of this deceitful world.