St. Gertrude: Chapter 46. The Seven Hours of the Blessed Virgin

 

Keeping vigil one night, exerting herself to think with love about the Lord's passion, she became very tired, and although she had not yet said Matins, she felt all her strength failing. She said to the Lord: "Ah, my Lord, as you know that, through my human frailty, I cannot do without a little rest, show me what I can do to honor and serve your most blessed Mother, since I am not able to recite her Hours as I ought. "

The Lord said to her: "Praise me by the sweet-sounding harmony' of my heart, in the innocent integrity of her virginity in which she, a virgin, conceived me, bore me, and after my birth remained a virgin inviolate.  She imitated the innocence which led me to permit myself, at the hour of Matins, for the redemption of the human race, to be taken captive, bound, struck, and given blows, and to be mercilessly subjected to all kinds of misery and outrage." While she was doing this, she saw the Lord offering his divine heart to his virgin Mother, in the likeness of a golden cup, whence she might drink. And when she had drunk of the honey sweetness of this draught, she seemed sweetly and abundantly satisfied—inebriated, rather—and, penetrated to the marrow, she was seen to rejoice with exceeding gladness.

Then she praised the blessed Virgin, saying: "I praise and salute you, Mother of all blessedness, most worthy tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, through the sweetest heart of Jesus, God the Father's most loving Son and yours, praying that you may help us in all our necessities and at the hour of death. Amen. " And she understood that if anyone praises the Lord as has just been described, and at the same time praises the blessed Virgin by adding the verse "I praise and salute you, Mother. . . as above, each time, they would, so to speak, offer to the virgin Mother a drink from the sweetest heart of Jesus Christ, her most loving Son. 82 The royal Virgin will gladly accept this offering and will kindly deign to reward it with the liberality of her maternal affection.

Then the Lord continued: "Praise me for Prime with the sweetly sounding harmony of my heart, for the serene humility with which the immaculate Virgin was ever more ready to receive me. She imitated the humility which led me, the judge of the living and the dead, to stand, at the hour of Prime, before a man like a Saracen83 to be judged, for the redemption of the human race.

At Terce, praise me for the fervent desire which drew me, the Son of God, from the bosom of the Father into her virginal womb. She imitated me in that fervent desire with which I desired the salvation of man as I was being struck with hard scourges, crowned with thorns, and, at the hour of Terce, deigned to bear upon my tired and bleeding shoulders with such meekness and patience a most infamous cross.

At Sext, praise me for that firm and most secure hope with which the heavenly Virgin always aspired with good will and holy intentions to seek my glory. She imitated me when, hanging on the tree of the cross on high, in the harshness of a most bitter death, I longed with all my strength for the redemption of the human race, so that I cried: "I thirst" (Jn. 19:28). I thirsted so much for the salvation of human souls that, had it been necessary, I would have borne harder and more bitter torments; I was ready to offer myself freely and entirely for the redemption of man.

At None, praise me for that most ardent mutual love of the divine heart and the immaculate Virgin, which joined and inseparably united the most excellent divinity with tender humanity in the Virgin's womb. She imitated me, the life of the living, as I died of the immensity of my love on the cross at the hour of None, succumbing to a most bitter death for man's redemption.

At Vespers, praise me for that most constant faith in which the blessed Virgin alone, at the time of my death, when the apostles had fled and everyone despaired, remained unshaken in true faith. She imitated me in the fidelity with which I, now dead, taken down from the cross, followed man down even to the confines of hell, to limbo, snatching him thence in my mercy with my all-powerful hand and transferring him to the joys of paradise.

At Compline, praise me for that most laudable perseverance with which my sweetest Mother persevered to the end (cf. Matt. 10:22) in goodness and virtue. She imitated me in performing so lovingly the work of human redemption that, after obtaining man's true liberation from the bonds of sin by the most bitter death, I even wanted my incorruptible body to be buried according to human custom, in order to show that there was no indignity I would refuse to undergo for the sake of man's salvation.