if it keep ever in remembrance Thy sacred Passion.
For the sake, therefore, O Lord, of each of Thy Wounds, forgive me too, I pray Thee, all my sins, whether they be of my life past or those which I daily commit, even as Thou didst forgive, solely of Thy 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 Thee at Thy Passion, on account of our sins which are, alas, so many and so grievous. Thy love and Thy mercy, O most merciful Jesus, have far outweighed all our sins whether new or old, by reason of Thy bowels of mercy and the thousand thousand stripes of the Wounds which Thou didst so patiently endure at the hands of wicked men; and all these were seen by Thy holy Mother, and by Thy 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 Thy scourging, and of Thy tight binding with cords to the stony pillar, before the eyes of the crowd that mocked and derided Thee, that pitied Thee not, that had no sense of shame, but longed to tear Thee 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 Thy lips, no, not even a cry " Alas, alas, why do ye scourge me so cruelly? "
O how great, how unspeakable was Thy patience, O Lord Jesus, in enduring such torments, such bleeding wounds; and all in order that Thou mightest pay the penalty of my sins! It was I, O Lord, who had sinned; it was in my stead that
