in me.” Hence, he was to me as my heart. Hence, when he was born, I felt as though half my heart was born and went out of me. And when he suffered, I felt as though half my heart suffered, as when a body is half within and half without, when aught wounds what is without, that within feels it equally. So my heart was scourged and pierced when my Son was. I was nigher to him in his Passion, and did not leave him. I stood nearer to his cross, and as what is nearer the heart, wounds more keenly, so the pain of it was keener to me than to others. And when he looked upon me from the cross, and I on him, then tears streamed from my eyes as from veins. And when he beheld me spent with grief, he was so afflicted by my pain, that all the pain of his own wounds, was, as it were, dulled at the sight of the grief in which he beheld me. Hence, I say boldly, that his pains were mine, because his heart was mine. For as Adam and Eve sold the world for an apple, so my Son and I redeemed the world, as it were, with one heart. Think, then, how I was at the death of my Son, and you will not find it hard to leave the world. Lib. i., c. 27.
