Those hands, which stretched abroad the heavens, were stretched out on the cross and pierced with most bitter nails; as saith Isaiah, “I have stretched forth my hands all the day to an unbelieving people.”  And David, “They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell all my bones.”  And Saint Jerome says, “We may, in the stretching forth of his hands, understand the liberality of the giver, who denieth nothing to them that ask lovingly; who restored health to the leper that requested it of him; enlightened him that was blind from his birth; fed the hungry multitude in the wilderness.”  And again he says, “The stretched-out hands denote the kindness of the parent, who desires to receive his children to his breast.”  And thus let thy hands be so stretched out to the poor that thou mayest be able to say, “My soul is always in my hand.”  For that which is held in the hand is not easily forgotten.  So he may be said to call his soul to memory, who carries it, as it were, in his hands through the good opinion that men conceive of it.  His hands were fixed, that they may instruct thee to hold back thy hands, with the nails of fear, from unlawful or harmful works.

That glorious breast, in which are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, is pierced with the lance of a soldier, to the end that thy heart might be cleansed from evil thoughts, and being cleansed might be sanctified, and being sanctified might be preserved.  The feet, whose footstool the Prophets commanded to be sanctified, were bitterly nailed to the cross, lest thy feet should sustain evil, or be swift to shed blood; but, running in the way of the Lord, stable in his path, and fixed in his road, might not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left.  “What could have been done more?”

Why did Christ bow his head on the cross?  To teach us that by humility we must enter into Heaven.  Also, to show that we must rest from our own work.  Also, that he might comply with the petition, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”; also that he might ask permission of his bride to leave her.  Of great virtue is the memory of the Lord’s passion, which, if it be firmly held in the mind, every cloud of error and sin is dispersed.  Whence the blessed Bernard says:  “Always having Christ, and him crucified, in the heart.”

THE BLESSED DEAD

They who die in the Lord are blessed, on account of two things which immediately follow.  For they enter into most sweet rest, and enjoy most delicate refreshment.  Concerning their rest it immediately follows.  “Even so saith the spirit” (that is, says the gloss, the whole Trinity), for they rest from their labors.  “And it is a pleasant bed on which they take their rest, who, as is aforesaid, die in the Lord.”  For this bed is none other than the sweet consolation of the Creator.  Of this consolation he speaks himself by the Prophet Isaiah:  “As one