149 part i: sunday meditations for the entire year our Savior’s exhortation recorded by the Evangelist: “knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). Certainly, if a door is not opened at once, one may knock twice or three times in an urgent situation. In the same way you also, should continue to beseech, ask, and insist so that the Lord — who might be delaying granting you the grace which is greatly necessary for either your improvement of life, or for attaining greater perfection — may be prevailed upon by the persistent knocking of prayer to hasten to help you, to change your conduct, and to renew a steadfast spirit within you (cf. Ps 51:10). For “the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force” (Mt 11:12) and capture it. 3. “if [Y]ou will, [Y]ou can make me clean” (Mt 8:2). O good Physician, my Jesus: This is the way the leper entreated You to restore his health. As for me, I will begin and shape this prayer in a far different way, and thus I say and pray with tears: “Lord, even if You do not want to, You ought to make me clean. For if You came to save sinners not the righteous (cf. Mk 2:17), why do You allow me to be stuck in so many evil deeds for so long, and to stink so repulsively from them? If You were moved by the leper’s prayer, pleading for this bodily healing, You should comply more with my prayers, and rightly so, as I implore from You the health of my soul. If You, either Yourself or through Your disciples, healed the lame and the blind, sometimes even without their asking (cf. Mt 11:5; 21:14), it is more just, Omy Jesus, Physician of my soul, that You heal me, as I am truly beseeching You with my whole [f.18r] heart. They could not walk in the world because they had lost the use of their legs, and for that reason You had mercy on them; but I shall not enter Heaven unless You direct my steps into Your way. They could not see the light of the sun and people’s faces because of their blindness, and thus You healed them so that they may enjoy the sight of things created. But I who am blind in spirit shall not be able, unless You enlighten me, unless You restore sight to me, to delight in the sight of You and to look at the face of Your Father and of the immortal spirits, and to contemplate
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