365 part ii: meditations for more solemn feasts Jesus, you bring back to life your chicks, the dead children of Adam, with Your own Blood.170 Come, come my Beloved: nourish with Your Body my languishing soul, refresh it for it is thirsty, and wash it with Your Blood; grant me for my salvation, remission of sins, improvement of life, and everlasting friendship After Holy Communion 1. “unless one is born anew” (Jn 3:3). Consider what the Savior said to Nicodemus as being said to you, my soul. For you ought to be born again. But in what way, since you were already washed in the font of the sacred Baptism? Understand it thus: the Lord asserts that Nicodemus should be born again through Baptism, and that other men were bound thus to be born again a second time because He wanted them to live not only by the law of nature, but also according to the law of grace, to which they can submit themselves only through faith and Baptism. Also through this bath, the stains of the soul incurred thus far, and especially original sin, are removed from adults, so that they are entirely born again. Therefore, Nicodemus and the others were bound to be born again this way, if they wanted to enter the dwelling of everlasting life. But you, my soul, will be revived differently. You will have recourse to a different spring, by which you should wash away all faults: to the spring of tears. You ought to be born again if you want [f.115v] to enter the glory of God, but through the Sacrament of Penance, not of Baptism. Have you suffered the shipwreck of vir170 Cf. Martin R.P. McGuire, NCE, vol. XI, p. 60 (s.v. Pelican): The pelican is a particularly apt symbol of Christ the Redeemer, in wide usage in Christian literature and in Christian art, because: “The little pelicans strike their parents, and the parents, striking back, kill them. But on the third day the mother pelican strikes and opens her side and pours blood over her dead young. In this way they are revivified and made well. ... Christ deigned to ascend the cross, and, when [H]is side was pierced, blood and water gushed forth unto our salvation and eternal life.”
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