375 part ii: meditations for more solemn feasts three days the temple of His body destroyed by the Jews; yet they still did not believe those who announced that He had risen from the dead. Oh, how justly the Savior should rebuke you too at today’s Communion! For you have received from Him so many graces, so much light, and so many favors; you have come to Him so many times to be with Him and be enlightened by Him; you have received the rewards for good deeds and the punishments for evil ones; you have read about or observed so many of His miracles; you have heard and have experienced the grave threats, by which, as He publicly declared, He would punish the imperfect; and yet you are still more lukewarm than all those who even today for the first time have converted themselves to God. Neither the fear of infernal torments nor the striving after heavenly glory is able to arouse you from a sound sleep in the filthy dung of your vices, passions, and imperfections. Fear, lest your incredulity be not reproached, but punished. 3. “and hardness of heart” (Mk 16:14). O my soul! What do you hear? When the disciples took flight as Jesus was seized, they did not hear any reproach. But when He hastens not to His Passion, but to His glory, He reproaches them for their incredulity and blames their hardness of heart. O good Jesus, I believe that as they ran away from that repulsive and unexpected tragedy, You had consideration for their frailty and also for their pusillanimity. But now You cannot bear their hardness of heart, when they do not believe what they have seen. Oh! My Savior, how can You endure, or will You endure, or have You endured my hardness of heart? For because of this I was still committing innumerable, very shameful and very grave sins, although I knew that You are the greatest enemy of sin; although I saw, I knew, I read, and I heard that others were doomed to eternal punishments for their less serious sins; [f.119r] nevertheless, as if sleeping and as if intoxicated from wine, I did not arouse from my evil deeds, I did not return to You when called, enticed, and frightened. Moreover, having entered the way of uprightness thanks to Your mercy, how often have I gone astray?
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