examination of the heart 376 How often have I deviated from the right way? How foolishly! How offensively! How obstinately! How harshly! O hardness of my heart! When my conscience, moved by You, reproaches me, I feel regret and a sense of dread, for my sins fill me with great fear. What will You finally do with me, the hardened one? O Goodness, O Benevolence! O Jesus, You are the immaculate Lamb! You are the Lamb who was led to the slaughter without complaint. Therefore, as I hope, trust, and humbly beseech You in supplication; remove the hardness of my heart, when You nourish it with Your Most Holy Body and revive it with Your Blood in this Holy, admirable Communion, full of love and clemency. Just as the hard diamond can be broken only with the blood of a goat,177 thus You, the Lamb of God, soften my heart and shatter its hardness by sprinkling it in a mystical way with Your Blood. Do this, my Jesus, lest my conscience reproach me for my hardness forever, lest it tell me that I did not want to improve when I had time. Although as a sinner I consider myself unworthy of any of Your graces, it is really befitting You, as Savior, to impart them to me. Therefore, I hope for Your graces, I hope for salvation, because I desire to consume You, O Lord, who are grace and salvation themselves. Even though You were the One to reproach the hardness of the disciples, yet You have placed them in the heavenly Kingdom. After Holy Communion 1. “Go into all the world and preach the [G]ospel” (Mk 16:15). Consider how good and compassionate is the Lord whom you serve: He condemns sins and immediately shows the way to atone for them. Behold, He reproached the apostles’ incredulity and hardness of heart, but what does He do next? “Go,” He says, “into all the world and preach the [G]ospel to the whole creation.” This 177 Cf. FLL, vol 1, Typis Seminarii, Patavii 1864, p. 71 (s.v. Adamas): “For a diamond, unbreakable by any other force is broken by the blood of a goat.” Cf. SLL, vol. 1, Typis Seminarii apud Joannem Manfrè, Patavii 1758, p. 17 (s.v. Adamas). Cf. Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 6th ed., J.R., London 1672, pp. 87-100 (Bk. II, Ch. V).
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