561 part v: daily meditations as He allowed Himself to be seen by them, they all cried out, impelled by the force of immense joy: “You have come, the one so longed for, [f.184v] you have come, our Savior, our promise, the Messiah awaited for so many ages.” By its presence alone, Christ’s soul wonderfully revived them and led them out of this unfortunate darkness and took them along into the tomb. 2. With an attentive mind recall how that same soul of God penetrated the stone of the tomb and, uniting itself most perfectly to the dead body as it was united before, aroused it as if from a short sleep and made it glorious and immortal. There and then was fulfilled His prediction, which He had uttered shortly before as He compared His body to a temple: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). 3. Consider how, after His most glorious Resurrection, the Redeemer appeared first to His most Holy Mother and filled and refreshed her with joys and heavenly delights that were as great as were heavy the sorrows that had afflicted and tormented her at the time of His Passion. Hence, learn that the consolations of God are given according to the measure of tribulations, and the more kinds of adversities, persecutions, and calamities someone endured in this world out of love for Christ, the more ample abundance of joy and perennial consolation will he be endowed with in the everlasting Kingdom. Hence, also conclude that we should mortify our flesh, so that it may rise from the dead more glorious, because, as the Savior said in a parable: Unless the grain falling into the ground die, it will bring forth no fruit (cf. Jn 12:24-25). 14. SUNDAY EVENING On the heavenly Fatherland and everlasting happiness. 1. Place before your eyes the city, which the most beloved disciple of Christ described most exactly in the Book of Revelation. It is the holy Jerusalem, the eternal abode of all heavenly spirits and blessed men, which has the brightness of God. Its wall is one
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