Our Blessed Father had a special reverence for the picture of Magdalen at
the foot of the Cross, calling it sometimes the library of his thoughts.
Perhaps this representation was before his mind's eye, when just before he
rendered up his soul to God he murmured these words: _Wash me yet more from
my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin_.[1] "Oh!" he exclaimed, when he was
looking one day at this picture in my house at Belley, "how happy, and how
profitable an exchange this penitent made! She bestowed tears on the Feet
of Jesus Christ, and in return those Feet gave back to her Blood, but Blood
that washed away all her sins, for Christ has cleansed us from every stain
in His Blood, and by the sprinkling of this hyssop has made us, coal-black
though we were, white as snow! Oh, gracious rain made by God to fall upon
His inheritance, how sweet, how much to be desired thou art!"
"Magdalen seeks our Saviour while she holds Him. She demands Him of
Himself. She does not see Him in the form she looked for: therefore,
unsatisfied, she seeks Him away from Himself.
"She expected to see Him in His robe of glory, not in the poor garb of a
gardener; nevertheless she knew that it was He when He uttered her name
_Mary_.[2]
"My dear sister, my daughter, it is our Lord in the clothing of a gardener
whom you meet every day in one place or another, and in the various
mortifications which present themselves to you.
"You wish He would offer you grander mortifications. Oh! my God! the
grandest are not the best. Do you not believe that He says to you also
_Mary, Mary?_ Ah! before you see Him in His glory, He wishes to plant in
your garden many flowers, small and lowly indeed, but such as He loves.
That is why He wears a gardener's dress.
"May our hearts be for ever united to His Heart, and our wills to His good
pleasure."
[Footnote 1: Psalm l. 4.]
[Footnote 2: John xx. 16.]