Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

  Was not thy passion enough but thou must have compassion?  And is thy mercy so violent, that thou wilt have a fellow-feeling of their imminent afflictions before they have any feeling?

John Donne: Sermons.

  I saw that God rejoiceth that he is our Father.

Juliana of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love.

  Father in heaven!  Hold not our sins up against us but hold us up against our sins, so that the thought of Thee when it wakens in our soul, and each time it wakens, should not remind us of what we have committed but of what Thou didst forgive, not of how we went astray but of how Thou didst save us!

Søren Kierkegaard: Journals.

And sitting down they watched him there;

Matthew 27:36

  For failing of love on our part, therefore is all our travail.

Juliana of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love.

  'Dost thou wish that it should always cost me the blood of my humanity, without any tears from thee?'

Pascal: Pensées, 553.

And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Matthew 27:37

  If thou will be well with God, and have grace to rule thy life, and come to the joy of love, this name Jesu fasten to it so fast in thy heart that it come never out of thy thought.  And when thou speakest to him and sayest 'Jesu', through custom, it shall be in thy ear joy, in thy mouth honey, and in thy heart melody. . . . If thou think Jesu continually and hold it stably [steadily], it purges thy sin and kindles thy heart; it clarifies thy soul, it removes anger, and does away sloth; it wounds in love and fullness of charity; it chases the devil, and puts out the dread; it opens heaven and makes a contemplative man.  Have in mind Jesu; for all vices and phantoms it puts out from the lover.

Richard Rolle: The Form of Living.

5th Monday in Lent (March 30th, 2009)

The beginning of our Lord's entrance into the terrible jaws of this second death may be justly dated from those affecting words, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death; tarry ye here with me and watch."  See here the Lord of life reduced to such distress as to beg the prayers, watching and assistance of His poor disciples!  A plain proof that it was not the sufferings of this world, but a state of dreadful dereliction that was coming upon Him.  O holy Redeemer, that I knew how to describe the anguishing terrors of thy soul, when thou wast entering into eternal death, that no other son of man might fall into it!

William Law: An Appeal.

And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death.

Luke 23:32