***

Oh Mary, you have gone too high in telling me to love him as my Bridegroom loved him! And how did He love him? For them He left, so to speak in a certain way, the bosom of the Eternal Father, with His power, His wisdom and, in a way of speaking, His purity, in order to be able to dwell with the impurity of creatures. He left His substance and His faculties, and finally gave Himself and His own blood. And I too ought to leave myself and the love of all created things, and be prepared, should it be necessary for their salvation, to give my own blood.

***

O most pure Mary, I offer and give myself to you, not only with that purity and innocence that I received when I consecrated myself to you, but adorned beyond that, and then re-purified, and then adorned you again. Receive me, therefore, O Mary, and keep me within yourself.