The Way of the Cross in the words of St. Colette of Corbie

 In the words of the Testament of our Mother St. Colette, Poor Clare reformer,

"I beg you to bring about that Jesus is loved."

 

The Way of the Cross

 

Jesus is Condemned to Death

My beloved daughters, the truly obedient person ought to
dread losing out on obedience more than some physical
dying, after the example of our blessed Savior Jesus Christ
of whom St Bernard used to say; "Remember; my
Brothers. that Jesus Christ held it a dearer thing to lose His
life in His bitter Passion than to lose obedience to God His Father."(12)

 

Jesus Carries His Cross

After the renunciation of self in full obedience,
our Savior wills that we carry the Cross every day.
This is our vow of holy poverty,
the demanding cross of desiring nothing under heaven
save Him alone who carried the Cross on His shoulders
and deigned by His love to die on that Cross…  (17)

 

Jesus Fall the First Time

Let happy penance be done before the end of this present life, for this alone,
my dearly loved daughters, can bring about full reconciliation
with the well-beloved Father of those for whom our merciful Redeemer
lived in most high obedience, poverty and virginity,
Himself the only Fountain of all virtues. (35)

 

Jesus Meets His Mother

Praise, praise all the time, praise without end,
and love the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit;
and the most humble Virgin who bore Jesus Christ,
the holy and exalted soul of our Redeemer and
His precious Body which for us was hung upon the Cross!  (52)

 

Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross

This most blessed entrance into the fertile field of Gospel perfection
is called complete renouncement of the world, the flesh and of one’s own will.
So the blessed Son of the pure Virgin sets it forth that:
“Whoever wishes to come after Me,
let him completely renounce his very self and carry his  cross.”  (6)

 

Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

Then our Lord said: “And follow Me.”  By this I understand that we ought to follow
Jesus Christ, the Lamb without spot, a Virgin and Son of a virgin. by full purity
of heart and body until death. O worthy and excellent virtue (of chastity)!
It is impossible to understand very well your price and your value and the excellence
of your victory and to write about them.
God alone is your reward in the vision and divine enjoyment of Himself!  (28, 33)

 

Jesus Falls the Second Time

Live and die truly poor, my well-beloved daughters,
as did our sweet Savior upon the Cross for us.
And if, nonetheless, few people esteem poverty,
that is for you the occasion to love it the more.  (26)

Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

    Among all the virtues, I commend holy obedience to you first of all,
for in it is found the fullness of charity when one renders obedience
to a creature in all things for love of the Creator.
Oh, may we be able to die with Jesus on the Cross
in this virtue and to obtain life eternal!  Amen!      (15, 16)

Jesus Falls the Third Time

We ought faithfully to safeguard what we have promised;
and if we commit some fault through human frailty,
let us hasten to get up each time we fall and to cleanse ourselves
and make reparation by holy penance.  And our sweet Father, during this life,
receives us back without delay in His mercy and His sweet reconciliation.     (51)

Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

 O holy poverty!  the clothing of our Redemption!
precious jewel!  sure sign of salvation!
It is to poverty that the King gives full possession of the kingdom of heaven which lasts forever.
O my dearly loved Sisters -- love, love, love very perfectly this noble and precious
and most excellent virtue, loved by God and loathed by the world.  (18, 20)

Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

 Take note, my beloved daughters, that you have been called by grace to perfect obedience,
so as to obey in all things all the time so long as there is no sin….
For it does not suffice to obey sometimes and in certain things only,
but until death and in all things...
and this after the example of our merciful Redeemer who made Himself
obedient for us right up to His death.  (9)

Jesus Dies on the Cross

 With the angels, praise God!
Exalt Him here below in all things for the inestimable alms of the creation of man…
and for the sovereign gift of the sacred Incarnation of our God who is so good that,
after having created all things for us, became Himself true Man and our most loving Brother
so as to repair everything amiss for us by His glorious Passion and death.
O infinite good!  O measureless bounty!  O ingratitude which forgets so great a good!  (46, 47)

Jesus is Taken Down From the Cross

 O most blessed enclosure!  O soul hidden from everything created!
There is her only repose!  O precious and safe cloister! –
To be enclosed in a continual remembrance of the precious wounds of Jesus Christ!  (43, 44)

Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

 Oh! how precious is the sepulcher of Jesus, a sepulcher visited by the devotion of so many!
And, oh!  how precious is your own sepulcher
in which devoted souls enter to attain their salvation.
O most blessed cloister which removed you from vice and occasions of evil,
and which holds you enclosed in security and merit and in noble virtues!
O noble castle, strong and efficacious, of the King of the heavens!  (36, 38)

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O God, Who in this wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of Thy Passion, grant us, we beseech Thee, so to reverence the sacred Mysteries of Thy Body and Blood, that our souls may be always sensible of the fruit of Thy Redemption. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.