CIUDAD to - the Catholic Kingdom!

THE CORONATION 605
of thy ointments, which Thou hast permitted thy hand
maid and mother to taste in this world (Cant. 1, 3).
My will always found its rest entirely in Thee, the highest
Truth and my true Good never have I known
;
any other
love than the love of Thee ! O my only hope and glory
!
Let not my course be prolonged, let not the beginning of
that much desired freedom be postponed! (Ps. 141, 8).
Solve now the chains of that mortal existence, which still
detains me ! Let the term of my life be fulfilled, let that
end come toward which I tended from the first instant
in which I received my being from Thee. My dwelling
among the inhabitants of Cedar has been prolonged (Ps.
119, 5) but all the
; powers of my soul and all its facul
ties look toward the Sun which gives it life, follow the
fixed North-star that leads them on, and faint away in
longing for the Good they are awaiting. O ye supernal
spirits, by the most exalted condition of your spiritual
and angelic nature, by the happiness, which you enjoy
in the never-failing beauty of my Beloved, I beseech you
to have pity on me, my friends. Do ye pity this stranger
among the children of Adam, captive in the bonds of
mortal flesh. Present to my and your Lord the cause
of my sorrow, of which He is not ignorant (Cant. 5, 8) ;
tell Him that for his sake I embrace suffering in my ban
ishment, and that I so desire it ;
but I cannot desire to
live in my own self; and if I am to live in Him in order
to preserve my life, how can I live in the absence of this,
my life? Love it is, which gives my life and at the
same time deprives me of it. Life cannot live without
love ; hence, how can I live without the Life, which alone
I love? In this sweet violence I am perishing; tell me
if possible of the qualities of my Beloved, for amid such
aromatic flowers the swoonings of my impatient love
shall find recovery
!"
( Cant. 2, 5 )
.
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