Flower of Devotion

On the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mechtilde saw the Lord walking through the choir with Mary Magdalene, whom he lovingly embraced with his hand. At this sight the saint began to be astonished, for it is written: “Incorruptibility makes one close to God” (Wisdom 6:20). And the Lord said to her:

“According to the greatness of the love she had for Me on earth, she is now pleasing to Me in the kingdom of heaven.” Saint Mechtilde said, “Ah, sweetest God, teach me how to praise You in this faithful one of Yours!” The Lord answered: “In the five wounds that love inflicted on her during my Passion. For when I hung on the Cross close to death, when she saw that My eyes, which so often looked upon her with mercy, were closing her heart, as if by an arrow.
Even when she saw that death had closed My ears, which I had so often bent down to her requests, and when she saw and knew the abandonment of My Mother, whom she loved so much for Me, her heart was wounded by an excess of sympathy. Thirdly, when she saw my mouth closed through death, from which she heard many sweet, consoling, and instructive words, and especially when I said, “Thy faith has saved thee, go in peace” (Luke 7:50), and when she saw that my face was covered with a deathly paleness, and she knew that I could speak to her no more, she was wounded again as by a sword. Fourthly, when she saw My Heart pierced by a spear, from which she received the sweet desire for love, so that whenever she looked at Me, her heart was touched by love, she again inflicted a deep wound on her heart by love. Fifthly, when she saw Me, her life, her joy, and all her good, without which she thought she could not live, she saw the dead and how I was laid in the tomb, her soul became weak and froze, as it were, from the excess of love, and this pain wounded her more than it could be expressed.