Chapter XXXIV.
Of the way in which our renunciation is nothing but
mortification and the image of the Crucified.
Renunciation
is nothing
but the evidence of the cross and of mortification. And so you must
know that to-day you are dead to this world and its deeds and desires,
and that, as the Apostle says, you are crucified to this world and this
world to you.
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Consider therefore
the demands of the cross under the sign
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of which you ought henceforward to live in this life; because
you
no longer live but
He
lives in you who was crucified
for you.
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We must
therefore pass our time in this life in that fashion and form in which
He was crucified for us on the cross so that (as David says) piercing
our flesh with the fear of the Lord,
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we may
have all our wishes and desires not subservient to our own lusts but
fastened to His mortification. For so shall we fulfil the command of
the Lord which says: “He that taketh not up his cross and
followeth me is not worthy of me.”
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But perhaps you will say: How can a man carry his cross continually? or
how can any one who is alive be crucified? Hear briefly how this
is.
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Cf.
Gal. vi. 14
.
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Sacramentum
.
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Cf.
Gal. ii. 20
.
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Cf.
Ps. cxviii.
(cxix.) 120
, where the
Gallican Psalter has “Confige timore tuo carnes meas.”
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S.
Matt. x. 38
.