Good Mrs. Cassinettin asked me to sign her picture and add some thoughts. This came to my mind: “In cruce mea requies”(1) and I had a strong inner feeling of the true rest and peace that we find only in the cross. Let us therefore, dear mother, dare to say with all our hearts together with the bride: “Fasciculus mirrhae dilectus meus mihi inter ubera mea commorabitur.”(2) Suffering, dearest mother, will pass, but what will follow it, what we cannot understand now, will have no end.
(Br. Simon of St. Paul OCD, letter to the venerable Mother Elekta /1605–1663/, July 5, 1647)
(1): In my cross [you will find] rest. Perhaps it alludes to the verse of the Pentecost sequence: in labore requies – in labor, delightful peace.
(2): Myrrh is my beloved, he rests between my breasts. The first words of the verse from the Song of Songs (Song 1:13) – Fasciculus mirrhae – also form the title of a popular prayer book from the early 16th century that meditated on the suffering of the Lord and was among the most frequently published works at that time.
