Introduction

THE passion of Jesu Christ confounds the fiend; it destroys his deceits and his snares; it slackens fleshly temptations; it clarifies the mind to covet only Jesu Christ's love. Fasten in thine heart the memory of his passion: I wot nothing, that shall so inwardly take thine heart to covet God's love, and to desire the joy of heaven, and to despise vanities of this world, as stedfast thinking on the hurts and the wounds, and on the death of Jesu Christ. It will raise thy thought above earthly pleasure, and set thine heart burning in Christ's love, and purchase into thy soul delightability and savour of heaven.

Richard Rolle,  (14th century)