LANSPERGIUS
John Gerecht was born in Landsberg in Al Bavaria in 1489. While still young he went to Cologne to attend university, where he studied philosophy. In 1508 he entered the Carthusian monastery in that city and in 1509 exercised his monastic profession, later receiving the priesthood.
He devoted himself to prayer, penance, and solitude in the silence of the cell. He died in his 50th year after a holy and praiseworthy life.
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Love and pain
Just as the Virgin gave birth to the Son without the intervention of man, so she concentrated on herself the love that other children address in a distinct way to the two parents. Then, in the Son, Mary loves her God and Creator: love, this, whose intensity equals the absolute faith with which she recognizes him.
The Virgin stands beside the cross: in a sea of sorrows, her face streaked with tears, her soul bleeding for the wounds of her Son. His eyes cannot detach from that massacred and bleeding body: "From the soles of the feet to the head there is not an unharmed part in it, but wounds and bruises". The murderous violence that fell on Christ disfigured him to the point of almost erasing the human form. A leper, a mass of sores and bruises stands before her: the most abject of men. This is the scene that penetrates into the heart of the Mother like a sword: not one of the details of the drama escapes or is spared her. But Our Lady stands under the cross not only with her body but with an unshakeable faith. He believes Mary, he fully believes, that everything does not end for Christ with death.
How much she loved, so much the Virgin suffered. In fact, love and pain always correspond when one sees being loved suffer. The martyrdom now suffered by Our Lady at the sight of the tortured, agonizing Son is born from the immensity of his love for him. Jesus sees his Mother standing at the foot of the cross. Not the mother of one man alone, but of God. Shining mother of the radiance of her virginity, holier mother than any other: and the heart of Jesus feels torn. The Madonna directs to the heart of her Son darts of love and compassion that pierce the Lord with mortal impetus. And with the same arrows of love and passion the Son hurts aside aside aside the soul of his Mother. It is an exchange and mutual increase of the torment of love. In fact, Christ wanted his Mother beside him, who cooperated in our redemption, to then give her to us as Mother of mercy. This is why the sweet Mother of Christ had to generate us children of adoption under the cross: as, according to nature, she is the Mother of Christ, so she had to become our adopted Mother, the spiritual Mother of us all. We have been incorporated into Christ and we are called his mystical members; so we are also children of Mary, not according to the flesh, but by adoption.
Thanks to the sufferings that Christ suffered for us, we are incorporated into him through faith and baptism; we become his brothers: multiple members under one head, we form one body. Members of the body of Christ, we are therefore children of Mary. To support the pain of this spiritual birth, Mary, our mother, is at the foot of the cross. Sorrows and both spiritual generations: Simeon had predicted that a sword, not material but spiritual, would pierce his soul. In fact all the torments that Christ bears in the body, she experiences them in the soul. Seeing the Son suffer was an intolerable pain for the Mother. Yet she could not take her eyes off him. Standing there, very much alive, she mourns him and suffers a thousand dead. Meanwhile, Jesus sees the end approaching and wants to fulfill his filial duties towards Mary. He entrusted his Mother to John; however, from another point of view he entrusted John to Mary. The Gospel rightly emphasizes that Our Lady "remained" at the foot of the cross. In fact, the apostles had fled, the other friends were away. When Jesus looks to the right and to the left, he finds no one who recognizes him. She alone, Mary, endures faithful, alone with him among so many torments.
"Jesus seeing his mother...", this is how the Gospel expresses itself. "Behold your son", referring with his gaze to John, and to John, entrusting it to him: "Behold your mother!". Commending them to one another, Christ united those two virgin souls; in the person of St. John, all of us, members of the mystical body of which he is the head, he entrusts to his Mother; truly Mary becomes the Mother of each of us.
(Homiliae in Passione Christi, horn. XLVIII, Opera omnia, t. 3, pp. 101-103).
Totus tuus
How many are the drops of the sea, the stars of heaven, the hosts of the blessed spirits; how many the leaves of the trees and the blades of grass of the meadows, so many times in the depths of my heart I greet you, O beautiful, most worthy and most glorious Mother of God, blazing Queen of heaven, my lovely Lady and sweet Virgin Mary! I greet you with the Heart of your beloved Son, with his love and with the love of all those who love you; I put myself under your protection and I entrust myself to you as a son, in the trust that you welcome me and obtain me from God to be all yours (totus tuus) and you all mine, you who after God are my Lady, my joy, my crown and my sweet and most faithful Mother.
(Pharetra divini ainoris, lib. II, Opera omnia, t. 5, p. 159).
The mystical rose and the lily
Or chaste among the women, or integerrima between the virgins, or Genitrice of God, you have given birth to the joy of the angels, you have generated to the world the mercy, the redemption of the souls, the end of the sin, the author of the virtues, the source of the grace, the principle of the salvation, the destruction of death; you have brought to the world the restoration of eternal life. You, intact Virgin, you inviolate Mother, you, before the birth in the birth and after the birth, have remained incorrupt virgin.
Though you were beyond comely and gracious in your beauty above all women, yet God gave you the grace of not arousing the lust of any man with your beauty, but rather to make more chaste the hearts of those who are mirrored in the clear purity of your chastity. Therefore Joseph not only did not desire you humanly, but through you he was more chaste. O most chaste marriage of Joseph and Mary, union of virgin lovers of God, garden of lilies shining with whiteness and fragrant roses of charity, or most holy cohabitation and most perfect delight, or hearts burning with divine love, hearts filled with the Holy Spirit, I remind you of this most gracious communion and mutual delight with which throughout your life you "have competed in esteeming one another" and have adhered with an immaculate heart to the Son of God, Jesus Christ! Sweet Mary, sweet Joseph, honored by the name of God’s parents and predestined to this office and honor before the constitution of the world, with your prayers and your merits impetratemi by God, that in me every non divine love is destroyed at its root, so that I may love, with all my heart, God alone, in all and above all things. Or verdant gems, or chaste violets, impetrate to my senses, to the whole body and my soul a most perfect integrity, an integerrima chastity and a simple purity of heart, so that out of my God nothing attracts me and nothing delights me. So be it.
(Theoriae in vitam Jesu Christi, theoria ‘XXIX, Opera omnia, t. 5, pp. 182-183)
