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If the name, Christ--when its letters are dyed into the heart--is enough to strengthen and make a faithful servant courageous, so he fights with vigor and is upheld by many victories (as I upheld my Pescara), how eager, no, driven, must Ignatius have been to know torture, vicious animals, and wild pain, with CHRIST carved in gold in his heart: he knew nothing and no-one could defeat him, not fire, not fangs, not knives could come between him and this impregnable inward shield: they had his flesh, but his soul, illumined, love, was unshakeable and with Jesus |
An image of the Italian text from Visconti's 1840 edition |
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Notes: From V CVIII:268. See also B S1:125:147; MSs: V2, CASI; Valgrisi 126. Translation: Roscoe 325-6. A sonnet on St. Ignatius, said to have been a disciple of one of the Apostles. Martyred c.107 Reference: Matthew 18:1-6; Mark 9:33-37; also Jacobus Voragine, Golden Legend. Key |
