from His cross He recommended thee to the care and protection of His beloved disciple, St. John; take pity, we beseech thee, on our poverty and necessities; have compassion on our anxieties; assist and comfort us in all our infirmities and miseries. Thou art the Mother of mercies, the sweet consolatrix and refuge of the desolate and afflicted: look, therefore, with pity on us, miserable children of Eve, and hear our prayer: for since, in just punishment of our sins, we are encompassed by evils, whither can we fly for more secure shelter than to thy maternal protection? Attend, therefore, with an ear of pity, we beseech thee, to our humble and earnest request. We ask it through the mercy of Jesus Christ, thy Son, the Redeemer of the world. We ask it through the anguish of mind wherewith thy beloved Son, our dear Saviour, was overwhelmed on Mount Olivet, when He besought His eternal Father to remove from Him, if possible, the bitter chalice of His future Passion. We ask it through the threefold repetition of His prayer in the garden, from whence afterwards, with mournful tears, thou didst accompany Him to the doleful Stations of His sufferings and death. We ask it through the welts and sores of His virginal flesh, occasioned by the cords and whips wherewith He was bound and scourged when stripped of His seamless garment, for which His executioners afterwards cast lots. We ask it through the scoffs and ignominies by which He was insulted, the false accusations and unjust sentence by which He was condemned to death, and which He bore with heavenly patience. We ask it through His bitter tears and sweat of blood, His silence and resignation, His sadness and grief of heart. We ask it through the blood which trickled from His royal and sacred head, when struck with the scepter of a
