In describing loftily the sweetness of contemplation, you have renewed the groans of my fallen state, since I hear what I have lost inwardly while mounting outwardly, though undeserving, to the topmost height of rule. Know then that I am stricken with so great sorrow that I can scarcely speak; for the dark shades of grief block up the eyes of my soul. Whatever is beheld is sad, whatever is thought delightful appears to my heart lamentable. For I reflect to what a dejected height of external advancement I have mounted in falling from the lofty height of my rest. And, being sent for my faults into the exile of employment from the face of my Lord, I say with the prophet, in the words, as it were of destroyed Jerusalem, "He who should comfort me hath departed far from me." … For I, my good man, have, as it were, lost my children, since through earthly cares I have lost works of righteousness. Therefore "call me not Noemi, that is fair; but call me Mara, for I am full of bitterness."

She owed her recovery to none other than to [God] with the result that people were no less impressed by her unexpected recovery than by her misfortune. They concluded that the tragedy had happened for her glorification through sufferings—the suffering being human, the recovery superhuman. This will provide a lesson for people in the future who exhibit a high degree of faith in the midst of suffering and patience in calamity, but in a still higher degree experience the kindness of God that she received. To God's beautiful promise to the righteous "though he fall, he shall not be utterly broken," has been added a more recent one, "though he be utterly broken, he shall speedily be raised up and glorified." For if her misfortune was unreasonable, her recovery was extraordinary, so that health soon replaced the injury, and the cure became more celebrated than the illness.

Or otherwise; With all thy heart, that is, in all recollection, act, thought; with all thy soul, to be ready, that is, to lay it down for God’s religion; with all thy mind, bringing forth nothing but what is of God. And consider whether you cannot thus take the heart of the understanding, by which we contemplate things intellectual, and the mind of that by which we utter thoughts, walking as it were with the mind through each expression, and uttering it. If the Lord had given no answer to the Pharisee who thus tempted Him, we should have judged that there was no commandment greater than the rest. But when the Lord adds, This is the first and great commandment, we learn how we ought to think of the commandments, that there is a great one, and that there are less down to the least. And the Lord says not only that it is a great, but that it is the first commandment, not in order of Scripture, but in supremacy of value. They only take upon them the greatness and supremacy of this precept, who not only love the Lord their God, but add these three conditions. Nor did He only teach the first and great commandment, but added that there was a second like unto the first, Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself. But if Whoso loveth iniquity hath hated his own soul, (Ps. 11:5.) it is manifest that he does not love his neighbour as himself, when he does not love himself.