COLLOQUY XXV.
In the Poor we are to Consider the Poverty of Christ and His Mother.
It happened once that a Brother harshly repulsed a beggar who was importuning him for an alms. When the tender lover of the poor heard this, he commanded the Brother to strip himself of his habit, and prostrate himself at the feet of the beggar, humbly acknowledging his fault, and begging pardon and prayers. When he had done this, the holy Father said to him sweetly : ‘Brother, whenever thou seest a poor man, thou shouldest consider the poverty of Our Lord, and His Mother. And in like manner when thou beholdest the sick, thou shouldest remember the infirmities Christ took upon Himself.’