Jesus, are you not my Mother? Are you not even more than my mother? My human mother after all laboured in giving birth to me for only a day or a night; You, my tender and beautiful Lord, laboured for me for over thirty years. . . . Oh with what measureless love you laboured for me! . . . But when the time was ripe for you to be delivered, your labor pains were so terrible your holy sweat was like great drops of blood that ran from your body onto the earth. . .nbsp;. Who ever saw a mother endure so dreadful a birth? When the time of your delivery came, you were nailed to the hard bed of the Cross . . . and your nerves and all your veins were broken. How could anyone be surprised that your veins broke open when in one day you gave birth to the whole world?
— Marguerite of Oingt , Teachings of the Christian Mystics by Andrew Harvey