Speculum amatorum mundi

It promises the body lasting health and introduces the soul and body to perpetual infirmity. It promises many riches and great honor, but in the end, it gives man putrefaction and stench. And although sometimes it grants worldly goods to man, yet all are incurable and vain, for they cannot prolong man's life, nor are they sufficient to defend him from the power of death. In extreme necessity, they afford no help to man, but barely provide the most vile shroud for the body. O most miserable world, and miserable are those who follow it! For the love of the world separates man from the communion of Christ and the saints; wherefore it is fittingly compared to the traitor of life, through whom Christ was betrayed with a deceitful kiss. The world gives such a sign to the demons as Judas gave to the enemies of Jesus Christ; whom I shall have kissed, by giving riches and honors, he is yours; hold him, eternally torturing him. It is very difficult and truly impossible that those who have worldly glory, and who live in the delights and pleasures of the world, can make celestial fruit. And therefore, to such people, for this kind of temporal consolation which they have here, the Lord comminates eternal punishment. Luke 6: "Woe to you who have your consolation." A prudent reader, therefore, seeing the penalty in the delights of this world, the filth in the pleasures, and the vanity in the honors, fleeing this world as the worst enemy, performs penance. According to the counsel of the Lord, Matthew 4: "Perform penance, for the kingdom of heaven will draw near." Behold the fruit of penance, because the kingdom of heaven is promised to the penitent. For penance itself reconciles a man who has been disinherited through sin from the heavenly fatherland to God the Father, and makes him a co-heir of Christ; for it frees the soul from the servitude of the devil, sanctifies it, places it under God's protection, and