St. Alphonsus Liguori on Meditating on the Passion of Jesus

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori,

MEDITATIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST,

Introduction.

"He who desires", says St. Bonaventure, "to go on advancing from virtue to virtue, from grace to grace, should meditate continually on the Passion of Jesus." And he adds that "there is no practice more profitable for the entire sanctification of the soul than the frequent meditation of the sufferings of Jesus Christ."

St. Augustine also said that a single tear shed at the remembrance of the Passion of Jesus is worth more than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or a year of fasting on bread and water.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori,

Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, Introduction,

I., How Deserving Jesus Christ is of our Love, on Account of the Love He has Shown Us in His Passion.

He (St. Francis of Assisi ) was one day found by a gentleman shedding tears, and crying out with a loud voice: being asked the cause "I weep," he answered, "over the sorrows and disgraces of my Lord: and what causes me the greatest sorrow is, that men, for whom he suffered so much, live in forgetfulness of him." And on saying this he wept the more, so that this gentleman began also himself to weep.