Considerations on the Passion: St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

Stabat Mater dolorosa. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

Our Lenten meditations continue with posts taken from Considerations on the Passion of Jesus Christ by Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.

"You may use this little book in your prayers when you meditate on the Passion. I am using it myself every day. I desire that you should not allow a day to pass without recalling to your mind, with the aid of this or another book, something of the Passion. The Passion was for the saints a continual subject of meditation." (St Alphonsus)

This grace I ask of thee to-day: obtain for me a continual remembrance of the passion of Jesus, and of thine also, and a tender devotion to them.

 

St Alphonsus: 1696-1787. www.introibo.fr

*Thirteen years after completing the Simple Exposition, covered in our preceding posts, Saint Alphonsus wrote the following Considerations on the Passion in 1773, when he was 77 years old.

He sent the work to a pious friend with a letter dated the 8th of September, in which he says:

"You may use this little book in your prayers when you meditate on the Passion. I am using it myself every day. I desire that you should not allow a day to pass without recalling to your mind, with the aid of this or another book, something of the Passion. The Passion was for the saints a continual subject of meditation."

References in the text to numbered footnotes are not hyperlinked but may be found at the end of the relevant paragraph.

Introduction to the Considerations

How pleasing is it to Jesus Christ that we should often remember his Passion, and the shameful death which he suffered for us, can be well understood from his having instituted the most holy Sacrament of the Altar for this very end, that there might ever dwell in us the lively memory of the love which he bore to us in sacrificing himself on the cross for our salvation. Let us, then, recollect that on the night preceding his death he instituted this sacrament of love and, when he had distributed his body to the disciples, he said to them, and through them to all of us, that in receiving the Holy Communion we should bear in mind what great things he has suffered for us: As often as ye shall eat this bread and drink this cup, ye shall show forth the Lord’s death. [1] Therefore, in the Mass the Holy Church ordains that after the consecration the celebrant shall say, in the name of Jesus Christ, As often as ye do this, ye shall do it in memory of Me. And the angelic St. Thomas writes, “That the memory of the great things that he has done for us might ever remain with us, he left us his own body to be received as our food.”[2]  The saint then goes on to say that through this sacrament is preserved the memory of the boundless love which Jesus Christ has shown us in his Passion.

[1] [26] For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come.
Quotiescumque enim manducabitis panem hunc, et calicem bibetis, mortem Domini annuntiabitis donec veniat. [1 Cor 11]
[2] Opusc 57

If we were to endure injuries and stripes for the sake of a friend, and were then to learn that our friend, when he heard any one speak of what we had done, would not pay any heed to it, but turned the conversation, and said, “Let us talk of something else,” what pain we should suffer at the sight of the neglect of the ungrateful man! And, on the other hand, how glad we should be to find that our friend admitted that he was under an eternal obligation to us, that he constantly bore it in mind, and spoke of it with affection and with tears. Therefore the saints, knowing how much it pleases Jesus Christ that we should often call to mind his Passion, have been almost perpetually occupied in meditating on the pains and insults which our loving Redeemer suffered during his whole life, and still more in his death.

St. Augustine writes that there is no more profitable occupation for the soul than to meditate daily on the Passion of the Lord. It was revealed by God to a holy anchorite, that there is no exercise more adapted to inflame the heart with divine love than the thought of the death of Jesus Christ. And to St. Gertrude, as Blosius [3] records, it was revealed that as often as we look with devotion upon the crucifix, so often does Jesus look upon us with love. Blosius adds, that to consider or read of any portion of the Passion brings greater profit than any other devout exercise. Therefore St. Bonaventure writes, “O Passion worthy of love, which renders divine him who meditates upon it.” And, speaking of the wounds of the Crucified, he calls them wounds which pierce the hardest hearts, and inflame the coldest souls with divine love.

[3] Abbot Louis de Blois, O.S.B.: 1506 – 1566); Flemish monk and mystical writer, generally known under the name of Blosius.

It is related in the life of the Blessed Bernard of Corlione[4], a Capuchin, that when his brother religious desired to teach him to read, he went to take advice from Him who was crucified, and that the Lord replied to him, “What is reading? what are books? I who was crucified will be thy book, in which thou mayest read the love I bore thee.” Jesus crucified was also the beloved book of St. Philip Benitius; and when the saint was dying, he desired to have his book given him. Those who stood by, however, did not know what book he wanted; but Brother Ubaldo, his confidential friend, offered to him the image of the Crucified, on which the saint said, “This is my book;” and, kissing the sacred wounds, breathed out his blessed soul.

[4] Saint Bernardo da Corleone: 1605 - 1667. Professed religious from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. A cobbler like his father, then a soldier. A duel went too far and he almost killed a man; he fled to the Franciscans in Palermo where he experienced a conversion and repentance for his previous life.

For myself, in my spiritual works, I have often written of the Passion of Jesus Christ, but yet I think that it will not be unprofitable to devout souls if I here add many other points and reflections which I have read in various books, or which have occurred to myself; and I have determined to commit them to writing, both for the use of others, and especially for my own profit; for finding myself, now that I am putting together this little treatise, near to death, at the age of seventy-seven years, I have been desirous to prolong these considerations, by way of preparing myself for the great day of account. And, in fact, I make my own poor meditations on these very points; often and often reading some portion, in order that, whenever my last hour shall come, I may find myself occupied in keeping before my eyes Jesus crucified, who is my only hope, and thus I hope to breathe out my soul into his hands.

 Let us, then, begin the proposed reflections.

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Tecum tutus semper sum.
Ad Jesum per Mariam.