By St. Alphonsus Liguori
Yet another fantastic book to add to our Lenten collection and foster greater love and appreciation for Our Lord's Passion and Death!
What is particularly relevant now about this one is that it is the perfect length to provide for only half of Lent, being roughly all we have left of this penitential season right now, but especially for the latter half due to its meditational material and prayers specifically for this period and especially for Holy Week.
Unlike the "The School of Jesus Crucified" by the Passionist Father, and "The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ" by Archbishop Alban Goodier, both truly exceptional and exhaustive books for the Lenten season, this one is about half the length, yet it is much longer and meatier than the smaller works such as "Thoughts on the Passion" or "The Three Hours' Agony of Our Lord Jesus Christ" that are ideal for much shorter meditation sessions, or just to use during Passiontide.
Typically of St. Alphonsus, we are guided through our programme for spiritual progress with an insightful series of reflections interspersed with prayers relevant to each topic. This wise and great saint thought it, "for the benefit and consolation of souls enamoured to Jesus Christ" to base the majority of the reflections and affections herein on the details provided in the Evangelists' accounts of the Passion of Our Lord which he has retold arranged in order but in simplified language, given they suffice for "abundant matter for the meditations of a hundred and a thousand years, and at the same time the most powerful motives to inflame us with holy charity towards our most loving Redeemer."
That should be enough to encourage us to utilise this book! However, a little more information may be useful, so I will also mention that the insights provided by this wonderful, learned, and experienced Doctor of the Church, serve to really bring to life, as it were, the aspects of the Passion lending to more fruitful meditations. I found this applies especially to when praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary and not just to whilst actively employing this book.
St. Alphonsus' descriptions of what the various sites in the Holy Land were like during his lifetime are particularly interesting from an historical point of view, yet serve to invoke deeper understanding for more efficacious reflection, too. For example he writes, "There is a tradition in Jerusalem, that our Lord, bound by the Jews, being dragged roughly and tumultuously, by night, through the valley of Josaphat, to the house of Annas, fell into the torrent Kedron, swollen with the rains of the season, and that He left marks on the rock, at the bottom, which are still to be seen there. This is what David seems to have foretold by those words, 'He shall drink of the torrent in the way: therefore shall he lift up his head.' Which shall be accomplished, when at the last judgment, in punishment of this outrage...He will come, accompanied by His Angels, to avenge Himself by judging the living and the dead."
The above selection makes me think of that jump-scene in the Passion of the Christ movie, when Our Lord bound in chains falls over the bridge into the Cedron. I previously presumed that it was borrowed from Venerable Anna Catherine Emmerich's writings but I see now that it's from earlier tradition. The marks left by Our Lord at the bottom, herein mentioned, are enough to inspire one to take up scuba diving just to venerate them on a trip to the Holy Land! Lastly, this selection demonstrates another wonderful feature of this book, that being, that the author repeatedly indicates how the Passion fulfills various Old Testament prophecies, and in what manner.
He furthermore shares such details as, "Mount Calvary was a rocky eminence outside of Jerusalem, ...it is now in the middle of the city, inclosed within a church....In it is seen the place of the Crucifixion...also the hole wherein the Cross was planted...the places where the crosses of the two thieves were planted. There is also to be seen the miraculous fissure in the rock made by the earthquake that took place at our Saviour's death." Indeed, that trip to the Holy Land is looking more and more desirable.
For those who like quantitative aspects to aid in their formation of mental pictures, he tells us such details as,
"From Pilate's palace to the gallery of the Ecce Homo, seventy paces.
From the gallery of the Ecce Homo to the place where the Blessed Virgin fainted, an hundred paces.
From that place to the crossway, where our Lord was raised from the ground and helped by Simon the Cyrenean to carry His Cross, forty paces.
From that crossway to the place where the pious women wept over our Lord, ten paces.
From that place to the little house of Veronica, an hundred and seventy paces.
From Veronica's house to the Gate of Judgment, by which our Lord departed from Jerusalem, sixty paces.
From the Gate of Judgment to the foot of Mount Calvary, two hundred paces.
From the foot of Mount Calvary to the top was, in our Lord's time, about fifty paces; making in all seven hundred paces."
In addition to the short prayers sprinkled throughout the text, there is an exhaustive appendix of appropriate devotional practices, most, if not all, carry an indulgence, including:
St. Alphonsus' famous "Way of the Cross," Chaplet of the Seven Dolours, The Hour and Half-Hour of Prayer on Good Friday and Other Fridays, Short Prayer to the Most Holy Virgin in Her Desolation, The Stations of the Passion (of which there are nineteen), The Stations for Holy Thursday, Litany of the Passion, a handy inclusion of the Miserere Psalm, and many more! The collection of these excellent prayers, alone, makes this book certainly worth having accessible all year round but especially during Lent!
Not that any of our readers would need such a thing, nevertheless St. Alphonsus provides a section called "Powerful Motives: Which ought to oblige a Christian to meditate on the Passion of Jesus Christ Crucified" expounding on four such motives, which I can attest are definitely true to their name!
To wrap up: the clock of our life is ticking, and we mustn't waste any precious moment, so don't hesitate in investing the remainder of your Lent this year in benefitting from "The Clock of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
