St. Alphonsus practiced and recommended that we subject pride and passions in our nature by devotions, which he employed to Our Lord, the Holy Eucharist, and Immaculate Mother. He wrote these meditations for both sinners and saints and he recommends that we read the thoughts and prayers in these pages on the Passion of Christ slowly to absorb them into our hearts.
St. Alphonsus quotes Isaias (1. 2) “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have despised me.” We are the children. How can we have the heart to despise Him who showed us so much love? It is for this that He, a God, suffered for us on the cross. St. Paul saw the death of Jesus as a “stumbling-block” for the Jews because they expected a majestic coming to earth. The gentiles did not understand why a God should sacrifice Himself for the sake of His creatures. The sight of crucified Jesus should cause us to lose all desire for and forget all earthly goods.
St. Alphonsus includes prayers and aspirations in these meditations on Christ’s Passion:
“Pardon me, my Lord, first of all, this great sin, to have lived so many years without loving Thee.”
“Draw me: we will run after Thee for the odour of Thy ointments.” (Cant. 1. 3)
“I am resolved, my Jesus, to spend the remainder of my life in loving and pleasing Thee. What have not the saints done to please Thee? They have stripped themselves of their possessions; they have renounced the greatest dignities of the world; they have welcomes as treasures, contempt, torments, and deaths the most cruel that tyrants could invent.”