How is it possible to offend a God scourged, a God crowned with thorns, a God crucified for us? And how is it possible that, seriously pondering these truths of faith, we can yet offend God?How is it possible to offend a God scourged, a God crowned with thorns, a God crucified for us? And how is it possible that, seriously pondering these truths of faith, we can yet offend God?
I have converted by this means the most hardened sinners, and so sincere was their repentance that, when I afterwards heard their confessions, I could no longer find in them sufficient matter for absolution. So remarkable a change came about because they were faithful to the advice I had given them to meditate on the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Begin in the morning, before leaving your room, by meditating, for a quarter of an hour, on the Passion of our Redeemer, and you will see that all will go well with you, and that you will live far removed from sin.
The most efficacious means of converting the most obdurate sinners is the Passion of Our Lord, preached according to the method which Christ's, vicar on earth has approved.
The greater number of Christians live unmindful of all that our most amiable Jesus has done and suffered. This is why they live on, sleeping in the horrible mire of iniquity. To arouse them from their detestable lethargy, it is necessary to send laborers burning with zeal, who with the trumpet of the divine Word, preaching the Passion of Christ, will awaken the poor sinners that are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Pray for our poor congregation, whose mission it is to mourn, without ceasing, the sorrows and the death of our beloved Redeemer. God wishes it to produce a great number of good laborers, who, as trumpeters of the Holy Ghost, will preach to the world and destroy sin.
- text taken from Flowers of the Passion, taken from the letters of Saint Paul of the Cross