We should read our Lord's Passion constantly, said St. John Chrysostom; what great benefit we will gain by doing so. Even if you are as hard as stone, when you contemplate that He was sarcastically adorned, then ridiculed, beaten and subjected to the final agonies, you will be moved to cast all pride from your soul.. . .
One day while he was visiting St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas asked him where he had acquired such good doctrine. . . It is said that St. Bonaventure showed him a crucifix which was blackened from all the kisses he had given it, and explained This is the book that tells me what I should write; the little I know I have learned from it.
How much have I learned from this book? How much does it show? Do I have a crucifix that has been so much as smudged, much less blackened, by the attentions shown it? Do we even pay attention any more in the presence of the Crucified? There is a tendency to take for granted what we see too often. Perhaps we should be more attentive, in our homes and at church. If this is the book that taught St. Bonaventure, how much might we also learn from it? Perhaps the greater part of wisdom is the humility to be taught by what we no longer pay attention to.
