Reflection on the Passion of Christ
“… Likewise, by means of the pious exercise of the Way of the Cross, they shall reflect, especially during Lent and on Fridays, on the last sufferings of Christ.” Constitutions Article 62
Tertiaries, as followers of St. Francis and imitators of Christ, should develop an intense love for the Crucified by meditating on the Passion. Other means to foster this love for the cross includes praying the Way of the Cross, reading the Gospels and praying the Office of the Passion, written by St. Francis.
“When Francis had become blind and a prey to bitter sufferings of all sorts, a friar offered to read the Gospel to him. ‘My brothers,’ he answered, ‘there is no book which comforts me more than the remembrance of the Passion of my Savior; that is the continual subject of my meditations, and were I to live for centuries, I should never need anything else to read.'” From: Call to Commitment in the School of St. Francis
St. Francis and his love for the cross:
“He wanted to surround himself with the cross, and therefore chose a penitential habit made in the shape of a cross. He chose this habit because it was best suited, no doubt, to his ideal of poverty, but his main reason was that it signified the mystery of the cross. His body was to be clothed exteriorly with the cross of Christ just as his soul had been interiorly clothed with it; and because God had overcome the powers of hell by the sign of the cross, the cross was the standard under which the knights of the Franciscan army were called to serve the Lord” (Celano, Treatise on Miracles).
