"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." —Matthew 16:24

The central mystery of Christianity is the Incarnation, that God became Man, but this ineffable truth only reaches its fulfillment and value in the Passion and Death of the Christ. The God-Man, utterly blameless and perfect, took upon Himself to experience and become all the effects of evil unleashed by the sinful disobedience of mankind. The Lord's self-sacrifice was not out of vanity or a desire to prove a point; there was not one bit of self-regard in His self-oblation. Rather, He intended only to provide the healing path for all men to follow, to learn to suffer and, yes, even to die, out of love. 

The Passion of Christ is thus for us the school of sanctity; it is the foundation of all sacramental life, the foundation of the Church, and the foundation of the entire spiritual life. No one knows this better than the Passionist Order, of whom Fr. Ignatius Carsidoni of the Side of Jesus, the author of The School of Jesus Crucified: The Lessons of Calvary in Daily Catholic Life, was a member. Take heed from the lessons of this great exponent of the Passionists' charism of proclaiming suffering united with Christ as the entirety of the Christian life. 

In this book are 31 meditations on different aspects of the Lord's Suffering and Death. Each has 3 points, followed by a holy resolution to be taken and an example from the life of a saint. Also included are meditations and prayers on the Five Holy Wounds of Christ, Visits to a Crucifix, Mary Queen of Dolors, the Holy Mass, and more. Here is all you need to become a cross-bearing follower of the Lord.

Fr. Ignatius Carsidoni of the Side of Jesus lived between 1801 and 1844. A Passionist Father, he worked strenuously with fellow Passionist Blessed Dominic Barberi to aid in the reversion of England from Protestantism. The two, along with others, worked to regrow Catholicism in 19th-Century England, instating the Passionist Order there in 1842. Do not miss the opportunity to grow in sanctity and from learning at the school of Christ crucified through the pen of Fr. Ignatius.