BY Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.
Adorable Jesus, our Lord and our Friend, behold Thy brothers and Thy intimate friends knocking on the Tabernacle door; they wish to speak with Thee far from the crowd; they have secrets to tell Thee in confidence; they come to talk alone with Thee, speaking heart to heart with the intimacy of John, with the unrestraint of Lazarus, of Martha and Mary, with the sincerity of Nicodemus … Open Jesus, open wide the doors of the Tabernacle of Thy Heart, for it is the thirst to love Thee and to make Thee loved that impels us, with sweet and holy violence, to Thy Feet this evening … We do not come to ask Thee to show Thyself to us in that splendor which dazzled the eyes of Thy three favored Apostles on Thabor. O no, Lord! …
But even more blessed than those three friends we come to implore another revelation of Thine infinite mercy, the most beautiful of all, the most fruitful, that of Thy merciful Heart in the immolation of the Crib, of the Cross, and of Thy divine Eucharist … It is here, Jesus, in the splendor of Thy suffering love, that we insist on knowing Thee, in order to love Thee with a love stronger than death.
Then open to Thy friends this ineffable Wound! Here are Thy brothers, Thine intimates, who wish to speak to Thee in the language Thou Thyself hast taught them at Bethlehem, on Calvary, and at Paray-le-Monial …
Open, good Jesus, without delay, for it is already late. Shadows may fall on us; creatures, distract us; sorrows, unman us; and hell disturb our peace … It is during the Holy Hour, which Thou, Thyself, originated, O King of Love, that Thou dost wish to receive from Thy favored ones and to give them in return those loving confidences which are a prelude to the eternal intimacy Thou wilt one day establish between Thy Heart and ours …
Kneeling, trembling with happiness and love, we adore Thee, like the Shepherds and the Wise Men, or better still, as the Immaculate Queen herself adored Thee; … we adore Thee with the ardor of Magdalen the day she was forgiven, with the faith of Thy disciples on Ascension Day, with the charity of Thine apostles at the hour of Pentecost, … thus, King, Elder Brother, adorable Friend, Jesus-Savior, deeply moved and trusting, we adore Thee in the Holy of Holies of Thy poor Tabernacle Home …
May Mary tell Thee what our lips can only stammer, what our beggarly hearts do not know how to feel or express … In all confidence and humility our helplessness entreats Thee to speak to our souls during this Holy Hour … O Word of God, vibrate once more, resound on earth, speak to us those words which inebriate the blessed … those same words which were kept in the heart of Thy Mother and preserved in the souls of the Apostles for the salvation of the world … Speak to us those words of supreme truth and eternal life … Speak, loving Jesus; Thy friends listen! …
(In absolute silence and profound recollection, as if you saw Jesus in the Host, make an interior act of faith in the real Presence, and above all present to the Divine Master the homage of your atoning love.)
Since it is not in our power to suppress the line of traitors and of Calvary’s torturers, let us at least increase the number of friends of the Crucified, the ranks of those who remain faithful in loving and following Him, braving all dangers and all outrages …
Ah! How cruel was the agony of Gethsemane, even more cruel than that of the Cross! … On Calvary, Mary, the incomparable and unique Mother, the Queen of Saints, is very near, touching the blood-stained wood … At her side penitent Magdalen is weeping … John and a few loyal friends are nearby … But at Gethsemane, it is the anguish of solitude … It breaks Jesus’ Heart … The drowsiness of the three elect, His chosen ones, is stronger than their love … They sleep while the Master is in agony a stone’s throw away … Jesus is alone with the horrible spectacle of our crimes … But alas, those infuriated with hate are not asleep. They mean this very night to have the prey for which they crave. They are on the watch; … fury is in their hearts …
Oh! May our vigil be a vigil of faithful love. Let us offer this Holy Hour of the true friends of the Master in solemn reparation for the sins of fickle, lukewarm, and careless friends, of friends who fear and tremble, who do not know how to love as they themselves are loved. For it is above all others, His very own friends who wound Jesus; He is so little understood and often so little loved by those who have freely received the gift of His divine friendship! …
That is why this evening like the Angel of Gethsemane, though with more reason, and in company with the Queen of Sorrows, with Saint John, Magdalen, and Margaret Mary, we will press close to the Adorable One in Agony … With holy emotion and with melting hearts, listen to the plaints of our Beloved, His desires and His demands, and His burning Sitio (I thirst) which implores our thirst for love to assuage His.
(Let all be hushed around us; let everything be withdrawn from our sight except Jesus. He Himself, will let us hear His Divine Voice.)
(Very slowly and with unction) Jesus: So long have I been with you and you do not yet know Me! … Well-beloved souls, My Heart is the prey of infinite sadness on account of the ingratitude, and the lack of generosity of My friends … My real friends, where are they? I look around Me in the hour of combat and darkness … How few there are, so few, who are able to watch with Me during one hour of agony … My friends always find Me to help them climb the steep slopes of their own Calvaries; but they leave Me alone, forsaken in My sorrow … My Heart watches, this Heart they have so wounded … They sleep, while traitors urged on by hatred, hurry to accomplish their crime … The hatred of my enemies is stronger, more zealous, than the love of My friends … While My friends take their rest, the torturers fiendishly make ready the scourges, the nails, the crown of thorns, the Cross! … They work until they are weary, increasing the army of My enemies; they scatter money about lavishly to pay for cowardly betrayals, and to buy the cries of blasphemy, of legal insult … Oh, yes, legions of Angels could come. My Father would send them if I asked Him, but when I weep, I wish to have with Me only friends who can shed tears … You, My brothers, you are those friends — you, the elect of My Heart — the Heart which has been ground to bits for your well-being … Oh, do not abandon Me in the hour of Gethsemane; come close around Me. Uphold with your faithful hearts the Heart of your Jesus … My soul is sorrowful … sorrowful unto death … I die because I am not loved by My own! …
(Brief pause)
Souls: We are absolutely resolved, Lord Jesus, to atone for our faults … But, adorable Savior, make known to us Thy complaints … Do not fear to humiliate us … Enumerate these faults, these failings of Thy friends … What is the bitterness with which the chalice of Thine adorable Heart has been filled? … Speak, Oh, speak to us again, dear Jesus! …
Jesus: Listen, “filioli,” My little ones, yes, I wish to lay before you the entire cause of My sorrow … On hearing the recital of your weaknesses, instead of turning aside from Me in fear and trembling, come rather to seek in a greater intimacy with the Friend of the Tabernacle a remedy, the only efficacious one for your wretchedness … Here, I am your Savior and Friend; on the threshold of your eternity, I will, in truth, be your Judge! …
Your faults, My friends? … Above all, your lack of generous love! I hunger! Is there nothing to eat, My children? …
You do not have to buy bread, as did My Apostles in Samaria … It is you, My friends, that I want, you without reserve or measure … Oh! I hunger, not for a glance from your eyes, not for a fleeting smile on your lips, not for a word from your mouth or your heart, no … I hunger for your whole soul … In exchange for My Heart, I claim your heart for Myself alone! I have given you so much. I have given you everything … And you? Oh! Why do you always measure out the love you give Me?
Creatures, ah, they, first of all, they have the preference … And the servant, the pauper, the beggar at the banquet of your life … it is I, your God!
For a long time I have awaited the total gift of yourself which belongs to Me by right … My patience is infinite because I am Jesus! … It is often only after long months, even long years of loving expectation, that I finally receive a miserable crumb that falls from your table! … I accept it … I bless this crumb which speaks to Me of you, but I also weep while picking it up. For a long time I have awaited a place, the first place in your souls, in your home, and everywhere. Fortunate creatures have, alas, often taken it, this place of honor … They will not, they can not wait, say they … and they go in … await at the door. I await a call from your Heart, often it is the last … And too often I await in vain! I seat Myself on the door step and bide My time because I am eternal Mercy! … And I live on your crumbs, while waiting until I can give you this Banquet, which from all eternity has been prepared for you in Heaven … that Bread which is Myself … I offer you eternal happiness, and I very often receive from you only morsels of your time … You even count the moments that you grant Me …
(Brief pause)
And the proof, My children, of this lack of generosity on the part of My friends is their lack of gratitude toward Me … Through natural, noble sentiments, you thank effusively those you consider your benefactors … Alas!
I am often excluded from their number … I have loaded you with My favors; I have freely given you tenderness, enlightenment, pardon, consolations, but when the hour of thanksgiving comes, you forget Me … Where are all those fine promises of gratitude you poured out so lavishly when you implored graces … even miracles? … Ah! those I reserve for My generous friends, for the very generous friends, for grateful souls …
But this is the hour of repentance, of reparation, of mercy … Assure Me that you will love Me from now on with an immense gratitude and an unfailing generosity … Do not fear the eternal and patient One Who calls and awaits … awaiting only to enrich those whom His Heart pardons … I hunger for your love, for the bread of your hearts … Come to the God of Love, Who delights in calling Himself your Brother, your Friend, your Jesus! …
(Any hymn of thanksgiving here, or better still, if possible, the Magnificat, with Our Lady)
Souls: Good Master, Thou hast still in the dregs of the chalice a loving and just reproach to make us … How Thy cries and tears set the heart on fire while at the same time they heal it. Ah! then, speak again and wound our hearts by showing them the Wound in Thine …
Jesus: You, My little flock of favorites, draw still nearer that I may in greater confidence tell you of a sorrow that rends My Heart … My Friends do not love Me with trusting and simple love …
They fear Me! … How hard it is to be feared rather than to be loved when I am the God of Love! … And what more can be done to cure this evil which works such havoc in the ranks of My best servants … They dare not consider Me their Friend … I tell them, I repeat in the most touching terms: “It is I … Be not afraid … you are My friends” … But these timorous souls do not dare to take for themselves the delicious honey of My words … What more can I do to win a trusting love from them? …
Beloved soul, I have given up the mantle of majesty for you, and you fear Me …
Look at My Crib: I made Myself small, very small, to look like your brother, to draw you close to Me, and you are still afraid! … Meditate on My life at Nazareth, so simple and poor … My obscure and laborious life in the workshop of Joseph, the humble carpenter … What is there to terrify you? . . , And yet you are afraid! …
Follow Me as I preach; I draw the multitude; I stretch forth My arms, and the little ones, the sick, the beggars, all the outcasts of society crowd around Me; they contend for the joy of approaching Me … I am the same Jesus … and still you fear Me! …
I do not venture to invite you, cherished soul, to the banquets of Zaccheus, of Simon, of Levi, or to those of the publicans and public sinners. You would not accept My invitation … and, nevertheless, I came to save that which was lost, the fallen, the spiritual corpses, the scum of society, those who are at heart great sinners… Are you of that number? … And yet you fear! …
Do you not know of the marvels of My love at the Last Supper? … Have you also forgotten My last words of hope and pardon on the Cross — My Heart’s testament confided to My Mother, who is also yours? … You know all that. And you still fear! …
And see Me here abased, smaller than in the Crib, poorer than at Nazareth, sweeter, tenderer, more patient, and more merciful than in Samaria, at Capharnaum, in Galilee; more of a Savior, if that were possible, than on the Cross … Behold Me here in the Host where I am above all the God of Love … and you still fear! …
Ah! Then tell Me, beloved soul, what more must I do to drive away your fears, to awaken and increase in you the immeasurable trust that I claim from My friends as the precious proof of their love! …
Do not forget that it is love that saves, and that love, which on My side is pity and mercy, should produce in him whom I call My friend, open-heartedness, joyous simplicity, and unbounded confidence …Oh, I see … I already read in your soul the answer you are going to make Me. You turn pale at the remembrance of your past sins … You live in remorse instead of living by love … Your faults? Confide them all to Me … I have already forgiven you! … Believe, Oh, believe in My merciful love and come, throw yourself into My Heart! …
What! You fear your own great wretchedness? … Is not My tenderness there to provide for it and to cure it? … You fear your weakness? … I grant it … But what of the power and strength of My grace? … You look for still another excuse through fear of My justice … You should know it is terrible only to those who refuse My mercy … O cherished soul, live in the present hour, the blessed hour of grace, of strength, and of light! … Your sins of the past are no more … Remember that my name is Jesus, which means Savior! …
(Brief silence)
Souls: It is true, only too true, Lord Jesus, that we have not been always faithful to our title of friends of Thy adorable Heart … It is most certainly not that Thou hast failed to stretch forth Thy Arms and Thy Heart to Us … but because our hearts have always remained closed to our divine Friend, for want of that loving trust that with such good reason Thou claimest from us … Jesus, forgive us, Thy friends, our distrust, our lack of faith in Thy love, our excessive fear, all of which have often hurt Thee so cruelly … Listen today to our repentant voices crying to Thee: In spite of … and because of our sins.
(Aloud, all together) All: We believe in Thy love for us!
In spite of … and because of our ingratitude …
All: We believe in Thy love for as!
In spite of … and because of our weaknesses …
All: We believe in Thy love for as!
In spite of … and because of our blindness …
All: We believe in Thy love for us!
In spite of … and because of our temptations …
All: We believe in Thy love for us!
In spite of … and because of our spiritual poverty …
All: We believe in Thy love for us!
In spite of … and because of our abuse of Thy favors …
All: We believe in Thy love for us!
In spite of … and because of our great cowardice …
All: We believe in Thy love for us!
In spite of … and because of our relapses into sin …
All: We believe in Thy love for us!
Yes, sweet and merciful Jesus, to prove to Thee our boundless faith in Thy love, infinitely greater than our misery, we will go to Thee … Hereafter we will have prompt recourse to Thy compassionate Heart, especially when we feel the sting of our wretchedness and of our remorse. Dost Thou wish more, beloved Master? …
Jesus: O yes! … I want your intimacy, for I truly want your friendship … As you may well know, it is only by condescension on My part that you have any right to that intimacy. But this condescension obliges you to render Me, in your turn, a friend’s real love with all the intimacy that it connotes …
So from now on I do not want any distance between us … Meditate on the teaching of the Host, which delivers Me to you in an intimacy which astounds even the Angels … My wisdom united to My mercy has suppressed in the Holy Eucharist the infinite abyss that separates us … If, even after knowing your misery, I have filled in this abyss … if, in spite of your failings and unworthiness, I persist in calling you, and if I go so far as to order you to come and rest in the peace and freedom of My Heart, why should you wish to reopen that abyss? … Is it right to give a lesson concerning justice to your Master? …
You have this intimacy with your mother, your brothers, and your friends. Do not make Me jealous by refusing it to Me, the divine Friend of the poor, of the sorrowful, of the sinners, and of the little ones, who were the first to be invited to My banquet of choice delights …
It is the great promise I expect from you during this Holy Hour, for I do not want slaves, but intimate friends, overflowing with confidence, and abandonment.
(In silence, in burning prayer, let us promise the Heart of Jesus henceforth to give Him the complete trust, the sweet intimacy He demands of us … let us recollect ourselves … let us speak to our Divine Friend … )
(And as external and solemn profession of this silent promise, say five times in honor of our Savior’s five Wounds, two short but eloquent ejaculatory prayers, which will give joy to the Prisoner of the Tabernacle:)
(Aloud, all together)
All: We love Thee, Jesus, because Thou art Jesus! (5 times)
All: Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee. (5 times)
(Brief silence)
Jesus: O you, My friends, loaded down with My graces, come and see if there is a sorrow like to My sorrow! … For centuries I have climbed painfully the mount of Calvary … Where are then the Cyrenians of My Heart? … Where are then My real friends? … Crowds pressed around Me the day I multiplied the loaves … I had many disciples on Palm Sunday… My friends did not fall asleep on Mount Thabor … They surrounded Me in the Cenacle, but where were they at Gethsemane? … What had become of them in the Praetorium? … on Calvary? … They ask to sit at My side in the future Kingdom of glory but here below they seek sensible love, comfortable piety, easy virtue … They do not love with the real love of the Cross, of sacrifice! I receive protestations which, alas, are often only the outbursts of passing enthusiasm, the vagaries of a love which is not anchored in the depths of the soul … My friends, sometimes My best friends, fear the Crucified One and the Cross! … When I show Myself as the God-Man of sorrows, as Pilate exhibited Me … when I intimate to My friends a desire to share the glory of wearing My royal mantle dyed in the purple of My Blood … Oh! … then I am left alone with My Mother, John, and Magdalen … Do you not wish to join this small, this courageous family? … Will you, too, abandon Me when I ask you to follow Me to Calvary? … Ah, if you would only understand that I am never sweeter, never more loving than when I entrust My tears and My Cross —My treasure and yours — to My close friends! … Can you drink of My chalice? Answer Me …
(Without hesitation, let us promise with the inner voice of a loyal heart that the Master will find faithful friends in us, undaunted and generous Cyrenians, who to confirm their love will follow Him as unwaveringly to Calvary as to Thabor) .
Souls: Yes, Jesus, Crucified Master, we adore Thee above all in the beauty of Thy transfiguration when covered with blood for us; we will chant Thy glory and prove our love by imprinting on ourselves the stigmata of Thy Passion …
Reflecting on our heart-rending griefs, our family concerns, the reverses of fortune, cruel disillusionments, and our interior trials, we say with heart and lips:
In bodily suffering, under the cross of illness we will love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
All: We will love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
In the most agonizing struggle, in the hours of extreme sadness …
All: We will love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
In our hidden and secret sorrows, in hours of unbearable isolation …
All: We wilt love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
In the contradictions of daily life … in family trials …
All: We will love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
In our grieving and heart-breaks, when our friends deceive and betray us …
All: We will love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
When we feel the rigor of Thy merciful justice, in the hour of necessary separations …
All: We will love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
When defeats and mishaps spoil our plans … in the hour of human injustice …
All: We will love Thee more than ever … Hosanna to the King of Calvary!
(Brief pause)
We are reaching the end of this Holy Hour. Taking the place of His friend, John, in the Cenacle, let us draw still closer to the Heart of Jesus so as to lose not a drop from the chalice or a spark of fire and light of that Furnace …
Jesus: Sitio! I thirst, My children, faithful friends of My Heart, I thirst with a burning thirst that may be quenched by your zeal! … I have given you so much; you have received everything from my bounty … and what is the interest on this immense capital? … My glory! Do you wish to be just and grateful, faithfully paying your debt of honor? … O, then give Me souls, many souls! … Sitio! I thirst … and give Me to souls!
Do you wish to atone for the crimes of sinners, and at the same time for your many failings? … Spread My Reign of Love!
Do you wish to win even more of My Heart, to draw closer the bond of friendship that unites you to It, to oblige It to pour forth on you, more abundantly, the riches of Its mercy? … Be apostles then on fire with love … I thirst! … Yes, I thirst for souls. Give Me souls in exchange for all I have done for you …
If you knew the infinite desire I have to distribute the treasures of My Heart through My friends! … Oh, if you really love Me, let all of you become docile instruments to draw souls and families to My Sacred Heart! …
To perform this mission, so glorious for you and for Me, is beyond your power you say … The wicked speak not in this way … They are always able to make Calvary ready. Can you not possibly prepare Thabor? … What a fathomless ocean of graces, what a Heaven I reserve for the real apostles of My Heart … The inexhaustible treasures of Its tenderness and Its almighty power belong to you; come and take them and distribute them to so many of the poor, hungry, ignorant, blind, halt, who have never received what I have given you, who have never known what you know of My goodness … They are My children and your brothers … Have pity on Me in the souls of those brothers who perish … What! … Must I allot to others more zealous than you the secrets and interests of My glory? … Time presses; My hour of mercy, the hour of My Reign over the world by the power of My Heart has come. I have promised it and I will keep My word, for the world, with its follies and all it swears by will pass away; but My word and My promises will never pass away without being realized. I am a faithful God, I am the God of Love!
Sitio! … I thirst for love! … Take then the sparks from the furnace of My Heart, and go forth to conquer the world. Go forth, kindling this flame, this doctrine of My Love, so little understood! Sitio! … Love Me passionafely and make Me loved with boundless love! … I confide to you My Heart, Its treasures and My glory, for time and eternity … I must reign by love! …
(Answer the King of Love by a last prayer said with the ardor of a fiery apostle.)
Final Prayer
O Jesus, King of Love and Mercy, we implore Thee by the promises Thou didst make to Saint Margaret Mary in favor of souls devoted to Thy Sacred Heart, that the Reign of Thy adorable Heart may be spread by Thy priests and apostles over the whole world. If we are truly Thy friends we must have at heart the keenest desire to make Thy glory shine forth!
We ask that Thy kingdom may be spread by this special work of the Enthronement which the Church has blessed, and which has already brought back so many souls to Thy Heart. May it be the mustard seed, grown into a great tree, sheltering thousands of families, who in their joys and sorrows sing Thee a Hosanna of love. Let Thine all-powerful Sacred Heart bless this work that it may fulfill all the requests Thou didst make at Paray-le-Monial, and by sweet violence make Thee accomplish with us the promises made to Thy apostles.
Thou hast said, “I wish to reign by My Heart.” Then bless this work that it may be more and more fruitful, and cause those who are charged with the Church’s interests to bless it also that they may be sanctified by Thy love and this apostolate. Thy glory is our glory; Thy cause, our cause; Thine interests, our interests; Thy love, our love; because, by Thy great mercy, Thy Heart is our heart! . , .
Therefore, we beseech Thee, by Mary Immaculate, Queen of families, by Margaret Mary, Thy confidante and first disciple, by the fervor of all the apostles devoted to the glory of Thy Sacred Heart, that in us, Thy friends, and through our apostolate, Thou dost deign to carry out Thy munificent and ineffable promises of mercy. And because we are poor, sorry creatures, accept us as the docile instruments of Thy merciful designs. By all the means that Thy providence places in our hands, we promise Thee to be everywhere and always, apostles of Thy social sovereignty, of Thy Kingdom of Love.
We thank Thee a thousand times, beloved Master, for the undeserved vocation with which Thou hast blessed us in confiding to us the glory and the incomparable treasures of Thy merciful love. Thy Kingdom Come!
A Pater and an Ave for those in their agony and for sinners.
A Pater and an Ave for the world-wide triumph of the Sacred Heart, especially by daily Communion, the Holy Hour, and the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in families.
A Pater and an Ave for the particular intentions of all present.
(Final Acclamations)
Jesus, we believe in the victory of Thy Cross! (Twice)
Jesus, we believe in the victory of Thy Holy Eucharist! (Twice)
Jesus, we believe in the victory of Thy Church! (Twice)
Jesus, we believe in the victory of Thy Kingdom of Love! (Twice)
Rule, Lord, in spite of Thy enemies! (Twice)
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy Kingdom come! (5 times)
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us! (3 times)
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary, pray for us.
(At the end of the Holy Hour the Credo, if possible, or otherwise a hymn to the sovereignty of the Sacred Heart.)
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| To Jesus Christ, our Sov’reign King, Who is the world’s salvation, All praise and homage do we bring, And thanks and adoration. |
Refrain: Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler! Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer! |
| 2. Thy reign extend, O King benign, To ev’ry land and nation, For in Thy kingdom, Lord divine, Alone we find salvation. (Refrain) |
3. To Thee and to Thy Church, great King, We pledge our hearts’ oblation, Until before Thy throne we sing, In endless jubilation. (Refrain) |
Return to Table of Contents (21 Holy Hours by Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.)