BY Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.
Additional Devotions for Fridays Subsequent to the First
September.— For The 2nd Friday
For The 3rd Friday
For The 4th Friday
Holy Thursday is approaching its end … Already the first shadows of twilight are darkening the sky. Behold! the anguish of an inexpressible sorrow invades the Heart of Jesus. Why this inward shuddering? …
The Savior, the adorable Nazarene, Jesus, was the Son of Man … As such He had a Mother, unique in her tenderness, incomparably lovely, divinely holy and beautiful … A single glance from Mary, and above all a throb of her maternal heart meant more to Jesus than all the angelic concerts … far more than the perfumed breezes of earth and the splendors of skies … Mary was for Jesus a smile of complacency of the Eternal Father … And Jesus had to leave this Mother for love of us ungrateful ones! …
O! Holy Thursday, a day never to be forgotten because of the Master’s supreme farewells … Who will tell us of this wonderful and mysterious scene over which the Evangelists have thrown a veil of silence? With loving reverence for the Son and Mother, let us represent to ourselves, with hearts deeply moved, the farewell scene, which must have taken place at Bethany.
His hour has come … It seems probable that Jesus, the Son of God and also the Son of Man, asked His Mother’s consent to die, as He had already asked her consent to become Incarnate, her child … His voice broken by sobs and His royal, Divine Head leaning on His Mother’s heart, Jesus entrusts to her the sheep that will be brought back to the fold by His death. Remembering the crib at Bethlehem, Mary holds Him in her arms, while her eyes, miraculously enlightened, look on tomorrow’s Calvary where the Queen of love will become the Queen of Sorrows … She weeps and with her precious tears she anoints the adorable Head of the Redeemer … Yes, she weeps as a mother, but more than that, she weeps as co-redemptrix! She offered to the Eternal Father the Divine Victim, the Lamb without spot … She weeps, and with her tears she blesses the world, whose salvation, begun with her sublime Fiat, pronounced in the happy little house of Nazareth, must be consumated tomorrow on a gibbet of ignominy and of blood …
O! then in the clearness of that ominous light she sees not only the drama of Calvary but also the adorable designs of the Most High … She then embraces her Son with an inexpressible love … and before the cruel thorns pierce His Forehead she imprints thereon a kiss in the name of all those in heaven who adore Jesus, for He is their God … She kisses Him again in the name of those on earth, for the Son of Mary is also its Divine King … And kissing the Forehead of her Jesus, she places there, as on the holiest of altars, the holiest of oblations—the Fiat, a Fiat crushing for the Mother, but sovereign in its redemptive power …
Night has come … Jesus confides His desolate Mother to His faithful friends of Bethany and to His Angels … Then He withdraws, His soul bathed in an agony, a thousand times more piercing and more bitter than death itself …
(Pause)
Souls: O, Eucharistic Jesus, may the hour and the day in which we recall to Thee the beginnings of Thy Passion, in the anguish endured by Thy Adorable Heart when sacrificing Thy divine Mother, be propitious to this sinful world … It is not only because Thou art God, O Sweet Savior, but because Thou art the Man-God, the Son of Mary, that Thou didst understand and feel the profound bitterness of earthly separations, … the grief occasioned by absence, farewells, and above all by death … And it is precisely for this reason, because Thou art Jesus, that we come to place our hearts in this first Wound of Thine, an open Wound, made by leaving Thy incomparable Mother.
O, she was truly the Mother of Sorrows … She suffered then, as no other Mother has suffered … See in her, O Jesus, so many mothers, so many wives, so many souls who weep today before Thy Tabernacle because of the absence of their loved ones … How many amongst them will come alone tomorrow and prostrate themselves before Thy Bloody Cross? … Yes, they will come alone because misfortune, and, alas, often the loss of faith, has drawn far from home and from Thy Sanctuary, a son, a brother or a husband. They have wandered far away, Jesus, but Thou hast not rejected them, no, a thousand times no; Thou hast not rejected them from the Tabernacle of Thy Heart which is the Resurrection of those who have fallen! …
See, Lord, so many afflicted mothers, so many Christian parents, so many desolate brothers who have come this evening into this new Gethsemane to shed tears into the chalice of Thy adorable Heart, to weep over the grief of separation … and also to ask for peace through the triumph of Thy love in their homes, peace by the return of the prodigals, peace of resignation in sorrows occasioned by death …
We consent willingly, O Master, to suffer near Thee, provided that our loved ones belong to Thee, that they may all adore Thee and love Thee as they did on the happy day of their First Communion …
Jesus, sweet Nazarene, remember the sorrows of Mary at the moment of Thy farewell on Holy Thursday … Do not forget that when embracing Thee for the last time in her arms Thy Mother begged Thee to watch in Thy Eucharist with a special tenderness over afflicted mothers and over all their absent ones! …
(Pause)
(Ask the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary by their mutual affliction of Holy Thursday to cure the many moral miseries which desolate homes. On that day Jesus gave us His Heart in the Holy Eucharist and He knows not how to refuse us this grace.)
His Heart broken, His Head bathed with the tears of His Divine Mother, Jesus climbs the Mount of Sion and arrives with His disciples at the room in which He is to celebrate the Last Supper … Love has wounded Him … And Jesus, having always loved us with an unbounded love at this sublime hour loved us to excess. Look, in the delirium, in the foolishness of His love, He makes Himself our Bread … He delivers Himself to us, inert, abased in the Holy Eucharist, even to the consummation of the world …
O Jesus, love has conquered Thee! Hail the love of Thy Heart which beats for us in the Host! Live forever! …
(Pause)
In reflecting on the gift par excellence of the Heart of Jesus—the Divine Eucharist, marvellous invention of His tenderness — a spontaneous cry breaks forth from our souls, “May the Heart of Jesus in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar live forever!” … But, alas, such is not the cry of the world, heir to the hardness of a people who committed deicide and even heir to the perfidy of the traitor Judas.
Behold Him, this God, in the Sacred Host! forgotten by thousands of men whom He has ransomed … Behold Him Who has made, for Himself, the prison of the Tabernacle … Who has invented the Heaven of the Eucharist and see His people repay His love by forgetfulness … They abandon Him in His Holy Ark!
Contemplate Him, consoling souls, and see Him abandoned in the obscurity of His prison, He, the God Who is the Beatitude of the elect. He calls … and His voice is lost in the desert … He implores … and His prayer vanishes in the silence … He complains … and His groaning is often deadened by the noisy laughter of His ungrateful children completely forgetful of the divine Captive of the Tabernacle! …
And to think that the Man-God had foreseen all these insults, had tasted the indescribable bitterness of them, while He consecrated for the first time the Eucharistic Bread on Holy Thursday, yet His Heart did not hesitate, … And now it is He Who awaits you … Who sees you, faithful souls, pouring out before His altar a prayer of consolation and of triumph.
Let us recite this prayer together as a reparation for this outrageous forgetfulness toward Him. Let us ask for victory for the Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Souls: Uniting ourselves to the ardent faith of Peter and to the fervor which animated the soul of John when they received Holy Communion from Thy Divine Hands, we beg Thee, Eucharistic Jesus, to excite in souls an ardent desire for Holy Communion.
We beg of Thee this favor by the First Communion Thou hast distributed to Thy Apostles, in the Mystic Supper of Holy Thursday, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By the protestations of the love and fidelity of Thy disciples when Thou didst confide to them the Treasure of Treasures, Thy Sacred Heart, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By the wonderful powers conferred on the Apostles and by the institution of the Priesthood, which will perpetuate the Eucharistic Mysteries,
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By the uninterrupted holocaust of the Cenacle and of the Cross in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By the inexhaustible largess of Thy Divine Heart and the splendid victories accorded to Thy Church through the Holy Sacrament of the altar, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By the unceasing marvels of sanctification produced by the frequent and daily reception of the Sacramental Manna, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By Thy real and permanent Presence for twenty centuries in all the Tabernacles of the earth, notwithstanding neglect, disdain, and sacrilege, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By the divine Wisdom of Thy Church, which, with a holy and loving insistence, invites the faithful to a frequent and daily reception of the Adorable Eucharist, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
By the love of a divine and exquisite tenderness which has opened the shelter of Thy Eucharistic Heart and of the Holy Tabernacle to all little ones of a society stamped with decay, …
All: Reign, O Divine Heart, through daily Communion!
(Pause or hymn)
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| Rev. Irvin Mathias Udulutsch, OFM Cap (1920-2010) |
Fulda Melody |
|---|---|
| O Jesus we adore Thee, Who In Thy love divine, con- ceal Thy mighty Godhead, in Forms of bread and wine. (Chorus) |
CHORUS O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, All Praise and all thanksgiving, Be Ev’ry moment Thine. |
| O Jesus we adore Thee, our Victim and our Priest, Whose Precious Blood and Body, Be- come our Sacred feast. (Chorus) |
O Jesus we adore Thee, our Saviour and our King, and with the saints and angels, our humble homage bring. (Chorus) |
| O Jesus we adore Thee, come Live in us we pray, that All our thoughts and actions, be Thine alone today. (Chorus) |
O come all thee who labor, in Sorrow and in pain, come eat this Bread from heaven, thy peace and strength regain. (Chorus) |
At Thy feet, O my Jesus, I prostrate myself and I offer Thee the repentance of my contrite heart, which is humbled in its nothingness and in Thy holy presence. I adore Thee in the Sacrament of Thy love, the ineffable Eucharist. I desire to receive Thee into the poor dwelling that my heart offers Thee. While waiting for the happiness of sacramental Communion, I wish to possess Thee in spirit. Come to me, O my Jesus, since I, for my part, am coming to Thee! May Thy love embrace my whole being in life and in death. I believe in Thee, I hope in Thee, I love Thee. Amen.
(Ask with special fervor this evening for the triumph of the Sacred Heart by daily Communion.)
CONSIDERATION: O prodigy of humility! the God of heaven, the Sovereign Lord of earth has made Himself the slave of men; He Who gives life annihilates Himself; He Who has broken our chains binds Himself, and He remains, by an incomprehensible love, always a prisoner ever since the first Holy Thursday! …
He descends from the hill of Sion and plunges into the solitude of Gethsemane … There, falling on His knees, He prays … His agony commences … At this moment a weight of sorrow presses upon His Heart and crushes It. In the midst of all this anguish, He cries out, sobbing, “O Father, strike Me, but save men … pardon them for I love them.” …
His anguish increases. He sees passing before His Eyes His executioners, blasphemers, insultors of His Cross, the deniers of His Gospel and of His love … and He repeats: “I love them, O My Father, pardon them!” …
He sees passing in review the apostates, the renegades, who cast at His Feet the things they adore; … then the multitude of lukewarm souls—men who fear to confess Christ, those who are ashamed of their King and Savior, and He cries out with grief: “I love them, O My Father … pardon them!”
Then are presented to His Mind the army of wicked men, without conscience; … an innumerable crowd of revellers who profane their souls in the shameful misuse of their passions … then the persecutors of the Church, those who have enriched themselves by lying, … the seducers of the people, the hypocrites, the proud: … all these pass by, and the Divine One in agony repeats: “I love them, O My Father, I beseech pardon for them!” …
Then come the mediocre and unfaithful priests, worldly parents, responsible for the loss of their children’s souls, … families with all their sins, … societies with all their orgies, … peoples and rulers with their insulting rebellions. Before His Eyes pass by all those who insult the Pontiff, His Vicar, … and Jesus immersed in this profound sea of filth, dishonor and agony, His voice quivering with grief utters again; “Yes, O My Father, I love them, I love them. Pardon all these guilty ones!”
And finally, like thousands of arrows, sacrilegiously striking His Face and transpiercing His Heart, the names of the damned have come, that innumerable legion of reprobates, who, marked with His Blood and redeemed by His death, nevertheless choose for themselves eternal death and malediction! … O! then this Divine Heart breaks under the oppression of an infinite sorrow, His veins burst open with violent grief. Jesus staggers … an instant after, His Features livid, His Hair disheveled, His whole Body trembling and covered with blood, He falls on His Face to the ground and utters a cry: “Father, I have come into this world to accomplish Thy Will! … If it be possible let this chalice pass from Me, but not My Will but Thine be done!” …
He was still prostrate on the ground when the names of each one of us, yes, our own names resounded in the depths of His agonizing Heart … In that Holy Hour He saw us, all of us here present, bringing to Him a sweet consolation. He saw us come with the Angel to strengthen Him … He felt that we were sustaining His fainting Body between our arms, against our hearts. He felt that we were comforting Him by our sacrifices, our tenderness, and our love … Since then He continues to regard us through His tears and from the depths of His Prison, as His friends, as the confidants of His grief-stricken Heart, for it is this same Heart which beats here in the mysterious tomb of His altar.
Let us keep silence and let the beatings of this adorable Heart speak to us of Its secret sorrows, Its requests for love, and Its desires to triumph over all! …
(Pause)
(Consecrate yourselves to His Sacred Heart in this Holy Hour, a thousand times blessed, and pledge to Him an eternal love in the Holy Eucharist.)
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Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thee. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but, to be more surely united with Thee, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy Most Sacred Heart.
Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.
Be Thou King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father’s house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.
Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof; call them back to the harbor of truth and unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.
Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism; refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God. Turn Thine eyes of mercy toward the children of that race, once Thy chosen people. Of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may it now descend upon them a laver of redemption and of life.
Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and Honor forever. Amen.
Night had come, it was getting late! … “Let us go,” said Jesus, awakening His disciples! “Let us go! He who is about to betray Me is here.” … For an instant His Heart shuddered, cruelly tortured at the sight of Judas, the traitor. He had loved him so much! … He had chosen him from amongst thousands! … He had made him His apostle and His priest! … And this unhappy man for a few pieces of silver comes to deliver up his Master! … Judas stretches out his arms to Him, O perfidious treason, and the apostate approaching Jesus, kisses that adorable Face which had lately received the kiss of His Immaculate Mother! … Profoundly moved, but with infinite sweetness, Jesus said to him: “My friend, you betray the Son of Man with a kiss.” …
Alas, that word of ignominious reproach has come down through centuries … for there are always traitors who live only to deliver up Jesus … This class of men, who live on the Blood of Christ, who divide His tunic and traffic with His Gospel, exist everywhere … And the Lord Jesus because He is good and eternal is patient and silent in His Tabernacle, which will one day be a witness of their promises and the accusing proof of their treasons …
They kiss Him! those so numerous alas! who deliver Him up to obtain an office which they believe honorable and to obtain vile riches so ardently coveted.
They kiss Him and perfidiously deliver Him up, those unfortunates, who say that they are shocked at His saving doctrine when in reality it is the holiness of His morals and of His law which drives them away from Him …
They kiss and deliver Him up, these cowards so numerous, who fear the doctors of the law and the Pharisees who struggle against God because He condemns their hypocrisy and their baseness …
These Judases behave towards Jesus with a refined cruelty. They approach Him with the appearance of respect, and betray Him, because say they it is a duty they owe society, an honesty of conscience, a point of honor, and a loyal conviction! …
Souls: They believe no longer in Thee, Jesus. They say they are disillusioned with Thee, and yet Thou art the only Truth which never changes, the only Way which never leads astray, and the only Life which never dies. O, during this Holy Hour, we pray Thee, forget forever and pardon the bloody outrages of all those who have sat at Thy Banquet, who were Thy friends, even Thy confidants, and who afterwards preferred to Thee the husks of the earth …
(Out loud)
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the immense grief which wounds Thy Heart on seeing the base treason of the unfaithful apostle who delivered Thee up by his traitorous kiss, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the sorrowful agony caused Thee by the shameful flight of the disciples who had sworn to love Thee until death, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the bitterness which Thou hast felt at the triple denial of Peter … by the humble tears which he shed in atonement for his presumption and his deplorable weakness, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the frightful deception which the blindness of Thy people caused Thee when after having acclaimed Thy Name, they enthusiastically applauded Thy executioners and furiously demanded Thy Blood, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the affliction which Thou hast felt at the ingratitude of so many sick whom Thou hadst cured, and of all those who though favored with Thy miracles nevertheless joined the deicide mob, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By Thy burning tears, shed on hearing the curse of mothers whose children Thou hadst blessed, and by the grief which the outrages of these very children caused Thee, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the deep Wound made in Thy Heart by the despair of Judas, doubting Thy ineffable mercy, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the grief inflicted upon Thee because of the innumerable defections foreseen at Gethsemane, which in the course of ages were to rend the seamless robe of Thy Church, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
By the mortal agony caused Thee by the public apostasy of some ministers of the altar, and by the groans forced from Thee by these unfortunate Judases whose blasphemies transpierced Thy Heart as the thrust of a lance, …
All: Agonizing Heart of Jesus, pardon traitors!
(Make honorable amends to Jesus for so many treasons provoked by lukewarmness and base interests.)
(Pause or hymn)
“Whom seek You?” says Jesus to the soldiers, hiding and controlling with a Divine Majesty His immense sorrow … “Jesus of Nazareth,” respond in a single voice these men thirsting for His Blood …
Quickly the dear Master advances towards them, presents to them His Hands, bows His Head and lets Himself be bound like a criminal … And, Prisoner of men, His creatures, He delivers up to them His Heart anew!
And you, fervent souls, Whom seek you this evening in the Gethsemane of the Tabernacle? Whom?
Souls: We have come to see Thee, Jesus of Nazareth! … It is already the hour of the power of darkness, the hour of loneliness and of sin … That is why we have chosen the moment of Thy supreme weakness, O Divine Lord, Agonizing One of the altar, to speak to Thee heart to heart and to hold during this Holy Hour the place of John, the Beloved, and that of the angels …
Yes, Thou art for us O Jesus, Prisoner of the Tabernacle and Prisoner of our souls … By the Eucharist Thou art in our power and we shall make use of it, Jesus, to prove to Thee our love, not to be Thy executioners as perhaps we have been more than once!
Let us approach Thy prison. Permit us to kiss Thy chains, to bless the walls which keep Thee among us. Let us shed tears of love while meditating on the sublime and incomprehensible captivity of the Son of the Living God …
Here, there is no traitor to deliver Thee up … O, no! The great divine jailer of this Prison of Love is Thine own amiable Heart. Permit us then to take from Thee at this moment all the bitterness of Thy captivity by our humble adoration … At the threshold of Thy Prison be pleased, O Jesus, to receive the prayer of Thy faithful and loving children!
In all the Tabernacles of the earth, in all the consecrated Hosts of the entire world, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
In those Tabernacles entirely abandoned in distant lands or where for months at a time Thou art forgotten under the dust of the altar, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
In those innumerable churches where the Eucharistic abasement of Thy Divine Majesty is offended by irreverence, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
On the floor of the Sanctuary, in the dust of the road, and especially where sacrilegious hands have profaned a consecrated Host, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
On the lips of one who receives Thee as did Judas with heart soiled by sin, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
In the splendor and the pomp which Holy Mother Church displays in her public cult, in order to honor the Sacrament of Thy Love, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
In the happy solitude of monasteries, in the hearts of Thy spouses who chant their hymn of virginal love to the Immolated Lamb, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
In union with all Thy friends who by perpetual adoration endeavor to repair the offenses committed against Thee in the Sacred Host, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
With all the associates of the Holy Hour who, faithful to Thy appeal, come to visit Thee and to accompany Thee to the Gethsemane of the altar, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
In the breast of the dying who have called on Thine aid … in the agonizing hearts which grow faint under the embrace of death, …
All: Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we adore Thee!
(Pause or hymn)
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| 1) Jesus! my Lord, my God, my all! How can I love Thee as I ought? And, how revere this wondrous gift, So far surpassing hope or thought? Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
2) Had I but Mary’s sinless heart To love Thee with, my dearest King! O with what bursts of fervent praise Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing! Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
| 3) O see! within a creature’s hand The vast Creator deigns to be, Reposing infant-like, as though On Joseph’s arm, or Mary’s knee. Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
4) Thy Body, Soul, and Godhead, all! O mystery of love divine! I cannot compass all I have, For all Thou hast and art are mine! Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
| 5) Sound, sound His praises higher still, And come, ye angels, to our aid, ‘Tis God! ‘Tis God! the very God Whose power both man and angels made! Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
6) Ring joyously, ye solemn bells! And wave, O wave, ye censers bright! ‘Tis Jesus cometh, Mary’s Son And God of God, and Light of Light! Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
| 7) O earth! grow flowers beneath His feet, And thou, O sun, shine bright this day! He comes! He comes! O Heaven on earth! Our Jesus comes upon His way! Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
8) He comes! He comes! The Lord of Hosts, Borne on His throne triumphantly! We see Thee, and we know Thee, Lord; And yearn to shed our Blood for Thee. Sweet Sacrament! we Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more! O, make us love Thee more and more! |
| 9) Our hearts leap up; our trembling song Grows fainter still; we can no more; Silence! and let us weep – and die Of very love, while we adore. Great Sacrament of love divine! All, all we have or are be Thine! All, all we have or are be Thine! |
Amen. |
No night has ever known such frightful sorrows as the night of the first Holy Thursday. Fervent souls, in order to picture again this sorrowful scene, such as it happened twenty centuries ago … fix your eyes on Jesus, seated on the bench of the accused … Behold Him, again guilty … guilty of an infinite love! … His Eyes are blinded by tears shed over the cowardice of the good—of those who are His friends … He is there in this Tabernacle, perpetual object of disdain of the would-be wise and powerful ones of the earth … He continues to be derided by those who in their hearts fear Him even in His apparent inertness and in His Sacramental silence. “Thou, Who hast raised the dead,” unbelief says to Him, “come forth if Thou canst from this tomb.”
“If Thou art a King,” say the rulers, “if it is true that Thou art the Living God in the Host, tell who it is that struck Thee!” … And they strike Him by sacrilegious laws, they profane His temples, they insult the gentleness of His Heart, which is silent and which always waits the hour to pardon …
Ah! but it is especially the sin of arrogance and of pride which outrages Him in the very sweet humility of His Tabernacle … It is the revolt of Lucifer, renewed in human pride which is the most bitter dreg of His chalice …
O Jesus, today, Thou hast the right to expect us to console Thee by our humility. O, yes, receive a thousand times, Eucharistic Jesus, this reparation of love for the sacrilegious profanation of Thy Person during that night of Holy Thursday, perpetually renewed.
(Slowly and with Pauses)
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it an honor to be rejected by the world for the sake of Thine ignored Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it a happiness to be humiliated for the sake of Thy despised Heart! …
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it a privilege to be disregarded for the sake of Thy outraged Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it an honor to be scoffed at for the sake of Thine afflicted Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it an honor to be despised for the glory of Thy Divine Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it a favor to be insulted, for the triumph of Thy bruised Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it a favor to be forgotten in order to console Thy Sacred Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to deem it a favor to be one day persecuted, for the sake of Thy wounded Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to regard it a delicious bitterness to be calumniated for the reign of Thy Sacred Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to consider it a glory to be betrayed in a holocaust of reparation close to Thine immolated Heart.
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace to consider it a favor to be hated in union with Thine agonizing Heart! …
We love Thee, O Jesus; grant us the grace of choosing as a real privilege to be condemned by the world as a homage of reparation to Thine ignored Sacred Heart.
O! we entreat Thee to grant that we may receive lovingly our rightful share of the outrages and agony of Thy Eucharistic Heart.
Be consoled, well-beloved Master; each one of us wishes Thee to hear a word of humility and confidence, solemnly declaring that Thou art his sole wealth and his only hope …
(Brief pause)
Holy Thursday was but the dawn of that long series of centuries of love and agony during which our Eucharistic Jesus, is and will remain the captive and guest of our hearts … Holy Thursday, that is to say Gethsemane and the Supper Room, will be perpetuated even to the end of time to glorify Jesus. Yes, the Holy Sacrifice and the Holy Sacrament will be our Heaven here below until the last Host will be consumed in the heart of the last dying person …
But the Heart of Jesus, Sun of love, will pierce one day and tear away the veil which hides Him from our eyes in the Sanctuary of His Sacred Breast and in the mystery of His Eucharist …
Not being able to contain the ardors of Its Charity, this Heart speaks to us through the opening of Its Wound with the language of love, revealing Itself to Margaret Mary in all the magnificence of Its love … O, it is He, the Divine Nazarene, The Master of Judea ardently loving souls … It is He, Jesus the Pontiff of the Last Supper, the victorious Captive of Gethsemane, the adorable Sufferer on Golgotha … It is really He Who appears to the ravished gaze of His confidant, He Who shows her His Heart surrounded with flames and says to her: “Behold the Heart which has so loved men! … I cannot contain any longer the love with which I am consumed for them … I am come to ask them love for Love, life for Life, heart for Heart … I am sad, they forget Me … they outrage Me! I desire to be consoled. I ask that a solemn reparation be given Me by the establishment of a great feast in honor of My Divine Heart … I claim for It a triumphal homage, a triumphant cult, for It is by My Heart that I shall reign …
“Come, keep Me company in reparatory adoration … Come, convert the world by the Holy Hour … O come, above all, to communicate fervently! … Come! I thirst to be adored and beloved in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
“Win for Me souls, many souls … introduce Me then into their homes. Bring Me near to hearts which suffer, near to the death bed of hardened sinners, and you will see then the glory and the wonders of My love.
“Take and receive My Divine Heart. I give It to you in the Holy Eucharist. It belongs to you … Let It be yours entirely … Love this Divine Heart. O love It and permit It to reign by love.”
Thus spoke Jesus at Paray-le-Monial, and He continues through the Wound in His side to speak the same language … He awaits an answer before closing this Holy Hour, this blissful hour, foreshadowing that of a blessed eternity.
(Pause)
Souls: Angel of Gethsemane, St. John, St. Margaret Mary and you happy adorers of the Cenacle, watch and pray with us. And thou especially, Mary Immaculate, Queen of Love, place our last prayer, not only at the Feet of Jesus, but also in the blessed Wound of His Side …
Lord Jesus, Thou hast said that Thou art King. Thou hast come into this world to reign through love … It is to reign that Thou hast established the perpetual sacrifice of the Altar. It is to reign that Thou hast revealed the treasures and the desires of Thy Divine Heart …
No, it is not in vain, O Jesus, that Thou hast promised to enkindle by It a fire of love in this miserable world … Accomplish now Thy promises and establish soon the reign of Thy Sacred Heart.
(Aloud)
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
Hasten, Jesus, to reign before Satan and the world wrest consciences from Thee, and in Thy absence defile all states of life! …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
Come forth, Jesus, and triumph in homes; reign there by the unalterable peace promised those who, while chanting Hosanna received Thee!
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
Do not delay, beloved Master, for a great many homes suffer from evils and bitterness that Thou hast promised to heal …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
Come because Thou art omnipotent, because Thou art the God of the battles of life … Come, showing us Thy Wounded Side as a pledge of celestial hope in the agony of death! . , .
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
May Thou Thyself be the reward promised to our labors, Thou alone the Inspirer and the Recompense of all our undertakings …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
Do not forget that it is for Thy favored ones, sinners especially, that Thou hast revealed the inexhaustible tenderness of Thy love . . ,
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
Good Master, there are so many lukewarm and so many indifferent whose love Thou shouldst enkindle by this admirable devotion …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
“Behold the source of Life,” Thou has said, showing us Thy transpierced Side: … therefore, Jesus, let us draw from It the fervor, the holiness to which we aspire …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
As Thou hast asked, Thy image has been enthroned in many homes … In their name I entreat Thee to continue to reign there as beloved Sovereign! …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
Give words of fire … give an irresistible and victorious eloquence to those priests who love Thee and who preach Thee as did John the Beloved …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
And, Jesus, for those who teach this sublime devotion, for those who publish its ineffable wonders, reserve a place in Thy Heart very near to where Thy Mother’s name is found engraved …
All: Triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
And finally, Lord Jesus, give the Heaven of Thy Heart to us who have shared Thy Agony during the Holy Hour; and by this hour of consolation … by First Friday Communions, fulfill in us Thy infallible promise … We ask Thee at the decisive hour of death:
All: That Thou wilt triumph by the reign of Thy Sacred Heart!
(Pause or hymn)
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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) |
Our Lady of America on Christ the King
And now sweetly reclining on Thy Sacred Breast, permit us to tell Thee speaking heart to heart:
We bless and love Thee, Jesus, for all those who hate Thee.
We bless and love Thee for all those who blaspheme Thee.
We bless and love Thee for all those who profane Thy Sacred Body by sacrilege.
We bless and love Thee for all those who deny Thy Presence in this adorable Sacrament.
We bless and love Thee for all the indifferent who forget Thee.
We bless and love Thee for all those who abuse Thy grace.
We bless and love Thee in this Holy Eucharist with the Heart of Thy Virgin Mother, and with the charity of all the elect.
If we have ever denied Thee, forgive us, Sacramental God! … and, in reparation, let us acknowledge Thee in the Tabernacle where Thou art a Living God!
If we have offended Thee through frailty or malice, permit us to serve Thee in the eternal slavery of an eternal love, for to live without loving Thee or to love, without suffering to make Thy Heart better known and better loved, O! Jesus … that would be to die!
Thy Kingdom come!
Final Act of Consecration
O Jesus, Hosanna! Hosanna to Thee! in reparation for the millions of creatures who know not of Thy Real Presence on our altars. In their name we adore Thee, Lord, and we desire to love Thee with a love stronger than death! …
O Jesus, Hosanna! Hosanna! in reparation for those who believing in this sublime mystery, live without communicating, disdaining the Eucharistic Manna. In their name we adore Thee, Lord, and we desire to love Thee with a love stronger than death! …
O Jesus, Hosanna! Hosanna! in reparation for those who believe in the Holy Eucharist but who nevertheless profane It by horrible sacrileges. In their name we adore Thee, Lord, and we desire to love Thee with a love stronger than death! …
O Jesus, Hosanna! Hosanna! in reparation for those who by culpable tepidity remain away from Thy Holy Table and who receive Thee rarely through a servile fear which offends Thee. In their name we adore Thee, Lord, and we desire to love Thee with a love stronger than death! …
O Jesus, Hosanna! Hosanna! in reparation for so many good and pious persons, for so many priests who could become great saints, if they would devote themselves generously to the Holy Eucharist, if they would only consecrate themselves without reserve to the Sacrifice and the Sacrament of Love … In their name we adore Thee, Lord, and we wish to love Thee with a love stronger than death! …
O Jesus, reveal to us the wonders of Thy Heart in the Holy Eucharist. Come, O hidden God, O Conqueror. Come, winning society over to the altar and Thy Holy Table, winning it soul by soul, family by family, until the whole world cries out in a transport of joy:
“Praised be the Heart of Jesus in His redeeming Eucharist! … To Him, and to Him alone on the altars, be glory and honor forever and ever! …”
Thy Kingdom come!
A Pater and an Ave for the agonizing and for sinners.
A Pater and an Ave the universal 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.
A Pater and an Ave for our country.
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!
Flyer for this Holy Hour (PDF)
Return to Table of Contents (21 Holy Hours by Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.)