BY Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.
Additional Devotions for Fridays Subsequent to the First
March.— For The 2nd Friday
For The 3rd Friday
For The 4th Friday
Eucharistic Jesus, we adore Thee in union with the nine choirs of Angels who chant Thy praises in Paradise …
Jesus in the Eucharist, we bless Thee in union with the Seraphim and Saints who adore Thee in the solitude of the Eucharistic sanctuary …
Jesus in the Eucharist, we glorify Thee, above all, in union with Mary Immaculate, Queen of Heaven, and, at the same time, Sovereign of this earthly paradise, Thy Tabernacle … We offer Thee, through her, the homage of boundless love and fervent reparation … Yes, adorable Jesus, it is in union with her that we come today to sing Thy infinite mercies; with her we wish to weep over Thy mystic agony in the Tabernacle, forsaken by the ingratitude of so many!
Desiring to transform Thy Via Dolorosa into a glorious highway of divine victories, we will strew the hill of Calvary with the immortal glories of Mary Immaculate and with the flowers of our consoling love.
During this Holy Hour, in filial union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we wish to convert Thy Calvary into a Tabor and to make of it a glorious throne for Thy adorable Heart …
Beloved Jesus, notwithstanding twenty centuries of Thy nearness and intimacy, we have not as yet penetrated, as we should have, the mystery of love in Thy divine Eucharist … Oh, in reparation for this lack of understanding, we offer Mary’s intimacy, her adoration, and the ecstasy of love of her maternal Heart …
Adorable Jesus, we owe Thee yet another apology. We feel remorse for not loving Thee with the burning charity with which we should repay Thy love … Notwithstanding Thy generosity and Thine ineffable tenderness, our love is still far too measured … O Jesus, forgive us and, as compensation for our guilty coldness, accept as ours — for are we not her children? — the glowing love of our Blessed Mother on the day of her Annunciation.
Jesus-Hostia! Love of our love and Life of our life, turn away Thine adorable Eyes from our failings and our lukewarmness; turn them away from the forgetfulness of our good resolutions, from the weakness that prevents us from keeping our repeated promises to become better — to become saints … For love of Mary, Thy Mother and ours, pardon us, Jesus! … As reparation for our coldness, we offer Thee the Immaculate Heart of Mary; take It, accept It as the most perfect adoration on our part.
And, Jesus, because Thou hast not forgotten Mary’s maternal care, in her honor and also to give testimony of Thy filial gratitude and to glorify the Queen of Nazareth, we pray Thee, O King of Love, to forget all our failings and our numerous violations of Thy Law … During this Holy Hour we come to weep over our faults and those of our guilty brethren and we offer our tears in the chalice of Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
O Jesus, Thou wilt not refuse these tears, thus presented! … By them, and above all through the Blessed Virgin Mary’s tears, we dare to implore of Thee a promise: that henceforward Thou wilt reign over our souls and over our families through a greater intensity of faith and love, of humility and purity. We ask it, O Lord, by the love and martyrdom of Mary’s Sorrowful Heart!
(Pause)
(And now, tell Jesus that you love Him with a great love, and that you wish to love Him still more in exchange for His Adorable Heart which claims yours. But because your spiritual poverty is so great, offer Him the incomparable and heavenly gift of Mary’s Heart … Ask her to obtain for us the grace of graces, the grace to love with a flaming love the Heart of Her Son, Jesus, and by our burning zeal to make It loved everywhere …)
Voice of Mary: Certainly, no one more than Mary has the right to speak of the intimate sentiments of the Heart of Jesus, and nobody better than she, as co-redemptrix, can tell us of the agony of her own Immaculate Heart. Let us listen to her with filial love: “My little children, I became the Mother of Fair Love the very moment the Angel of the Annunciation visited me … And since that time I have wished that all souls might be aglow with the flames that devoured my soul. From that sublime and blessed hour of March twenty-fifth, when Jesus’ Heart and mine were united by the bonds of the same blood and the same life, I have thought of you who call me your Mother, and rightly, for so I am.
(Very slowly and brokenly) “Children, if you had seen your Mother, bathing with her burning tears the cheeks of Jesus, as He lay sleeping in His Crib at Bethlehem! If you had heard me singing as I rocked Him in my arms! … And all the while my Heart divined and foresaw the crime of deicide, which, until the end of time, would transpierce by sin’s dart, the Heart of my Child, Your Savior!
“Ah! … but then I, His Mother, raised Him in my arms and I offered Him to the Father for the salvation of our ungrateful children …
(Very slowly and reflectingly) “Oh! … how I kissed those little hands which caressed me, even then making amends for the wounds by my kisses!
“How my lips clung to His feet in a rapture of love to make up in advance for the hurt of the nails … How often I anointed His divine Brow with the unction of my tears … Ah! how many times my head, obsessed and tortured by the vision of Calvary, my lips, burning with an insatiable thirst for love, have I found rest and all I craved for in the Sacred Side, my own Heaven … There, on His Heart, a garden of delightful bitternesses, we both, Jesus and I, vowed to love and suffer together for the resurrection of prodigals, for the salvation of numerous apostates from the Cross and from the Altar” …
(Brief pause)
Consideration: Contemplate Jesus lying in His Crib, wrapped in the might of divine peace and redemptive suffering … Mary, kneeling, enraptured, in ecstasy, watches over the Child, over the Eternal One. She meditates on another Bethlehem, on quite another Crib, a crib of apparent repose, but of real and perpetual immolation, the Altar! …
Looking ahead through the centuries to come, the loving Queen, the sorrowing Virgin contemplates this lasting Bethlehem, indestructible through the ages, where this same adorable Child will be born thousands of times upon the Altar. She sees Him placed, like a mild Prisoner, between the walls of a humble and silent Tabernacle … Glancing down at her sleeping Child, she beholds this same Jesus — her God — humbled even more in each ciborium … than He is in the manger.
The vision of Bethlehem has become reality … On every altar Jesus-Hostia seems to sleep, and Mary still continues to guard this Eucharistic crib from which Jesus constantly watches over us.
(Pause)
Souls: Yes, Jesus, we believe that close to the golden ciborium which holds Thee captive, is Thy Mother; and it is she, it is her Heart which gives us Thine in the adorable Host … Bless her, Jesus, in our name, since Thou owest to her the great joy of having realized Thy vehement desire to dwell, and to find Thy delights with the children of men …
O Jesus, with the Angels of the Sanctuary sing to Thy beloved Mother … In union with the Angels of Paradise sing her praises, O King! But, above all, divine Master, with us Thy brothers, with the exiles, who like Thee, call her their Mother, sing her glory, O Lord! …
Oh! Thou canst not refuse anything to this Queen, Thy Mother. Therefore, in her name, we ask the Reign of Thy Sacred Heart through the Holy Eucharist. Thou canst not permit that Mary’s expectation, also ours, should be vain … Prove to us once more that she is all-powerful when the interests of Thy glory are in question.
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, reign over the afflicted; become their great Consoler through this consecrated daily Bread, the Gift of the Queen of Sorrows …
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, reign over children, the very little ones, through this consecrated daily Bread, Gift of the Queen of Virgins. Be the germ and the divine preservative of their perfect innocence and naive candor …
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, reign over the poor and the outcast, through this consecrated daily Bread, the Gift of the humble Queen of Bethlehem’s shepherds. Be their supernatural relief in the innumerable sufferings they endure.
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, reign over priests, and through this consecrated daily Bread, the Gift of the Queen of the Cenacle, be the sacred fire of their sacerdotal holiness and of their burning zeal! …
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, reign over the families of Bethany, and through this consecrated daily Bread, Gift of the Queen of Nazareth, be the sun of a vivid faith that will enlighten victoriously the souls of parents and children.
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, reign over Thy Church; inspire the Catholic Episcopate and especially the Sovereign Pontiff, Thy Vicar, and through this consecrated daily Bread, Gift of Mary Mediatrix, become their Pentecost of consuming fire! …
Most lovable Jesus, adorable Infant-God of the Bethlehem of our Tabernacles, repay the eager care, the kisses of infinite tenderness, the outbursts of glowing love of the Heart of Mary praying and suffering beside the poor and cold little Crib. Recompense Thy Immaculate Mother by crowning her brow with the triumphs and glories of Thy Eucharistic Heart in the Sacrament of Thy Love! …
(Pause)
Mary’s Plaints: Mary’s plaintive voice is that of a mother whose heart is cruelly wounded and who asks pity and consolation of her faithful children … Alas! they have to make up for the bitter guile which has been her portion from so many prodigals — unnatural children of whom she is the most loving mother … ingrates, who smother her Immaculate Heart with grief. Never forget that Nazareth’s divine story is not ancient history, the history of two thousand years ago. Oh, no! Nazareth still lives. It is the marvelous story of the sorrows interlaced with thorns that unite the Hearts of Son and Mother by indissoluble bonds.
Listen! the Queen of Martyrs will tell us of her sorrows: “My children, meditate on this beautiful and touching lesson: A foreign and hostile country, an idolatrous people, opened the doors to the Infant-God, a fugitive in Egypt. It offered a peaceful refuge to my Son. I dared to think that the sun tempered its heat, because the sands were less burning under our footsteps, and the pitying oasis of the desert offered us cool springs and a rest that was refused us by the ungrateful Nazarenes! …”
“Let me tell you, my children, of the deep wound made in the Heart of Thy God by the envious rancor of those whom He loved as His own … Even there, in His fatherland, there, where they should have hailed Him with palms in their hands, they plotted against Jesus with anger in their souls, they wished to stone Him, to bury Him, yes, to bury Him and His glory!”
“What bitter tears we then wept together, Jesus and I! But they were fruitful tears, ransoming the infidelities of our own people the insulting, haughty scorn of Nazareth — Nazareth, the never to be forgotten sanctuary of the most sublime memories!”
“While I was in exile the Angel of solitude was a compassionate companion, but at home our fellow countrymen plaited for both of us our first crown of thorns … My dear consolers, there in Nazareth where the divine Child played, and I watched Him grow as a Youth of enchanting grace and beauty, there where I often contemplated Him among the flowers of the hillside, there where, while echoing the angelic choirs, I sang His divine Beauty, yes, even there, I had to hear curses against Him! … And there my broken Heart atoned with its tears for the denial which so cruelly outraged the sweet Redeemer!
“Ah! but our grief became a thousand times more piercing at the thought that in the course of centuries, a great army of unhappy children, of proud and renegade Christians will ignore, in their turn, in the very bosom of the Israel of the Church, the Lord’s Law of Grace and Truth . . , I saw them, new Nazarenes, much more guilty than the others, fleeing from the Shepherd’s fold, … far in mind and heart from their Father’s House! …
“You, my little ones, younger brothers of Jesus, my First-born, you, who have come this evening to His adorable Heart, draw near Him, make up for His abandonment, console this divine Outcast. And that your reparation may be perfect, take my Heart, all its love, all its tenderness, all its immolations, and present it to Him, on His altar as your own offering … He will take it as a holocaust of perfect reparation … And, now, I your Queen, ask of you an intimate, ardent prayer … Begin it, and the Immaculate Heart of your Mother will unite itself to your hearts.”
Say this prayer in union with Mary
(Slowly and reflectingly)
Souls: Jesus of Nazareth, come back from exile, come back as a conqueror and, bound by chains of love, remain with us, for Thou must be our King! …
The world does not want Thee. In our times it utters the cry of deicide which wounds Thee, and it rejects Thee with Satanic pride … But we pray Thee, Jesus, do not go away! Return victoriously from exile; and bound by chains of love, stay with us, for Thou must be our King! …
Turn Thy gaze from those who curse Thy Name and deny Thy Gospel, and look down on us, Thine intimates … Penetrate our hearts; read them, for they take an oath of loyalty to Thee today … Because of us, Thy friends, we pray Thee, Jesus, do not go away! Return victoriously from exile, and bound by chains of love, stay with us, for Thou must be our King! …
If Thou goest away, Lord, what will become of the world without Thee, Who art its peace, without Thee, Jesus, Who art its Heaven? Oh, then, how it will lament in vain over the chains imposed on it in just punishment! How it will regret having banished Him Who is the Author and the guarantee of its holy liberty! … Forgive, Lord, those unhappy ones who offended Thee by this great sin; forgive them, for they knew not what they did. We pray Thee, do not go away, return victoriously from exile, and bound by chains of love, stay with us, for Thou must be our King! …
Fortunately, Lord, the very ones who, like the faithless Nazarenes, have put Thee out of Thine own Kingdom and Thine own House, will one day miss the life-giving warmth which is found only in Thy Sacred Heart, the only Heart that can redeem and that always pardons … Ah! then they will remember, and it is never too late, that Thou art the one Master who has sowed Truth, the only Judge who has taught Justice, the only King who has been prodigal of infinite mercy … Oh, then, how many guilty ones will turn their gaze on Thee, and, with tears in their souls and eyes, will urge Thee to come back! … Return victoriously from exile, we pray Thee; do not go away but bound by chains of love, stay with us, for Thou must be our King! … Thou wilt never leave us again; Thou will remain with us forever, Beloved Master … Therefore in the name of all the ingrates of earth and also of the friends Thou dost see before Thee, we implore the gift of Thine adorable Heart . .,.
(Aloud) All: Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!
Good Master, there are many sick souls. There are very many, too, who waver through weakness between the yawning abysses of sin and hell. In their name and ours, Lord, we cry to Thee: “Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!”
All: Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!
Good Master, we are thinking of poor souls in their agony, especially of those who insulted Thee during their lives, of those who forgot Thee during long years and wounded Thy Heart so cruelly … Have pity on them, yes, have pity on those unfortunates who need Thy boundless mercy so much … In their name and ours, we cry to Thee: “Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!”
All: Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!
Good Master, imploringly, we draw near to Thy Tabernacle thinking of so many fathers who have often forgotten their duties toward Thee; thinking, also, of so many poor mothers who suffer anguish because they fear for the eternal destiny of their husbands or their children. In their name and ours, Lord, we cry to Thee: “Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!”
All: Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!
Good Master, drawn by Thine infinite mercy and filled with firm confidence, we come without hesitation to ask Thee for those great miracles, those wonders of grace, promised to Thy consolers in the Holy Hour and Thine intimates in daily and frequent Communion. We come to implore Thy victory of love in the striking conversion of many great sinners. In their name and ours, Lord, we cry to Thee: “Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!”
All: Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!
Good Master, it is Thy Immaculate Mother who, this evening, leads us to Thee, and it is she, herself, who inspires a very special supplication for Thy friends, for Thine apostles, for priests, and for all consecrated souls who have given Thee their solemn promise to become saints … In their name and ours, Lord, we cry to Thee: “Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!”
All: Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!
Good Master, listen, finally, to our supreme prayer. We ask Thee for the glorious, worldwide triumph of Thy divine Heart in Holy Church, through the Eucharist, through the Gospel, and through Thy Vicar, the Pope. Cast a look of mercy on children and on those who govern, on the rich and the poor, on the powerful and the weak, on Christians, on heretics, and pagans. Reign over all, Jesus, over all without exception! In their name and in ours, Lord, we cry to Thee: “Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!”
All: Entrust to us Thy Heart, O Jesus!
Yes, King of Love, entrust Thy Heart to us without delay in the name and for the love of Mary’s Heart!
(Pause)
Mary’s Teachings: A Holy Hour should be a meditation on love, leading us to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, Who is the Source of love. Who could better guide us there than His holy Mother, the sweet Virgin Mary? To-day we are living hours of heavy darkness, of religious ignorance and brazen sin; therefore, let us give an attentive ear to the grave lessons of our lovable Queen. It is she, most certainly, who can point out the treacherous ambushes of this world, she who crossed it carrying, safe and sound, in the ark of her arms and her maternal Heart, Jesus, her Son. O listen to her!
“Children begotten of my love and my sorrows, harken to your Mother: in reality there is only one grave evil, an evil with eternal consequences; that is to lose Jesus, for His Heart is the never-failing source of all life. To possess that Heart is already to possess Paradise.
“I, His Mother, know from experience, for I lost Him for three days at Jerusalem and I suffered then inexpressible agony … Jesus gone … to live without Him … not to see or enjoy Him, no longer to possess Him, oh, what atrocious torment! … After having delighted in Him and pressed Him to my Heart, after having given Him all my soul in a thousand and one kisses of immense tenderness! … Yet there is still something more cruel … Draw near, my children, let me unveil to you, as much as words can express the rendings of my maternal soul, the supreme farewell of the Mother and her Son on the evening of Holy Thursday …
“Draw very near to contemplate and share my sorrow, like to no other sorrow, when at the first glimmer of Good Friday I had the frightful vision of His flagellation and of the opprobrium with which they had covered Him … Vision of blood and thorns, cries of blasphemy and hatred, cries of death … that was the heartbreaking scene that God, the Father, allowed to be placed before my eyes, the most sorrowful of Mothers.
“O my little ones, God grant that you may never taste the deadly bitterness of this chalice that of crucifying, of losing by mortal sin, Jesus, that heavenly treasure of Life which my maternal Heart has entrusted to you.
“O, especially you, happy souls, who have kept intact your innocence, spare your most lovable Jesus that first hour of revolt, of deadly pleasure. Turn away your lips, refuse to drink the first drop of the first mortal sin!
“But, if, alas, you have already soiled the beauty of your soul, I beg you not to delay in washing away with your tears, the insult with which you have covered the adorable Face of Jesus … Oh, then search for Him at once, hasten to His Feet; embrace them lovingly, promising Him loyalty and trust!
“And you, mothers of a Christian home which should be the Lord’s blessed sanctuary, listen to this sorrowful Mother: be watchful and loving, that the spouse and the children who have been confided to you may never lose by your negligence or lukewarmness, the friendship of my Son, your King. Live in such a way that, by your fervor, He may reign over them all! … Yes, that all may be His: father, mother, children, thoroughly His in time, His in eternity. May He dwell with them in hours of anguish, may He dwell with them in the springtime of Christian joy! …”
Jesus in the Eucharist is here listening to us: let us speak to Him ourselves.
Souls: Jesus, under Mary’s protection and sustained by Thy grace we will be faithful to Thee in life and in death. But knowing our great weakness we beg Thee, adorable Savior, to bind us very closely to Thyself by Thine infinite mercy …
(Slowly and reflectingly)
Heart of Jesus, draw near us when the unleashed hurricane of temptation, like a famished lion, prowls around our souls to make them hell’s prey. Do not abandon us then, Lord. Oh, do not let us abandon Thee, Jesus!
Heart of Jesus, draw near us in the hour when great weakness threatens our hearts of clay, so easily seduced by human love. Do not abandon us then, Lord. Oh, do not let us abandon Thee, Jesus!
Heart of Jesus, draw near us when grave misfortunes distill a hopelessness into the soul, parch its virtue, overwhelm it, and make it ill with a mortal disease … Do not abandon us then, Lord. Oh, do not let us abandon Thee, Jesus!
Heart of Jesus, draw near to us in the hour of great desolation, when friends of a day make a void round us, when this isolation from creatures, who know not how to live as Thee, embitters our heart. Do not abandon us then, Lord … Oh, do not permit that we abandon Thee, Jesus!
Heart of Jesus, draw near to us; come down even into the abyss where our frequent relapses throw us … Draw near us especially in those hours of great discouragement caused by the sight of our immense weakness … We feel so reluctant when Thou demandest sacrifice! Do not abandon us then, Lord. Oh, do not let us abandon Thee, O Jesus!
We implore Thee, Lord, for love of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to stay beside us, to watch over us in the fragile bark of our heart, so weak when storms arise … Remember then our love!
(Aloud)
All: Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!
Be our hope in the hour of bitterness,
Be our hope in the hour of moral exhaustion,
All: Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!
Be our hope in the hour of faltering suspense,
Be our hope in the hour of lassitude and when weariness affects the heart,
All: Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!
Be our hope in the hour when conscience seems to forget grave duties.
Be our hope in the hour of discouragement in the service of Thy cause,
All: Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!
Be our hope in the hour of great frailty and lamentable falls,
Be our hope in the hour of poignant doubts and dangerous illusions,
All: Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!
Be our hope in the hour of illness,
Be our hope in the decisive, final hour of our last agony,
All: Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!
O Jesus, only Love of our life, supreme Love of our loves, we place, once for all, our existence and our tribulations as well as the assured hope of a promised Heaven in Thy Heart, the source of infinite mercy! …
(Pause)
Mary’s unutterable Sorrows: The inner passion of Mary was bitter and deeper than the water of the ocean. If the tears shed by her soul, Virgin, Mother, and Martyr, could be transformed into light, they would form a constellation of splendid suns. Let her tell us herself. Queen of Martyrs, holy Mary, speak:
“My sorrows are ineffable because they did not have their origin in my own Heart … It is the Heart of Jesus that poured into my heart the ocean of torment that broke forth in His … Thus it is the infinite sorrow of a God who is my Son that causes the suffering which tortures me beyond measure …
“And it could not be otherwise when I saw Him bathed in His Blood, surfeited with opprobrium, loaded down with curses, trampled underfoot by the proud, soiled by the mire of the highway, He who is at the same time my Son and my Lord, my God and my All! …
“Ah, it was not only on Good Friday, Calvary’s hour, that I saw Him on the Via Dolorosa, crushed and sad, His Soul disconsolate … Alas! no! … Enlightened from above I saw another Via Dolorosa perpetuated across the centuries, and on it My Jesus bending under the burden of a living cross, the cross of all human’ treachery.
“Yes, I have seen Him afar, down the ages, long after His mortal Life and Passion. I have seen Him dragged along by a vile mob, as on Good Friday, His divine Sovereignty ignored, His Majesty mocked at, His Head crowned with thorns, and that adorable Face, whose beauty enraptures Heaven in ecstasy, sacrilegiously profaned by the crowd’s spittle …
“Still more, my children: I saw my Jesus on the steep slope that leads to this perpetual Golgotha; I saw Him followed and surrounded by the great army of hypocrites and of the impure, traitors and blasphemers … And all, with rage in their soul and with the gall of hatred on their lips, insulted Him while He suppressed His moans to bless them and forgot His agony to pardon them …
“My children, drain the chalice of my passion: O what a sorrow! I saw Him in thousands of forsaken tabernacles … searching from the depths of this prison of love, searching with His glance for a friend, a brother, a faithful consoler, an ardent spouse, a devoted apostle … And how often, alas, His eyes and His Heart have found nothing but silence and the forgetfulness of human hearts, have encountered nothing but coldness of souls!
“Oh, the great Wound in His Heart is then reopened, deep and bleeding … Oh, if His Calvary had at least brought returns! … Ah! I have seen Him die, and die uselessly for a great number of wretched beings, guilty persons, and of children who had become renegades to the Cross, to the Altar, and to His Law! …
“You, at least, the friends who, like the faithful and valiant Veronica, come this evening to bring a veil of purity and love, you who have known Him more intimately, come, approach together; borne on the arms of His Mother, climb up to His open Side, and with your soul afire place therein a burning kiss … Come, let us weep together over so many ingratitudes; come, my children, let us unite our hearts to love Him in place of an iniquitous world which tearing itself away from Him by blackest ingratitude puts Him to death” …
(Pause)
Consideration: Never forget this: the horrible story of Holy Thursday night and of the Way of the Cross is renewed repeatedly … Our forefathers without doubt went before us to Calvary, the executioners of Jerusalem had indeed their large share of responsibility, but following them we have finished their criminal work.
We must then atone and if necessary wash out in blood the personal affront which is our own sin. Offer Jesus-Hostia a prayer of glowing reparation.
Souls: Remember, Lord, that Thou hast come that we might have life and have it abundantly. Relying on Thy words, we come sweetest Jesus, to beg of Thee in the name of Mary Immaculate and of Thy compassionate Heart, that at the hour of death Thou wilt be our Savior and not our Judge.
(Aloud)
All: Be our Savior and not our Judge.
Sweetest Jesus, remember that Thou hast said that Thou hast come to look for the lost sheep of Israel. Ah, do not abandon them in the brambles of the road to perdition! In the name of Mary Immaculate and of Thy compassionate Heart we beg of Thee at the hour of death to be our Savior and not our Judge.
All: Be our Savior and not our Judge.
Sweetest Jesus, remember that Thou hast promised to celebrate in the Home of Thy Heavenly Father the glorious feast of Mercy at the return of the prodigal, whom the angels greet with exultation and canticles. In the name of Mary Immaculate and of Thy compassionate Heart we beg of Thee at the hour of death to be our Savior and not our Judge.
All: Be our Savior and not our Judge.
Sweetest Jesus, remember the invitation given Thee by your enemies, the publicans; remember the condescension with which Thou didst accept to eat at their table in order to win them by the power of Thy speech, always inspiring hope, and full of pity … In the name of Mary Immaculate and of Thy compassionate Heart, we beg of Thee at the hour of death to be our Savior and not our Judge.
All: Be our Savior and not our Judge.
Sweetest Jesus, remember the delicate partiality of Thy Heart toward those lying in the lowest depth of the abyss; remember Magdalen, the Samaritan woman, the Good Thief, and a great many more sinners who drained every drop of the chalice of Thy mercies … In the name of Mary Immaculate and of Thy compassionate Heart, we beg of Thee at the hour of death to be our Savior and not our Judge.
All: Be our Savior and not our Judge.
And finally, sweetest Jesus, remember that in Thy redemptive immolation on the altar of sacrifice, Thou didst deliver Thyself to death for the ransom of guilty man; remember also that when dying Thou didst appoint Paradise as Thy meeting place with the thousand-times blessed thief, who had sweetened Thine agony and won his Heaven by a word of humble repentance … In the name of Mary Immaculate and of Thy compassionate Heart, we beg of Thee at the hour of death to be our Savior and not our Judge.
All: Be our Savior and not our Judge.
So may it be, Jesus, especially for all those who, faithful to Thy demands, have rendered Thee a homage of consolation and of public amends by the Communion of reparation and by this great and fruitful prayer, the Holy Hour … In them and in their families carry out generously Thy promises of boundless mercy!
(Pause)
Triumphs of Jesus and His Mother’s glories — The Sun of glory which shone resplendently one day on the broken tomb, opened by its power, illumines with brilliance the Cross, the Church, the Tabernacle, and above all, casts its splendor on His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary …
Now the crucified Savior’s triumph is before all an inward and mysterious victory, an interior and secret victory like the action of grace on souls … But this victory is, at the same time, Mary’s glorification. Yes, the Blessed Virgin, whose Immaculate Heart has shared so intimately the anguish of her Son, must also participate in the ineffable gladness of His glory and triumph.
(Brief silence)
Let us end this Holy Hour then by a prayer of praise, the Hosanna of an immense joy.
Souls: Adorable Jesus, Thy hour has come, the hour when Thine altar is to be the Tabor of Thy glory. Thou didst promise this to Margaret Mary when Thou didst disclose to her the secrets of Thy Sacred Heart which wills to reign, and Thou art divinely faithful to Thy word.
Thy Vicar, the Pope, and the clergy of the whole world, burning with a new, irresistible zeal … Thy Holy Eucharist kindling a fire of love never hitherto seen … the practice of the Holy Hour and the Enthronement of Thine Adorable Heart in families, transforming them into so many sanctuaries of Thy love … all, in a language of fire assures us, Jesus, that the Labarum of Thine adorable Heart advances conquering, irresistible, winning back this world which shed Thy Blood … Advance O King of Love, from victory to victory establishing Thy Reign over individuals and society! … It is especially in the arms of Mary that we find Thee sweet and easy of access … that is why, in the name of her Immaculate Heart, we implore Thy victory of love …
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thou knowest all, Thou knowest that we love Thee: forgive us then and pour forth over the whole world those wonderful promised graces by which Thou dost encourage and strengthen this sublime devotion: Thy Kingdom come!
All: Thy Kingdom come!
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thou knowest all, Thou knowest that we love Thee; forgive us and diffuse to the ends of the earth the fruitful breath of Christian regeneration that Thou Thyself dost offer to souls in love with Thine infinite love: Thy Kingdom come!
All: Thy Kingdom come!
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thou knowest all,
Thou knowest that we love Thee; forgive us and establish the Kingdom of Thine infinite tenderness over homes, over the happy families who acknowledge that they have received in Thine adorable Heart with Thy peace a foretaste of Paradise: Thy Kingdom come!
All: Thy Kingdom come!
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thou knowest all, Thou knowest that we love Thee; forgive and encourage us; inflame Thine Apostles who desire but one glory, that of seeing Thee crowned by a diadem of souls conquered by Thine infinite love: Thy Kingdom come!
All: Thy Kingdom come!
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thou knowest all, Thou knowest that we love Thee; forgive us, and in homage to Thy Mother, bless and confirm the work of Thine Apostles with that promised virtue which will give them the power to enthrone Thee victoriously wherever they find a soul or a family in need of Thy great mercy: Thy Kingdom come!
All: Thy Kingdom come!
Oh, yes, Lord Jesus, establish Thy Reign of love over homes, schools and parishes … over peoples and their rulers; reign, reign by Thy Sacred Heart …. We implore Thee, Jesus, by the tears and for the honor of the Queen Immaculate, spread over the Church and the world the Reign of Thy Sacred Heart: 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 triumiph 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.
Act of Consecration to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and the
Most Pure Heart of Mary
I give and consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, my person and my life, my actions, griefs, and sufferings, wishing no longer to use any part of my being except to honor, love, and glorify Him. It is my irrevocable intention to be all His, and to do all for His love, renouncing with all my heart anything that might displease Him.
I take Thee, therefore, O Sacred Heart, for the only object of my love, the protector of my life, the pledge of my salvation, the cure for my weakness and fickleness, the reparation for all the faults of my life, and my assured refuge at the hour of death.
O kindest of Hearts, be my justification before God and Father and avert from me the darts of His just wrath! I place all my trust in Thee, O Heart of love, for I fear all from my malice and weakness but I hope all from Thy goodness. Therefore destroy in me all that may displease or resist Thee. May Thy pure love imprint Thee so deeply in my heart that I may never be able to forget Thee or be separated from Thee. I implore Thee, by all Thy goodness, that my name may be written in Thy Sacred Heart, for I wish all my happiness and glory to consist in living and dying as Thy slave.
And you, O Heart of Mary, closely and inseparably united to the Heart of Jesus! After Jesus, your Son, I wish you to occupy the first place in my heart, which from now on gives and consecrates itself to you. You will always be the object of my veneration, my love, and my trust. I will strive to conform my feelings and affection to yours, and the constant effort of my life will be to imitate your virtues.
O blessed Mother, deign to open your heart to me, and to receive me there in the company of your true children and faithful servants. Obtain for me the grace I need to imitate your admirable Heart as you yourself have imitated the Heart of Jesus. Rescue me from dangers, console me in my griefs, teach me to draw profit as I should from the good and evil of this life; protect me always and especially at the hour of death!
O Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, I consecrate myself to Thy service! Grant that now and always I may be Thy faithful child. Amen.
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.
Return to Table of Contents (21 Holy Hours by Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.)