The Fridays of the Sacred Heart for Asia
Rome (AsiaNews) - We are happy to present this little pamphlet that aims at accompanying the prayers and considerations of those who wish to follows the pious practise of the first nine Fridays of the month. We thought it appropriate to present each step with a special gift by the Sacred Heart of Jesus: not that these are only nine, of course, and indeed we hope that the mercy of each faithful will be able to recognize many other gifts, bestowed on all of us, but also to each one of us personally. In fact, the love of Jesus is bestowed both on his community and on each single person: it is not divided, but multiplied and we believe that we will never stop seeing the length, height, width and depth of the mystery of our redemption, hidden in Christ and revealed to us by the Holy Spirit that sees everything, even the depth of God.
These brief meditations may be used as a starting point for our personal considerations on each of the first Fridays and perhaps also for a deeper insight during the month. These "nine Fridays", that in their rhythm almost have the time of a new birth, can be a strong time to approach this devotion in a mature and adult manner: not as an insurance for eternal life, but as a practise of listening and conversion, contemplation and consolation, healing and renewal. The reader could, for example, consider more closely the passages of the Scriptures and think them over again later and always remember, as taught by Saint Ignatius that it is not how much we know that fills the soul, but what we feel and appreciate most intimately. That is going back to our own life and family, our job and the people we meet, with renewed spirit. In this sense we must well understand what we mean when talking of the spirituality of the Heart of Jesus as a spirituality of "reparation": in fact, it is not us who "repairs" Him as if giving Him some kind of satisfaction as if we were the "good" ones and the others the "bad" ones. Indeed, it is Him who "repairs", heals and renews our heart, that is, beyond the biblical and symbolic term, our memory, our intellect, our will, our deepest personality. And thus the prophet says that we have been healed by his plagues. The "nine Fridays" are in fact a path of healing and transformation that the Lord resurrected carries out within us, in the power of the Holy Spirit so that the Father may be glorified within us. Moreover, it is clear that nothing prevents the nine meditations presented herein for the first nine Fridays of the month to be used for some kind of novena, during nine consecutive days perhaps followed by the litanies of the Sacred Heart according to what each of us thinks more useful.
Lastly, to know whether we are truly devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus or, generally speaking, if we pray "well" or not, there is only one method: to see the results. We all love the Heart of Christ, and our prayer is true to the extent we are like Him, meek and humble at heart. Jesus could have asked us to imitate Him from any point of view: he could have asked us to learn from Him, who is wise, who has offered himself for his enemies, who is chaste, who is obedient up to death, who is poor. But he only asked us to learn from Him who is meek and humble as if all his immense greatness lay in this. "He humiliated himself": the hymn to the Philippians thus encloses and summarizes the entire life of Jesus, all the endless richness of his Person. Perhaps this is why the heart of Christ has so few devotees. Many want the richness enclosed in the heart of Christ, but few wish to undertake the path traced by Him. However, in the words of Saint Ignatius, perfection lies in choosing and wanting for myself what He chose and wishes for himself.
We moreover believe we can help the faithful by presenting, at the end of this pamphlet, almost as an appendix, the prayer so called of the Holy Hour: in fact this can be a way to enrich our prayers and live the "first Fridays" more intensely. We also wish to present two ways of praying: a "rhythm" that is a series of innovations rhymed on our breathing, according to the "third way" of praying proposed by Saint Ignatius, which can be easily used as a thanksgiving to the Eucharist, and a double set of litanies to the Sacred Heart that can accompany the more traditional ones composed by Pope Leo XII in 1899. In fact we have observed how the litanies of the Blessed Virgin have doubled, next to the classical and the "Loreto" ones, but we have found nothing of the kind in honour of the Sacred Heart: the litany with its quiet and deep movement, so similar to Saint Ignatius' "second way of praying", may be a style to be rediscovered for a simple and personal prayer, allowing the faithful to add or vary the invocations according to what the Spirit will arouse.
In our and everyone's Lord we hope that what we are about to present herein may contribute to the knowledge and love of the Sacred Heart, according to the mission He himself entrusted to the Company of Jesus, for His greatest glory.
1ST FRIDAY
The first gift by the Sacred Heart
In this first Friday in which we start our sequel of Jesus we are going to consider the first gift He bestows on us: the forgiveness f our sins. Forgiveness actually means a hyper-gift, the greatest gift of all, the one that opens our path towards Him: all the gifts we receive are the consequence and development of this first great gift. Forgiveness does not only mean that He forgets our sins: it is not a kind of deletion of our liabilities, so to speak, or a redemption from whatever evil we have committed, but is a true and proper new creation, an infusion of a new life that is the grace of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of a new and better life style, free from the dredges of ingratitude and grudges, from boredom and despise of ourselves, of the others and even of God.
The Psalm thus says: "He forgives all your faults, heals all your ills, saves your life from the grave, crowns you with grace and mercy; He fills your days with goods and you are renewed in your youth like an eagle" (Psalm 103, 3-5). God the Father's loyal and generous action reveals itself in Jesus Christ: it is He who does it and in Him the Father reveals himself. Therefore forgiveness is the beginning of a new life: in this month we can rethink of when we approached faith and Jesus bestowed upon us the grace to come close to Him: but actually it was Him who came close to us because what Saint John wrote is true: "Love lies in this: not us loved God, but he loved us" (1 John 4,0). We may also think of the many conversions we had, of every time we understood or experimented something that made us enjoy the beauty and the depth of the Gospel. Indeed we do not convert once only, but all our life experiences many new graces of conversion: and thus we experience that sin, that distance that man puts between himself and God, is never the last word. The love of God revealed in Jesus is like an ocean where the deeper we go the more we discover.
We can also, when listening to the words of the Gospel of the daily or Sunday Mass and if we cannot read the Gospel on our own, ask ourselves: " How do these words speak to me of Jesus' forgiveness?" We shall then see that everything He says and does is always filled with God's loyalty, which never gives in to our harshness. Or, especially if we cannot often go to Mass and if we cannot read the Gospel on our own, we can simply remember, repeating it several times during the day, Saint Paul's beautiful expression: "He loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2,20), which fully summarizes the mystery of the Sacred Heart of Christ's love for us. And, forgiven, we learn to forgive: for we have been accepted as we are and thus let's learn to accept the others as they are: in fact, "we love because He has loved us first" (1 John 4,19). A beautiful spiritual exercise, easy and fruitful, could be to say from the innermost of our heart, the same formula the priest says to us: "I absolve you" to those who have hurt us. The Heart of Jesus not only gives us his forgiveness, but also the power to forgive, which is even greater.
2nd FRIDAY
The second gift by the Sacred Heart
In this second Friday of the month we wish to contemplate the second gift given to us by the Sacred Heart of Jesus: the Word. We may in fact say that all the Holy Scriptures, the Old and the New Testament, speak to us of Jesus: actually the Old Testament is accomplished in Jesus and the New one clearly refers to Him. Thus Jesus himself says to his disciples: "These are the words I spoke when I was still with you: everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms must be accomplished" (Luke 24,44). A nice spiritual exercise we can do on this Friday as throughout the month could be to see how and in what manner the Scripture proclaimed in the liturgy, the Mass or the Divine Office, , as well as the Scripture we read during our daily meditation, speaks to us of Jesus, that is how it shows Hi to us, what it says of Him. Actually we may say that everything Jesus did or said shows us his heart, just as we know the heart of someone by all he says and does. Thus very page of the Gospel leads us to a better knowledge of the mystery of God, that is it shows us His heart: in this sense, we could say that the Word of God that we proclaim, listen to and read is like Jesus' robe. From what appears, indeed the robe, that is from his words, his actions and lastly his most holy body, his gestures and his traits, his way of welcoming people, of answering their questions, of speaking, shows what is yet invisible to the eye, that is his heart, the depth of his divine Person.
Saint Jeremy used to say that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ: we could further develop this idea stating that we cannot be true devotees of the Sacred Heart if, as Mary, we do not listen to and guard the Word of God in our heart every day and enlighten our life, our choices and our behaviour with it. Mary thus teaches us what it means to learn from the Sacred Heart, true source of wisdom: to put aside every day time for silence within ourselves, reading, listening to Him who speaks in our heart and to our heart through the scriptures, just as a friend speaks to a friend.
In fact, the Scriptures are not only what is written in the pages of the Bible, but are also what the Holy Spirit writes in our heart, that is our inner motions, thoughts, wishes and proposals that take shape within us when we read the words of God and wonder: "What does this mean to me?" Let this be our commitment for this day and this month that starts under the sign of the love of God, the heart of Christ.
3rd FRIDAY
The third gift by the Sacred Heart
On this third leg of our journey we wish to consider the third gift given to us by our Lord: his being within us. In fact Jesus is not only close to us as a friend, but also dwells in us: indeed, we may say that the meaning and aim of a spiritual life is to fully enter the dimension mentioned by Saint Paul when he says: "not I liveth, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2, 20). He rightly observes, in the same place, that his is the result of the fact that "this life I live in the flesh" - that is in the daily experience of weakness, which manifests in many ways and characterizes or existence, and which will last until we live, that is until we are in the flesh - " I live it in the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave his life for me". This is the most pregnant expression with which the Apostle shows us the meaning of what, many centuries later, was called the "devotion to the Sacred Heart": to live continuously thinking in our human experience of the unfathomable mystery of He who "loved me to the end" (John 13,1), to the end of my sins and my ambiguity, as well as to the apex of my potentials and my talents.
His dwelling within us is thus the fact that in the grace of the Holy Spirit, Jesus communicates to us his personal acquaintance with the Father, his listening to His words, his own obedience, his own trust, his being love. In other words, just as the fire communicates with the iron that is immersed in it, so that the iron becomes incandescent without stopping to be what it was, but joining its nature to that of the fire, Christian life is a progressive union or communion, that is "common union" of Jesus with the faithful soul. In fact, this is what He means to say when he says that we must remain in Him like the branches of the vine (cf. John 15): the lymph of life waters and vivifies the branches. And this is the meaning of the so-called "daily offer of the day" to the Sacred Heart we start our day with: we offer our prayers, our actions, our joys and our suffering as if we offered Him as many glasses asking Him to fill them.
We thus ask, with our offering, that it may no longer be us praying, acting, rejoicing and suffering, but Him in us so that everything may flow from Him and in Him return to the Father.
4th FRIDAY
The fourth gift by the Sacred Heart
In our fourth meeting with the Sacred Heart of Jesus we wish to consider his fourth gift: the poor. It is strange to observe that He says that "the poor will always be with you" (John 12,8) and "I am with you everyday to the end of time" (Mathew 28, 20):
With these words He does not mean to justify the injustice of the world, of which everyone, according to his role, will have to respond before Him the day of the final judgment, but he rather means that every day we could do something for Him for He is in every man in need. " every time you do this to the smallest of my brothers you will have done unto me" (Mathew 25, 40). It is not too much to say that the poor are like a sacrament: in fact we know that the sacraments are sure signs of His presence. We are thus sure that every time we sympathize with the poor, we shall receive sympathy for our poverty from God: in fact "blessed are the merciful for they will find mercy". (Mathew 5, 7).
The poverty the Lord himself asks us to have compassion is not only a lack of money. It is of course true that "if one has worldly riches and yet closes his heart to a brother in distress, how can he manifest in himself the love of God?" (1 John 3, 17), but a lot of poverty is not only economic, but simply human. There are people who need to be listened to: listening (even if we do not know what to answer) may be of solace to someone's sorrow, just as it is important to give one's time (which is not actually ours and which is also very little) or one's ability to love. There is also a poverty that can be satisfied by our Christian testimony, always discreet and with facts rather than words: this is the poverty of those who live far from God, and who in time, need an explicit word on Jesus, because for a long time no one has spoken about Him. To be able to arouse trust in God, in his loyalty, in his forgiveness, in those who no longer expect anything or believe it is no longer possible, is a very precious work of mercy. The Sacred Heart promised Saint Margaret Mary: sinners will find in my heart the source and the infinite ocean of mercy. In fact He said: "he who cometh to me will not be rejected" (John 6, 37). If only you knew how necessary it is to testify this, which can enrich many with a truly urgent richness, drawing them away from desperation and solitude.
To summarize the above, let us remember the last of the works of spiritual mercy, according to the old list of our catechism: that is to pray God for the living and the dead. Prayer is the first apostolate and the first ministry of the Church, because only prayer can obtain for all men the gist of the Holy Spirit that reveals and draws us to invincibly and gently to Jesus Christ, the only rich man who can satisfy our needs.
5th FRIDAY
The fifth gift by the Sacred Heart
Today we wish to consider what we have great difficulty in considering a gift: our weakness. By this term I mean every sense of inferiority that afflicts us: physical inferiorities, as an illness we have to face daily, especially if invalidating or mortifying; psychological inferiorities such as shyness, seeing ourselves as ugly, a sense of inferiority as regards the others for whatever reason (for not having studies as much as other people, for not being able to speak or for the feeling of being "less worthy"); and even moral inferiorities, that is our sins, the humiliating experience of not being as saintly as we would like to be, dragging weights of which we would like to be freed not so much for ourselves, but so as not to offend God (the weight of an inclination for anger, gossip, sensuality, for example).
It is very interesting to observe that Saint Paul himself insistently asks to be freed of his "thorn in the flesh"; we do not know what it is exactly, but it is certainly some weakness that mortified him and testified to his being unsuitable to fully love and serve the Lord. Jesus' answer is well known: "my grace is sufficient: my power manifests itself fully in your weakness" (2 Corinthians 11, 9).
Jesus does not intervene making us supermen and not even transforming our character or giving us what we do not have: on the contrary it is important to understand that He wants us to be compassionate with ourselves as He is with us. Leaving us weak, He clearly shows us, and makes us feel it intimately, that "it is not us who loved God, but it is He who loved us first" (Cf. 1 John 4, 10, 19). He thus unveils the Pharisee's pretension, of that Pharisee that is in everyone of us, who thanked God for not being like the others: He does not want to humiliate us, that is dishearten us, but make us humble, simply by showing us his freely given love that frees us from the fear of not being how we should be and filling us with endless trust and confidence. In other words He shows us that He has accepted us as we are so that we too may accept the others as they are. Indeed, He shows us his mercy: "God has enclosed everyone in disobedience so he can be merciful to everyone" (Romans 11, 32). We thus learn to glorify ourselves of Jesus, of the love of his heart and not of our merits, our virtues or ourselves.
And yet his grace in us is not useless. We shall learn from life itself how Jesus himself acts through us even though we perceive ourselves so inferior to our vocation and our ministry, and turns us into efficient instruments. Let us thus learn to turn this plentiful treasure that is our weakness advantageously, not wanting to unburden ourselves of it, but taking it u as our cross with Jesus. Many crosses have to be borne and perhaps we shall never free ourselves of them; this is indeed the first call of the servant of Christ, to take one's cross and follow Him with and not without it. This is how we learn to offer our suffering: physical, spiritual and moral. We say it explicitly in the daily offer to the Heart of Jesus: if you have sins, offer them to his mercy, if you have frustrations or anxieties, offer them to his sustaining strength, if you have sufferings take them in your body together with Jesus, thus sharing his passion. You will then experience that "we too who are weak in Him, will be alive with Him for the power of God" (2 Corinthians 13, 4). We are all weak: what is important is to learn to be weak in Him.
6th FRIDAY
The sixth gift by the Sacred Heart
In the sixth meeting with the Heart of Christ we wish to remember another gift: the Holy Spirit. All John's Gospel presents the Spirit has the gift of the Son: perhaps the summit of all this is the death of Jesus, when the Saviour "passed away" (John 19, 30). This "passed away" does not simply mean "died", in the same sense with which we state that someone has died. It has a far more pregnant meaning, which we can see in the Latin version "emisit spiritum", which translates the Greek text that, translated literally, says: "delivered the Spirit" (parédoke tò pnéuma). The spirit is given to us by Jesus' passion. In his murder, the violent death He voluntarily accepted, that is his allowing himself to be killed by us, or thrust out of our life, in his pierced ribs, He accepted the lance of all our sins; receiving this blow in himself He extinguished that hatred with which he was wounded and killed, that is, as we say in theological words, reconciled men with God. That blow of the lance that at first indicates the blows thrust upon him by all our sins becomes, through the will of the Father, the key that opens divine mercy "blood and water flowed immediately (John 19, 34). God could let his heart be opened by the holy actions of a few exceptionally righteous people, but then who could have been saved? His almightiness, his mercy, and I would add his imagination, chose what belong to all of us, sin, and turn this into the key to his heart.
From there springs the Holy Spirit. The Spirit flowing from the cross recalls the Spirit that, at the beginning of the creation, hovered over the waters (Cf. Genesis 1,1). In fact a new creation is accomplished in the death of Christ. The Spirit descends into the world to draw it to Christ, to drive all history, the great one, of the people and the nations and the small one, of men and of each of us towards Him. "When I rise from the earth I shall draw everyone to me" (John 12, 32). Thus the Spirit envelops everything, because the universe is full of the Spirit of the Lord: not only in the Church, but outside as well, to draw everyone to Jesus so that everyone can find life in Him.
The Spirit will teach us everything and will remind us of what he said (Cf. John 14,26): he will remind this to us not merely at an intellectual level, but in our heart, making it burn, as for the disciples of Emmaus, while we break the bread and the meaning of the Scriptures is revealed to us, that is the veil that prevented us from hearing the word of God will be torn away. Moreover, the Spirit instils in us the very life of Jesus, as if we breathed the same air as He, the same oxygen. The Spirit of Jesus in us makes us capable of choosing and wanting for ourselves what Jesus chose and wanted for himself. The Spirit reproduces in us, were it possible to say, Christ himself: "Christianus alter Christus", the men of old used to say: the Christian is another Christ. Thus he who lives in the Spirit of Jesus lives like Him, made similar to Him, partaker of his very life. He loves as Jesus Loves, he serves as Jesus serves, he offers as Jesus offers: and what will he offer? Not big or small actions, but himself, for the Kingdom, living, clergy or lay, man or woman, young or old, simply as He lived, learning from Him, meek and humble of heart (Mathew 11, 29).
7th FRIDAY
The seventh gift by the Sacred Heart
The seventh gift of the Sacred Heart is the Church. In fact the Church is not simply the sum of the baptized, the group we all form. It is not the result of an arithmetical calculation of the baptized; it is not even a society of perfect people, as if there were a "true" Church of spiritual people and a "false" one of believers only in words, or if there were a Church-institution versus a Church of the people; it is not even a group of people we chose, based on the mutual sharing of a special affinity or spirituality or way of thinking, as a religious Order. The Church is instead the environment where we can relive the exact same experiences we read in the Gospel.
For example, it is in the Church that our sins are forgiven, through baptism and penitence. This is when we relive what is described in the Scriptures, the forgiveness of the adulteress or the baptism of the first Christians as described in the Acts of the Apostle. In fact, in the person of the priest or in the baptism Christ really acts and accomplishes the meaning of the words addressed to us: "I absolve you" or "I baptize you". Thus when we partake in the Eucharist there is absolutely no difference, as regards the substance, between the mass celebrated by the Pope in Saint Peter's and the one celebrated by the last priest in the last chapel of the world and between these masses and the ones celebrated by the Apostles and, actually, the one celebrated by Christ himself in offering his body and his blood in the Passion and Resurrection, which He anticipated in the Last Supper.
We could say that the Church is Jesus Christ's "now" and he is always present and his Eternity is always and everywhere present for us. This is not only true in the celebration of the sacraments, as we are induced to believe from the above examples. Actually when we approach or re-approach faith is it not through the sermons, words or actions of a servant of Jesus Christ, whether layman or priest? And does this not renew the original experience of the Church? And when we, close to the womb that authentically re-generates us as sons of God, decide to "do something", that is to put ourselves at the service of the community, in the various ministries or services we are able to carry out, is not the original experience of the Christians who put their goods together for the mutual good renewed? We thus see that to understand the theological mystery of the Church the latter cannot and must not be understood only from "below", but essentially from "above", that is how Jesus Christ himself "invented" it: thus the Papacy, or priesthood, is not a mere partition of tasks as man understands it, that is with someone in command while all the others apply his orders, but is deeply rooted in what Jesus wanted. This does not mean that all the Church, or better the men of the Church, say and do is infallible, nor does it mean that the historic structures we are acquainted with respond fully to Christ's will. Much of the Church has a human origin and is thus transient: his Word, however, is not fleeting and will forever sound among his people and the splendid sign of his presence, the Eucharist, will remain forever, whether loved or not, understood or not, among us to the end of time.
8th FRIDAY
The eighth gift by the Sacred Heart
In the eighth month we wish to contemplate another gift of the heart of Christ: Mary. Let us still be led by John's Gospel: "Then Jesus, seeing his mother and next to her the disciple he loved, said to his mother: 'Woman, here is your Son1'. Then turning to his disciple he said: 'Here is your mother!' And from that moment the disciple hosted her in his home" (John 19, 26-27).
In all this we do not only envisage the care of a son towards his mother, but far more than that. We are in the "hour", the one in which Jesus was born and lived, the hour in view of which everything was accomplished. The "disciple he loved", as well known, cannot be exactly identified, though tradition identifies him with John, but this tells us that he is not a disciple, but the disciple, that is all of us and each of us. The term "woman" takes us back to the first woman, to Eve herself and here the new man, Christ, the new woman, Mary, the new tree, the cross. Mary is the woman because she regenerates: She who has given us, through her assent to God, He who is life. We can even say that She is the one who has given us life, for life itself has come to us through her. Thus Mary is the mother of the life of which we all live and so for us she is more mother than our mother in the flesh.
An exchange: "you take her, you take him". Jesus, "gives way" to us: Mary is no longer only the mother of Jesus, but of all of us. Mary is the Head's mother and thus mother of the body joined to the head; Mary is the mother of life and of the engrafted branches. The man Jesus no longer sits in the lap of his mother like a child; we, instead, still children because we have not yet reached Christ's maturity, are embraced by her tenderness. She has already received us; she has already welcomed us, in obedience to her Son. Of Mary we can say what we have already said of God and that is that "she has loved us first": actually she is the one who complies with Christ in all she lived and chose and she is also the closes to the Father for who is like the Son is like the Father. It is now up to us to receive her and welcome her in our home, for she has already received us in her home, which is her heart.
The Acts of the Apostles tell the story of the first Christian community. They met, prayed assiduously, broke bread, "with some women and Mary, the mother of Jesus" (Acts of the Apostles 1, 14). Let us imagine Mary seeing Peter, or the other apostles, break the bread, that is celebrate mass. She could not have forgotten those men's betrayal, the distressing days before His Passion: but she saw them for what they were, forgiven and accepted by her Son. What could she have thought? "Here are my sons, the sons my Son has given me" - I imagine: not ideal sons, but very earth to earth, not brave or exemplary men, but true men and women, with their load of contradictions, opacity, potentials and greatness, always inextricably blended together. But we are loved by her because Mary is the Mother of the Church.
9th FRIDAY
The ninth gift by the Sacred Heart
The last gift of the Sacred Heart we wish to consider on this last leg of our journey is the Gift of gifts: He himself, in the most sacred Sacrament. Here the Gift and the Giver are one and the same thing: this is why nothing is greater than this immense gift because, while all the other gifts, no matter how enormous and sublime, are not Jesus himself, do not identify with Him, the Eucharist is Himself. It is not an inanimate relic, the memory of a far off past, nor a gathering among ourselves: it is Him who gathers us round himself to bestow on us the benefits of redemption. We can compare the mass to a splendid "time machine": very time the Church gathers together (but actually it is not the church that gathers "on its own", but is gathered together by Him) by virtue of the Holy Spirit we are present at the mystery of his death and resurrection. It is not, as often misunderstood, the renewal of the sacrifice of the Calvary as if Jesus suffered again, but it is rather the renewal of his sacrifice, that is made new, every time and as many times we commemorate it: we thus have a wonderful means to be present for Him and not only at his death, but also at his resurrection. This means that the water and blood that flow from his pierced side, the gift of the Spirit and the blood of the new and eternal alliance, flow again, at that very moment, for us. And thus what was meant by the sacrifice of the Easter lamb is accomplished: we do not wade in the waters of the Red Sea, but go beyond the murky and dangerous waters of sin and death to follow Jesus, the new Moses who leads us to the Promised Land. The Promised Land is his kingdom and the path to reach it is paved with the beatitudes of meekness, mercy, hunger and thirst for justice, forgiveness and purity of heart.
We can well say that every time a man of faith approaches the Eucharist he exits the Egypt of sin, leaves false prophets, deceit and the delusions of the world, to follow he who is truth itself and receives the life that swallows up and destroys spaces of death, shadows that heap up in our heart and pollute our very existence, tainting it with garbage. In fact, every time we approach communion our sins are forgiven, we are strengthened to resist evil and the Holy Spirit is given to us to be shaped and re-shaped in the image of Christ himself. This is why we should frequently and with deep gratitude receive this wonderful gift. We need it every day, because every day the deep waters of sin submerge and threaten us, every day the world attempts to erode our faith, our hope and our love, every day we become immensely tired and need to rest. The Eucharist is not the "bread of the strong" in the sense that only the strong can have it, but in the sense that the weak, just as all of us, are invited to the table of the meek and merciful Lamp to become (or become once more) strong: it is the bread of saints not in the sense that only the saints can eat of it (otherwise who could?), but in the sense that Jesus takes into His arms repentant sinners who eat of this bread in full confidence, just as the lost sheep is taken by the good shepherd, or the prodigal son by the merciful Father and then sustains, heals, caresses and leads them. All this so that "we too can console all those that are in any kind of affliction with the solacing consolation with which we are consoled by God" (2 Corinthians 1, 4).
THE HOLY HOUR
Traditionally the Holy Hour indicates a classical expression of the devotion to the Heart of Jesus, which recalls the very words of the Lord: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Remain and watch over me (Marc 14, 34). Every Thursday night we recall this prayer full of sorrow and love with which Christ lovingly accepted the will of the Father, "he learned obedience of the things He suffered" (Heb. 5, 8), He bore our sufferings and loaded himself with our sorrows and was overwhelmed by our iniquities (Cf. Is 53, 4-5). He truly is the most sacred priest who intercedes for his brethren, saint, innocent, spotless, who offered himself (Cf. Heb. 7, 26-27). In Him, prostrated on the ground in Gethsemane becomes the true expression of the Psalm that says: When they were ill I dressed in coarse material, fasted and my prayer echoed in my chest. I was full of anxiety as for a friend, a brother and mourning for the mother I was prostrated by sorrow. (Sal. 35, 13-14). He prayed for us, ill as we are, and in his heart, in his chest, in the garden of Olives echoes the prayer that reached the Father for us, while he was aware of the treachery and unfaithfulness his people were to commit in time. He who called us his friends (Cf. John 15,14) and brothers and who said that we were for him also mother if only we would do the Father's will (Cf. Marc 3,34), he worried for us just as we worry for our friends, brothers and mother, in their infirmities.
In that hour "he who did not know what sin was, God considered him a sinner in our favour (2 Corinthians 5, 21); in other words, he too lived the separation and distance from God, as the last of sinners, of the damned, assuming the place of us guilty mortals, so that nobody would say that he had not been loved to that extent. And thus the words of the Psalm are accomplished: "if I ascend to heaven that is where you are, if I descend to hell, there you are (Sal. 139,8). Jesus lived in hell not only descending in the dwelling of the dead in the mystery of the Holy Saturday, but also by living with those who are dead in spirit though alive in the flesh, that is the sinners and he bore the same chastisement justly due to them, experiencing their same situation of infinite distance from God, their endless sorrow so that everyone, even the last of sinners, could say that He was close to him "unto the end" (John 12, 1). I have always been very impressed by what Jesus said in this respect to Saint Margaret Mary and which must be read according to the categories and language of her time and that, once understood, contains a confirmation of the above mentioned: "Here I have suffered more than during the rest of my Passion seeing myself abandoned by Heaven and Earth, laden with all the sins of humanity. I was before the sanctity of God who, disregarding my innocence, trampled over me in his wrath; he made me drink the chalice that contained all the bitterness of his indignation, as if he had forgotten the name of the Father (...).
No one of earth can understand the intensity of my suffering. It is the same sorrow experienced by a soul in sin, when it goes before the court of divine sanctity, which bears down on it (...) and thrusts it in the abyss of his fair rigour". Truly "God did not spare his own Son, but gave hi for us all" (Cf. Rm 8,32).
Actually it is a matter of meditating or contemplating the Passion of the Lord for a whole hour, wishing to offer him love and reparation for our unfaithfulness and treachery, especially those of the souls consecrated to him in a special manner. There is no special "system". We can read and meditate on the Passion as narrated in one of the Gospels, or pray with the sorrowful mysteries, or contemplate the Stations of the Cross or simply rest in silence opening our heart for Him. Each one of us can pray according o his capacities. I propose, especially for those who are just starting this practise, to think on Jesus' anguish in Gethsemane, or on a passage of His Passion. After having read it several times simply ask yourself what the text says and what it says to me, what it says of me and of my life. Let the Word sink in and when words come to your mouth spontaneously speak to the Lord who is here ready to listen to us. We may even try to imagine the scene we have just read, enter it and, imagining ourselves in the middle of it, talk to those present, according to what come to mind, spontaneously and freely. Let your body take on the position that best helps you, even changing it from time to time: standing or kneeling, sitting or prostrated, as we feel best. Go on praying until you feel you have had some kind of advantage.
Obviously, Jesus always appreciates such prayer, without specification of days and time: it is nevertheless true that Thursday night recalls precisely that special Thursday night, that special hour when the Prince of Darkness seemed victorious. Keeping watch is especially important: we keep watch at night, and night does not only mean the darkness outside, but also the darkness within us. Let us learn to illuminate the night with prayer, our personal night, and perhaps also the night of the Church. In fact, the spouse arrives at midnight and we run towards him (Cf. Mathew 25, 6). The heart of Christ on which the favourite disciples rests his head, it is the heart of the spouse to which the wife says in the intimacy of love: "Place me as a seal over your heart, as a seal on your arm; because love is as strong as death" (Ct 8,6).
Of course it is not necessary to be in a Church to do this even if praying before the sacrament is a different way of praying. You do not necessarily have to go out, it is the opportunity to go into the silence of one's bedroom and pray in secret. In this hour each of us, and especially priests, will find an inexhaustible source of grace, consolation and personal relief, of mutual intercession, apostolic fecundity each in one's own ministry. It is a true and proper "school of the Sacred Heart" because this spirituality cannot be taught and learned through books; it is Jesus himself that reveals it to us according to one's own grace. In my opinion it is the best way to obtain true knowledge, not through books, but through experience, not by "word of mouth" but for having "seen and touched" the very heart of Jesus who manifests to all those to seek it.
"SOUL OF CHRIST"
RHYTHM FOR THANKSGIVING TO THE EUCHARIST
(new version on the lines of the traditional version)
Wisdom of Christ, transform me;
Compassion of Christ instruct me;
Courage of Christ, strengthen me;
Humility of Christ, pacify me.
Freedom of Christ, free me;
Peace of Christ, pervade me;
Face of Christ, enlighten me;
Cross of Christ, save me.
Spirit of Christ, sanctify me;
Death of Christ, enclose me;
Life of Christ, fill me.
Mother of Christ, love me;
Judgment of Christ, justify me;
Joy of Christ, welcome me.
LITANIES OF THE SACRED HEART
Lord, have mercy on us
Christ, have mercy on us
Lord, have mercy on us
Christ, hear us
Christ, answer us
God the Father, our Creator
have mercy on us (is repeated after each invocation)
God the Son, our Redeemer
God the Spirit, our Sanctifier
Holy Trinity, one God
Heart of Jesus, son of the living God
Heart of Jesus, image of the Father
Heart of Jesus, mark of divine substance
Heart of Jesus, plenitude of the subsistent Word
Heart of Jesus, live source of the Holy Spirit
Heart of Jesus, who loved us first
Hear of Jesus, who loved us to the end
Heart of Jesus, who offered himself for us
Heart of Jesus, mystic lavacre
Heart of Jesus, living bread
Heart of Jesus, cup of delight
Heart of Jesus, healing oil
Heart of Jesus, present and acting in the holy mysteries
Heart of Jesus, light and divine foundation of your Church
Heart of Jesus, almighty and eternal priest
Heart of Jesus, our true and perfect friend
Heart of Jesus, good shepherd
Heart of Jesus, true path and life
Heart of Jesus, ever open door
Heart of Jesus, indestructible confidence
Heart of Jesus, mercy for those who are far and those who are close
Heart of Jesus, help for the poor
Heart of Jesus, consolation of the miserable
Heart of Jesus, infinite richness
Heart of Jesus, true wisdom
Heart of Jesus, over abundant blessings
Heart of Jesus, glory and pride of us sinners
Heart of Jesus, strength of the weak
Heart of Jesus, infinite source of compassion
Heart of Jesus, sung by the angels
Heart of Jesus, pre-announced by the prophets
Heart of Jesus, announced by the evangelists
Heart of Jesus, strength of the martyrs
Heart of Jesus, wisdom of the learned
Heart of Jesus, pride of the priests
Heart of Jesus, purity of the virgins
Heart of Jesus, crown of your saints
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world
Forgive us Oh Lord
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world
Hear us Oh Lord
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us
Jesus meek and humble of heart
Make our hearts like to thine
LET US PRAY
Oh Father, who in the heart of your most loved Son gives us the joy of celebrating the great acts of your love for us, see that we can draw the plenitude of your gifts from this inextinguishable source. For Christ our Lord.
Or
Oh God, source of all goodness, who in the heart of your Son opened the inexhaustible treasures of your love, see that by rendering him the homage of our faith we may accomplish the duty of a just reparation. For Christ our Lord.
Or
God our Father, grant us your devotees that we may be filled with the virtues and sentiments of the heart of Christ your Son, because, transformed into his image and likeness, we may become partakers of the eternal redemption. For Christ our Lord.
.png)
