Hours of the Passion: St. Pius X-Approved Meditation; Devotion to Divine Will.

[Xavier]

Our Lord Jesus, praising Quas' Primas of Pope Pius XI, and declaring the Kingdom of His Divine Will, revealed to Servant of God Luisa Piccaretta, a very important meditation focused on the Passion, that enables us to gain priceless graces, and do God's Will 24*7 in our lives. That it is God's Will we accept and practice this devotion in our lives should be enough and sufficient reason for us all to do so. But there are many others. First, Papal Approvals going back more than a 100 years, from His Holiness Pope St. Pius X. These words of Our Lord Jesus, said the Saintly Vicar of the same Lord Jesus, should rather be read kneeling than even standing, so precious are They. Second, Devotion to the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ is so great and so priceless a grace that by it any man or woman, even if before that we were the worst and greatest of all sinners, can easily become saints, and even great saints. This is the doctrine of the Saints themselves, and were there no other, we all should practice this devotion.

"Several witnesses relate that one day Father Annibale came to the house of Luisa more content than ever, and said that he had brought this book to the Holy Father, Saint Pious X, who had received him several times in private audience. Father Anniable was reading him one of the Hours (that of the Crucifixion), when the Pope interrupted, saying: "Not this way, Father, but kneeling one must read. It is Jesus Christ that is speaking." Finally, Father Annibale, as Censor of the writings, obtained the Imprimatur from His Excellency the Archbishop of Trani for the volumes written by Luisa (at that time there were already nineteen)." https://www.queenofthedivinewill.org/st-pius-x/

"'When Pope John Paul II was about to beatify Fr. Annibale di Francia on October 7, 1990, the then Msgr. Ratzinger, Cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly, the Holy Office,) was informed by my father, Jose Luis Acuna, in May 1990, in a private audience that some of the books published by the Father Annibale di Francia whom His Holiness was going to beatify had been "condemned." Therefore, the Cardinal had to investigate this matter personally, whether there was an error or not, and the result was that Fr. Annibale was beatified with no hinderance, after having investigated the matter and with full knowledge of it. Not only this, but His Emminence said in private to Msgr. Ricardo Guizar, who was then our Bishop of Atlacomulco, Mexico, that "All of the Writings of Luisa must be approved". https://bookofheaven.org/who-is-luisa-piccarreta/cardinal-joseph-ratzinger-all-of-the-writings-of-luisa-must-be-approved/

Exhortation [from Fr. St. Annibale Maria di Francia]

"O souls who love Jesus Christ, O souls who make a profession of spiritual life, and especially you, Spouses of Jesus Christ, consecrated to Him either through vows or by belonging to sacred Congregations, consider from all that has been said above, how much pleasure you give to the Most Holy Heart of Jesus by practicing these Hours of the Passion. It is for you, in a special way, that these Hours of the Passion have been inspired by Our Lord in that solitary and contemplative soul, who has been practicing them for many years with great profit to herself and to the whole Holy Church. Special graces have been reserved for you if you take to heart this holy daily exercise, penetrating the same sentiments and the same dispositions as those of the soul who dictated it, and who has been practicing it for many years.

From the sentiments, so intimate, and from the dispositions, so loving, of this soul, you will pass into the very sentiments and dispositions of Jesus Christ Our Lord, during the 24 Hours in which He suffered for love of us. And it is impossible for the soul, in this compassionating exercise, not to encounter the most sorrowful Mother Mary, and not to unite to the same compassion and the very incomprehensible affections of the Sorrowful Mother of God! It will be like living with Jesus suffering, and with Mary co-redeeming, gathering immense eternal goods for oneself and for all!

What to say about how great this tool would be for each Religious Community in order to advance in holiness, to be preserved, to grow in the number of chosen souls, and to obtain true prosperity? How much commitment, then, should each Community have in the constant practice of this pious exercise! And the souls of that Community who attend Holy Mass daily would receive Communion with such dispositions of fervor, and with such love for Jesus, that each Communion would be a renewed marriage of the soul with Jesus in the most intimate and increasing union of love!

If because of one soul alone doing these Hours, Jesus would spare a city chastisements, and would give grace to as many souls for as many as are the words of these sorrowful Hours, how many graces could a Community [or any group of faithful] hope for; from how many defects and relaxations would it be healed or preserved; and for how many souls would it obtain sanctification and salvation by practicing this pious exercise!

If only there were one soul in each Community, who would apply herself to practicing it with more attention during the day, at times even in the midst of daily occupations, and also in the evening, and at nighttime with a little bit of vigil...! But it would be the summit of the divine, and the maximum profit for that Community and for the whole world, if this exercise were practiced by all, in turns day and night!"

[Xavier]

From: http://www.passioiesus.org/en/santos/citas_santos.htm

It is extremely important to know that there is no saint who has ever reached the heights of the spiritual life without having meditated frequently on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Many of them attributed to the meditation of the Passion of Our Lord, the beginning of that stage in the spiritual life in which they decided to give themselves entirely to God, to His Most Holy Will. Over and over again we find in their writings that they move faster toward holiness with the help of this meditation than through any other. Obviously, we cannot say that they surpass the great means provided by the Sacraments, but we can say that the sacraments alone cannot reach all their effectiveness without the help of the meditation of the Passion of Our lord. That is because the Sacraments are the most precious fruits of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

We would like to add a few remarks made by some of the saints that refer to the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and we hope that they be useful to your soul.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, MEDITATIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST, Introduction.: "He who desires", says St. Bonaventure, "to go on advancing from virtue to virtue, from grace to grace, should meditate continually on the Passion of Jesus." And he adds that "there is no practice more profitable for the entire sanctification of the soul than the frequent meditation of the sufferings of Jesus Christ." St. Augustine also said that a single tear shed at the remembrance of the Passion of Jesus is worth more than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or a year of fasting on bread and water.

St. Josemaría Escrivá Furrow, Penance 993:In our meditation, the Passion of Christ comes out of its cold historical frame and stops being a pious consideration, presenting itself before our eyes, as terrible, brutal, savage, bloody... yet full of Love. —And we feel that sin cannot be regarded as just a trivial error: to sin is to crucify the Son of God, to tear his hands and feet with hammer blows, and to make his heart break.

St Paul of Cross, Spiritual diary."The remembrance of the most holy Passion of Jesus Christ is the door through which the soul enters into intimate union with God, interior recollection and most sublime contemplation..."

"The Passion of Christ is the greatest and most stupendous work of Divine Love. "The greatest and most overwhelming work of God's love."

"The most holy Passion of Jesus Christ is the most efficacious means to convert obstinate sinners."

"The holy sufferings of Jesus is a sea of sorrows, but it is also a sea of love. Ask the Lord to teach you to fish in this sea. Immerse yourself in it, and, no matter how deeply you go, you will never reach the bottom. Allow yourself to be penetrated with love and sorrow. In this way you will make the sufferings of the gentle Jesus your own. Fish for the pearls of the virtues of Jesus. This holy fishing is done without words." 8th April, 1758

St. Peter of Alcantara, Seven other meditations of the Passion of Our Lord, and the manner how it ought to be meditated upon. A golden treatise of mental prayer. Chapter IV.: In the passion of our blessed Saviour, six things chiefly are to be meditated upon. First, the bitterness of his sorrow, that we may compassionate with him.  Secondly, the greatness of our sins, which were the cause of his torments, that we may abhor them. Thirdly, the greatness of the benefit, that we may be grateful for it.

Fourthly, the excellency of the divine charity and bounty therein manifested, that we may love him more fervently. Fifthly, the conveniency of the mystery, that we may be drawn to admiration of it. Lastly, the multiplicity of virtues of our blessed Saviour which did shine in this stupendous mystery, that we may partly imitate and partly admire them; wherefore, in the midst of these meditations, let us sometimes compassionate with our blessed Saviour in the extremity of his sorrows; extreme indeed, both by reason of the tenderness of his body, as also, for the great affection he bore unto our souls.

He did suffer them without any manner of consolation, as we shall speak hereafter in its proper place. Sometimes let us stir up in ourselves compunction for our sins, which were the cause of his great sufferings. Sometimes let us kindle in our souls an ardent affection, considering his great affection towards us, which upon the cross he declared and manifested to the whole world. And the benefit which he bestowed upon us in his passion, because he bought us with the inestimable price of his precious blood, of which only, we reap the benefit and commodity.

St Francis of Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, Chapter XIII-That mount calvary is the academy of Love: "The death and passion of Our Lord is the sweetest and most constraining motive that can animate our hearts in this mortal life... so, in the glory of heaven above, next to the Divine goodness known and considered in itself, Our Saviour's death shall most powerfully ravish the blessed spirits in the loving of God."

Thomas À Kempis Imitation of Christ;  The Twenty-Fifth Chapter, Zeal in amending our lives "The religious who concerns himself intently and devoutly with our Lord's most holy life and passion will find there an abundance of all things useful and necessary for him. He need not seek for anything better than Jesus."

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, Introduction, I., How Deserving Jesus Christ is of our Love, on Account of the Love He has Shown Us in His Passion: "He (St. Francis of Assisi ) was one day found by a gentleman shedding tears, and crying out with a loud voice: being asked the cause "I weep," he answered, "over the sorrows and disgraces of my Lord: and what causes me the greatest sorrow is, that men, for whom he suffered so much, live in forgetfulness of him." And on saying this he wept the more, so that this gentleman began also himself to weep."

St John of the Cross: As to the Passion of our Lord, ...never in anything follow your own will and your own inclination, for that was the cause of His death and passion

Beata Angela of Foligno, Book of life, #18, p. 272.: if your soul is not elevated, go back to yourself, start from the beginning and review from head to foot all the ways in which this suffering God-man was afflicted and crucified. If you cannot regain and rediscover these ways in your heart, repeat them vocally, attentively and frequently; because what the lips say and repeat grants fervor and warmth to the heart

St. Maximus of Turin, Sermons 53, 1-2. 4: "Our Savior's passion raises men and women from the depths, lifts them up from the earth, and sets them in the heights."

St. Bonaventure. One day," writes Bonaventure, "while Francis was praying... Jesus Christ appeared to him fastened to the cross"  "And the memory of Christ's passion was so impressed on the innermost recesses of his heart that from that hour, whenever Christ's crucifixion came to mind, he could scarcely contain his tears and sighs."

St Francis of Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter I. The Necessiy of Prayer, N.2 "But especially I commend earnest mental prayer to you, more particularly such as bears upon the Life and Passion of our Lord. If you contemplate Him frequently in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with Him, you will grow in His Likeness, and your actions will be moulded on His. He is the Light of the world; therefore in Him, by Him, and for Him we shall be enlightened and illuminated__"

And from the Roman Pontiffs, Vicars of Christ, Successors of St. Peter the Apostle, Servants of the Servants of God: http://www.passioiesus.org/en/magisterio/citas_papas.htm#papas

H.H. Pope Benedict XVI: "Jesus transformed the Passion, his suffering and his death, into prayer, and in this way he transformed it into an act of love for God and for humanity. That, finally, is why the outstretched arms of the Crucified One are also a gesture of embracing, by which he draws us to himself, wishing to enfold us in his loving hands. In this way he is an image of the living God, he is God himself, and we may entrust ourselves to him."

H.H. Pope St. Leo the Great: "True reverence for the Lord's passion means fixing the eyes of our heart on Jesus crucified and recognizing in him our own humanity."

H.H. Pope John Paul II: Looking at Jesus in his passion, we see humanity's sufferings as well as our personal histories reflected as in a mirror. Although there was no sin in Christ, he took upon himself what man could not endure: injustice, evil, sin, hatred, suffering and finally death  ... "Passion" means a passionate love, unconditioned self- giving: Christ's passion is the summit of an entire life "given" to his brothers and sisters to reveal the heart of the Father. The Cross, which seems to rise up from the earth, in actual fact reaches down from heaven, enfolding the universe in a divine embrace. The Cross reveals itself to be "the centre, meaning and goal of all history and of every human life".

[Xavier]

So, without further ado, let us begin:

How these Hours of the Passion can be done

• One method is that of meditating one Hour each day by reading it alone, or with one's family, or with others. In this way, in the round of 24 days, one would complete the 24 Hours. A good clock never stops – life never stops...
• A second method would be that of forming groups of various people – 4, 8, 12 or possibly 24 and more – each one committed seriously to doing one of the Hours, assigned for a period of time, before changing the Hour. A good clock marks all the hours - it skips none of them...
• A third method, then, is that of doing at least one hour per day, at the time of the day which coincides to that hour, but in any case, to reach such familiarity with the Hours of the Passion, and to assimilate them in such a way, as to be able to follow their content mentally during the whole day. For this purpose it is very helpful to learn by heart the succession of the 24 Hours with the corresponding title, which is reported on the next page.

To "do" an Hour of the Passion means to read it attentively, meditating on it, contemplating it, making it one's own life... It is not just remembering and compassionating the sufferings of Jesus assomething that happened many centuries ago in a far away place; but rather, it is, first of all, to enter into the Divine Will, in which everything is present and in act, and to participate in the interior acts and sufferings of Our Lord, which are present and in act at this precise moment, so as to repeat His life within us, to grow in His likeness, and to pour upon everyone the infinite value, merits and effects of His Passion.

Jesus Himself explains this very important difference: "To repeat my Passion in act in the creature, is different from one who only thinks of my pains and compassionates them. The first is an act of my Life, which takes my place in order to repeat my pains, and I feel I am given back the effects and the value of a Divine Life; while in thinking of my pains and in compassionating Me, it is only the company of the creature that I feel. But do you know in whom I can repeat my pains, in act, of my Passion? In one who has my Will as center of life." (October 24, 1925 Vol. 18)

One can comprehend, then, how the Hours of the Passion are not just a reading, and not even a devotion, but a formation of life: the interior life of Jesus. In this way, day after day, we will feel more and more that Jesus is truly living in us - not just our life, but His very Divine Life.

"First Hour - From 5 to 6 PM
Jesus takes leave of His Most Holy Mother
Second Hour - From 6 to 7 PM
Jesus departs from His Most Holy Mother and sets out for the Cenacle
Third Hour - From 7 to 8 PM
The Legal Supper
Fourth Hour - From 8 to 9 PM
The Eucharistic Supper
Fifth Hour - From 9 to 10 PM
First Hour of Agony in the Garden of Gethsemani
Sixth Hour - From 10 to 11 PM
Second Hour of Agony in the Garden of Gethsemani
Seventh Hour - From 11 PM to Midnight
Third Hour of Agony in the Garden of Gethsemani
Eighth Hour - From Midnight to 1 AM
Jesus is arrested
Ninth Hour - From 1 to 2 AM
Thrown from a ledge, Jesus falls into the Cedron stream
Tenth Hour - From 2 to 3 AM
Jesus is presented to Annas
Eleventh Hour - From 3 to 4 AM
Jesus in the house of Caiphas
Twelfth Hour - From 4 to 5 AM
Jesus at the mercy of the soldiers
Thirteenth Hour - From 5 to 6 AM
Jesus in prison
Fourteenth Hour - From 6 to 7 AM
Jesus before Caiphas again, who confirms His condemnation to death and sends Him to Pilate
Fifteenth Hour - From 7 to 8 AM
Jesus before Pilate. Pilate sends Him to Herod
Sixteenth Hour - From 8 to 9 AM
Jesus is brought back to Pilate and placed after Barabbas. Jesus is scourged
Seventeenth Hour - From 9 to 10AM
Jesus is crowned with thorns. Presented to the people: "Ecce Homo!" Jesus is condemned to death
Eighteenth Hour - From 10 to 11AM
Jesus takes up His Cross and walks toward Calvary, where He is stripped
Nineteenth Hour - From 11 AM to 12 PM:
Jesus is crucified
Twentieth Hour - From 12 to 1 PM
First Hour of Agony on the Cross. The first word of Jesus
Twenty-first Hour - From 1 to 2 PM
Second Hour of Agony on the Cross. Second, third and fourth word of Jesus
Twenty-second Hour - From 2 to 3 PM
Third Hour of Agony on the Cross. Fifth, sixth and seventh word of Jesus. The death of Jesus
Twenty-third Hour - From 3 to 4 PM
Jesus, dead, is pierced by the thrust of a lance. The deposition from the Cross
Twenty-fourth Hour - From 4 to 5 PM
The burial of Jesus. Most Holy Desolate Mary"

Preparation before each hour:

O my Lord Jesus Christ, prostrate in your divine presence, I implore your most loving Heart to admit me to the sorrowful meditation of the 24 hours in which for love of us You wanted to suffer so much, in your adorable body and in your most holy soul, unto death on the Cross. O please, give me help, grace, love, deep compassion and understanding of your sufferings, as I now meditate the __ Hour. And for those which I cannot meditate, I offer You my will to meditate them, and I willingly intend to meditate them in all the hours in which I have to apply myself to my duties, or sleep. Accept, O merciful Lord, my loving intention, and let it be beneficial for me and for all, as if I effectively and in a saintly way accomplished what I wish to practice.

Meanwhile, I give You thanks, O my Jesus, for calling me to union with You by means of prayer. And to please You more, I take your thoughts, your tongue, your Heart, and with this I intend to pray, fusing all of myself in your Will and in your love; and stretching out my arms to hug You, I place my head on your Heart, and I begin.

Thanksgiving after each hour:

My lovable Jesus, You have called me in this hour of your Passion to keep You company, and I have come. I seemed to hear You praying, repairing and suffering, in anguish and sorrow, pleading for the salvation of souls in the most touching and eloquent voices. I tried to follow You in everything; and now, having to leave You for my usual occupations, I feel the duty to say to You, 'Thank You' and 'I bless You.'Yes, O Jesus, I repeat to You 'Thank You' thousands and thousands of times, and 'I bless You' for all that You have done and suffered for me and for all. I thank You and I bless You for every drop of Blood You shed, for every breath, for every heartbeat, for every step, word, glance, bitterness and offense which You endured. In everything, O my Jesus, I intend to seal You with a 'Thank You' and an 'I bless You.'Please, O Jesus, let my whole being send You a continuous flow of thanks and blessings, so as to draw upon me and upon everyone the flow of your blessings and thanks. Please, O Jesus, press me to your Heart, and with your most holy hands seal every particle of my being with your 'I bless you', so that nothing other than a continuous hymn to You may come from me."

[Xavier]

The Lord's Promises: To show how Great His Pleasure with Souls who do the Hours of the Passion everyday, Our Lord Jesus made a Promise like Mother Mary's Scapular Promise, to save so many, many souls! "October 1914 Volume 11 The effectiveness of these Hours depends on whether the soul does them in union with Jesus and in His Will. How Jesus desires that souls do the Hours of the Passion.

I was writing the Hours of the Passion, and I thought to myself: 'How many sacrifices in order to write these blessed Hours of the Passion, especially to put on paper certain interior acts which had passed only between me and Jesus. What will be the recompense that He will give to me?' And Jesus, letting me hear His tender and sweet voice, told me: "My daughter, as recompense for having written the Hours of my Passion, for each word you have written I will give you a kiss - a soul." And I: 'My love, this is for me; and what will You give to those who will do them?' And Jesus: "If they do them together with Me and with my own Will, I will also give them a soul for each word they will recite, because the greater or lesser effectiveness of these Hours of my Passion is in the greater or lesser union that they have with Me. By doing them with my Will, the creature hides within my Volition, and since it is my Volition that acts, I can produce all the goods I want, even through one word alone; and this, for each time you will do them."(!!!!!!!)

Another time I was lamenting to Jesus, because after so many sacrifices to write these Hours of the Passion, very few were the souls who were doing them. And He: "My daughter, do not lament - even if there were only one, you should be content. Would I not have suffered my whole Passion even if one soul alone were to be saved? The same for you. One should never omit good because few avail themselves of it; all the harm is for those who do not take advantage of it. And just as my Passion made my Humanity acquire the merit as if all were saved, even though not all are saved, because my Will was to save everyone, and I received merit according to what I wanted, not according to the profit which creatures would draw; the same for you: you will be rewarded depending on whether your will was identified with my Will in wanting to do good to all. All the harm is for those who, though being able to, do not do them. These Hours are the most precious of all, because they are nothing less than the repetition of what I did in the course of my mortal life, and what I continue to do in the Most Holy Sacrament. When I hear these Hours of my Passion, I hear my own voice, my own prayers. In that soul I see my Will - that is, wanting the good of all and repairing for all - and I feel drawn to dwell in her, to be able to do what she herself does within her. Oh, how I would love that even one single soul for each town did these Hours of my Passion! I would hear Myself in each town, and my Justice, greatly indignant during these times, would be placated in part."



From 5 to 6 PM
Jesus takes leave of His Most Holy Mother

Prayer of Preparation

O heavenly Mother, the hour of separation draws near, and I come to You, O Mother, give me your love, your reparations, and your sorrows. Together with You, I want to follow adored Jesus step by step.

Here Jesus comes. With your soul overflowing with love, you run to meet him. But your heart aches with grief to see him so pale and sad. Your strength fades away, and you are about to fall at his feet. O my sweet Mama, do You know why adorable Jesus has come to You? Ah, He has come to say good-bye to You for the last time, to impart His last Word, to share with you this last embrace! O Mother, I cling to You with all the tenderness of which my poor heart is capable, so that holding You tightly, I too may receive the embraces of adored Jesus. Would you perhaps look down on me, or isn't it perhaps a comfort to your heart to have a soul near you, to share your pains, affections and reparations?

Jesus, in this hour so bitter for your tender Heart, what instruction You give us of innocent, loving obedience to your Mother! What a sweet enchantment of love rises up to the throne of the Eternal One, extending salvation to all creatures of the earth!

O my heavenly Mama, do You know what adored Jesus wants from You? Nothing but your last blessing. From every particle of your being only blessings and praises flow to your Creator; but, in taking leave of You, Jesus wants to hear the sweet words, I bless You, O Son. That I bless You deflects every blasphemy from his hearing and descends sweetly and gently into his Heart. Jesus wants your "I bless You" to shield against all the offenses of creatures.

I too join with you, O sweet mother. On the wings of the wind, I want to travel through heaven to ask the Father, the Holy Spirit, all the angels for an I bless you for Jesus, so that, going to him, I can bring their blessings. I want to go to all creatures here on earth and ask from every whisper, heartbeat, step, breath, glance, thought, and word—blessings and praises for Jesus. And, if anyone does not want to give them to me, I will do it on their behalf.

O sweet Mama, after going round and round, to ask the Most Holy Trinity, the Angels, all creatures, the light of the sun, the fragrance of the flowers, the waves of the sea, every breath of wind, every spark of fire, every moving leaf, the twinkling of the stars, every movement of nature, for an "I bless You", I come to You and I place all my blessings together with yours. My sweet Mother, I see that You are comforted by them, and I offer Jesus all my blessings to atone for the blasphemies and curses that He receives from creatures.

But, while I offer You everything, I hear your trembling voice saying, "Son, bless Me too!" My sweet Love, bless me with your Mother. Bless my thoughts, my heart, my hands, my steps, my deeds, and—with your Mother—all creatures. O my Mother, You gaze upon the Sorrowful Face of Jesus, so pale, sad, and tormented, and You envision the sorrow that He will soon have to suffer. You see his Face covered with spit, and You bless It. You foresee his face covered with spit and you bless it. You see his head pierced by thorns, his eyes blindfolded, his body tortured by lashings, his hands and feet pierced by nails, and you follow him with your blessings everywhere he is about to go. And I too will follow Him together with You. When Jesus is struck with the whips, pierced by the nails, slapped, crowned with thorns, he will find my I bless you everywhere, together with yours. O Jesus, O mother, I give you compassion.

Your sorrow is immense in these last moments. It seems that the heart of one rends the heart of the other. O mother, tear my heart from the earth and bind it tightly to Jesus, so that pressed to him, I can take part in your pains. And being between your two hearts, I will receive your last kisses and your last embraces while you look at each other for the last time. Don't You see that I cannot be without You, in spite of my misery and my coldness? Jesus, Mama, keep me close to You; give me your love, your Will. Pierce my poor heart with arrows, and hold me in your arms. Together with you, O sweet mother, I want to follow adorable Jesus step by step, with the intention of giving him comfort, relief, love and reparation for everyone.

O Jesus, with your Mother, I kiss your left foot, and I beg You to forgive me and all creatures for the many times we have not walked toward God. [Glory be to the Father, etc.].

I kiss your right foot. Forgive me and everyone for the many times we have not sought the perfection that You desired for us. [Glory be to the Father, etc.]

I kiss your left hand. Communicate your purity to us. [Glory be to the Father, etc.]

I kiss your right hand. Bless all my heartbeats, thoughts, and affections so that all may be confirmed by your blessing, and all may be sanctified. And as you bless me, bless all creatures as well, and seal the salvation of their souls with your blessing. [Glory be to the Father, etc.]

O Jesus, I embrace You together with your Mama, and kissing your Heart, I pray You to place my heart between your two Hearts, that it may be nourished continuously by your love, by your sorrows, by your very affections and desires, and by your own Life. Amen. [Glory be ...]

Reflections and Practices.

Reflections and applications regarding the Hours of the Passion, so that we may copy the life of Jesus within ourselves, aligning our life with His in everything: His breath, His heartbeat, etc. so that He once again lives among His creatures.

Before entering his Passion, Jesus goes to his Mother to ask for her blessing In this act he teaches us how we must be obedient, with both interior and exterior obedience, in order to correspond to the inspirations of grace. Sometimes we are not ready to put into practice a good inspiration, either because we are held back by love of self united to temptation, or because of human respect, or in order not to use holy violence on ourselves. But rejecting the good inspiration of exercising a virtue, of accomplishing a virtuous act, of doing a good work, or of practicing a devotion, makes the Lord withdraw, depriving us of new inspirations. On the other hand, the prompt correspondence, pious and prudent, to holy inspirations attracts more lights and graces upon us. In the cases of doubt, one should turn promptly and with righteous intention to the great means of prayer and to upright and experienced advice.

In this way, God will never withhold light from our souls so that we can pursue our good inspirations and multiply them, reaping the greatest possible benefits. Our prayers, actions, and the Hours of the Passion should be done with Jesus' own intention his Will, sacrificing ourselves as He did for the glory of the Father and for the good of all souls. We should be disposed to sacrifice ourselves in everything out of love for our beloved Jesus, surrendering to his Spirit, acting with his own sentiments, and abandoning ourselves to Him—not only in all our sorrows and external misfortunes, but even more in our interior lives. In this way, in any situation, we will be ready to suffer. When we act in this spirit, we give our Jesus little sips of sweetness. If all that we do remains in the Will of God—which contains all sweetness and delight to an infinite degree—we will console the Divine Heart of Jesus and give Him big sips of sweetness to ease the effects of the poison that other creatures give Him.

Before starting any action, let us always invoke the blessing of God, so that our actions may have the touch of the Divinity, and may attract His blessings not only on us, but upon all creatures.

My Jesus, may your blessing precede me, accompany me and follow me, so that everything I do may carry the seal of your I bless you.

(Personal Offering and Thanksgiving)

[Xavier]

Why the world has lost its balance: "The world has lost its balance because it has lost the thought of the Passion of Jesus. It has done as a child who has not desired to recognize his mother or like a disciple who ignores his teacher and does not want to listen to his lessons. They will become pain to themselves, terror and sorrow for their society. This is what man has become: terror and pain, pain without mercy.

Vol. 11, February 2, 1917
As I was in my usual state, I found myself outside of myself, and I found my always lovable Jesus, all dripping with blood, with a horrible crown of thorns, looking at me with difficulty through the thorns. He told me:

"My daughter, the world has become unbalanced because it has lost the thought of my Passion. In darkness, it has not found the light of my Passion which would illuminate it; and as it would make known to it my love and how much souls cost Me, it might turn to loving the One who has truly loved it; and the light of my Passion, guiding it, would put it on its guard against all dangers. In weakness, it has not found the strength of my Passion which would sustain it. In impatience, it has not found the mirror of my patience which would infuse in it calm and resignation; and in the face of my patience, feeling ashamed, it would make it its duty to dominate itself. In pains, it has not found the comfort of the pains of a God which, sustaining its pains, would infuse in it love of suffering. In sin, it has not found my sanctity which, placing itself in front of it, would infuse in it hate of sin.

Ah! man has made an abuse of everything, because in everything he has moved away from the One who could help him. This is why the world has lost balance. It behaved like a child who no longer wanted to recognize his mother; or like a disciple who, denying his master, no longer wanted to listen to his teachings, or learn his lessons. What will happen to this child and to this disciple? They will be the sorrow of themselves, and the terror and sorrow of society. Such has man become – terror and sorrow; but a sorrow without pity. Ah! man is getting worse and worse, and I cry over him with tears of blood!"



From 6 P.M. to 7 P.M.

Jesus leaves his most holy mother and goes to the supper room.

Prayer of Preparation'

My adorable Jesus, as I have shared in your sufferings together with You, and in those of your afflicted Mama, I see that You are about to leave to go there, where the Will of the Father calls You. The love between mother and son is so intense that it makes you inseparable; and so you leave yourself in the heart of your mother, and the sweet mother and queen leaves herself in you. Otherwise it would be impossible for you to separate. So, blessing each other, you give her your last kiss to strengthen her in the bitter pain she is about to suffer. You tell her good bye for the last time, and leave.

But the paleness of your face, your trembling lips, your suffocated voice, as though wanting to burst into tears in saying good bye ah, everything tells me how much You love Her and how much You suffer in leaving Her! But to fulfill the Will of the Father, with your Hearts fused into each other, You submit Yourselves to everything, wanting to repair for those who, unwilling to overcome the tendernesses of relatives and friends, and bonds and attachments, do not care about fulfilling the Holy Will of God and corresponding to the state of sanctity to which God calls them.

What pain these souls give You by rejecting your love and by contenting themselves with the love of creatures! My sweet Love, while I make reparation with You, let me stay with your Mother. Let me console Her and support Her while You leave. Later, I will hurry my steps to catch up to You. But, oh, what sorrow I feel, seeing my anguished mother tremble! And while she tries to say good-bye to her son, her sorrow is so great that her voice dies on her lips and she cannot even pronounce a word. In her swoon of love, She almost faints. She cries, "My Son, my Son, I bless You! What a bitter separation this is—crueler than any death!"

But grief keeps Her from saying more and leaves Her speechless. Inconsolable Queen, let me help You. Let me dry your tears and comfort You in your bitter sorrow. My Mother, I will not leave You alone; I ask You to take me with You. In this most sorrowful hour for You and Jesus, You teach me what I must do. You teach me how I must defend Him, make reparation to Him, and console Him; and—if I must—give my life to defend Yours.

I will not come out from beneath your mantle. At a sign from You I will fly to Jesus. I will offer Him your Love, your affections and your kisses together with mine. I will place them on each wound, in each drop of his Blood, in each pain and insult. As He feels the kisses and Love of his Mother in each pain, may his wounds be soothed. Then I will come back to hide under your mantle. And I will bring his kisses back to You, to soothe your pierced Heart.

My Mama, my heart is pounding, I want to go to Jesus. And as I kiss your maternal hands, bless me as You blessed Jesus, and allow me to go to Him. My sweet Jesus, love directs me toward your steps and I reach You, as You walk along the streets of Jerusalem together with your beloved disciples. I look at You and I see You still pale.

I hear your voice—sweet, but sad—so sad as to break the hearts of your disciples, who are deeply disturbed by your sadness. As I lean to listen, I hear You say, This is the last time I will go through these streets alone. Tomorrow I will be bound and dragged through them amid a thousand insults. Pointing to the places where You will be more cruelly insulted and tortured, You say, Like the sun, my life here below is about to set. Tomorrow, at this hour, I will be no more. But I will rise, like the sun, on the third day. At your words, the disciples grow sad and silent and do not know what to answer. You add, Take courage! Do not despair! I am not leaving you. I will always be with you; still, it is necessary for me to die for the good of all.

As you pause, I see that You are moved, but with a trembling voice You proceed in your teaching. And before enclosing Yourself in the cenacle, You look at the sun which is setting, just as your life is setting; You offer your steps for those who find themselves at the setting of their lives, giving them the grace to let them set in You, and repairing for those who, in spite of the sorrows and disillusions of life, persist in not wanting to surrender to You.

Then you look again at Jerusalem, the center of your miracles and of the preferential love of your heart. In return, the city is already preparing the cross for you and sharpening the nails, to commit the deicide. You shudder, your Heart breaks and You cry over its destruction. With this, You repair for many souls consecrated to You, whom You tried to form with so much care as portents of your love, but ungrateful and unrequiting, they only bring you more bitter suffering! I want to share in your atonement, to soothe the breaking of your heart. But I see that You are horrified by the sight of Jerusalem, and, turning your eyes away, You enter the supper room.

My love, draw me closer to your heart, let me make your sorrows my own, and let me offer them together with you. Look mercifully on my soul; pour your love into it, bless me.

Reflections and Practices.

Without delay, Jesus withdraws from his Mother, although his most tender Heart suffers immensely. Are we as ready to sacrifice even the most legitimate and holy affections, in order to fulfill the Divine will? Let us especially reflect on those moments when we may feel distant from the Divine Presence or from an especially fond devotion.

Jesus did not take his last steps without purpose. In them he glorified the Father and asked for the salvation of souls. We must place in our steps the same intentions of Jesus that is, to sacrifice ourselves for the glory of the Father and for the good of souls. Furthermore, we should imagine that we are placing our steps in those of Jesus. He wasted nothing in each step, but enclosed all the steps of creatures in his own, making reparation for all ungodly steps, in order to give the Father the glory he deserves, and life to all the evil steps of creatures so that they might walk the path of good. Likewise, so should we place our steps into those of Jesus, repeating his own intentions. Do we walk among others modestly and recollected so as to be an example, inspiring them to devotion and holiness?

Despite his sufferings, from time to time he said a few words to the apostles, telling them about his imminent passion. How do we behave in conversation? When the occasion presents itself, do we turn our conversation to the Passion of our Divine Redeemer?

When loving Jesus saw his Apostles sad and discouraged, He tried to comfort them. In our conversations, do we have the intention of comforting Jesus? Do we try to carry on our conversations in the Will of God, by instilling the spirit of Jesus Christ in others?

As Jesus walks to the Cenacle, let us enclose all our thoughts, affections, heartbeats, prayers, actions, meals, work, and all our other acts in the Heart of Jesus as they unfold. In this way, our actions will acquire a divine character. However, since it is difficult to always keep this divine attitude because it is hard for the soul to fuse her acts continuously in Him the soul can compensate with the disposition of her good will, which will please Jesus very much. He will keep watch over her every thought, word, and heartbeat. He will place them in attendance inside and outside of Himself, gazing at them with great Love, as the fruit of the creature's good will. Then, when the soul fuses itself in him, doing its immediate acts with him, good Jesus feels so drawn toward this soul that He will do what she does together with her, transforming the creature's acts into a divine work.

All this is the effect of God's goodness, who takes everything into account and rewards everything, even the smallest act done in the Will of God, so that the creature is restituted in everything.

O my Life and my all, may your steps become mine, and, as I walk this earth, grant that my thoughts may be in Heaven above!

(Personal Offering and Thanksgiving)

Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Xavier]

Servant of God Luisa Piccarretta to St. Annibale Francis De Maria, "I am finally sending you the Hours of the Passion, now written, and all for the glory of Our Lord. I also include another sheet which contains the effects, and the beautiful promises which Jesus makes to anyone who does these Hours of the Passion. I believe that if one who meditates them is a sinner, he will convert; if he is imperfect, he will become perfect; if he is holy, he will become more holy; if he is tempted, he will find victory; if he is suffering, in these Hours he will find the strength, the medicine, the comfort. And if his soul is weak and poor, he will find spiritual food and the mirror in which he will reflect himself continuously to be embellished and to become similar to Jesus, our model. The satisfaction that blessed Jesus receives from the meditation of these Hours is so great, that He would want at least one copy of these meditations to be present and practiced in each city or town. In fact, it would happen, then, as if Jesus heard His own voice and His prayers being reproduced in those reparations, just as the ones He raised to His Father during the 24 hours of His sorrowful Passion. And if this were done in each town or city at least, by as many souls, Jesus seems to make me understand that Divine Justice would be placated in part, and in these sad times of torments and bloodshed, Its scourges would be stopped, in part, and as though dampened. I let you, Reverend Father, make appeal to all; may you complete, in this way, the little work that my lovable Jesus had me do."


   
From 7 P.M. to 8 P.M.
The Legal Supper.

Prayer of Preparation

O Jesus, you have arrived at the upper room together with your beloved disciples and sit down to supper with them. What tenderness, what kindliness you show in all your person, as you humble yourself to eat material food for the last time! Here, now, everything in you is love. On this occasion also, You not only atone for sins of gluttony, but You also pray for the sanctification of food, for it to become the body's strength. We are mindful of how you desire our holiness in our humble, ordinary, everyday acts.

Jesus, my Life, your sweet and penetrating gaze seems to search all of the Apostles; and while eating with them your Heart remains pierced in seeing your dear Apostles still weak and feeble, especially the untrue Judas, who has already put a foot in hell. And from the depths of your heart you cry bitterly, What good is to come from shedding my blood? Here is a soul so favored by Me —lost! Your eyes, burnished with loving light, burn into him, to make him understand the great evil he is about to commit.

Your Supreme Charity makes You bear this pain, and You do not share it even with your beloved Apostles. As you grieve over Judas, your heart is filled with joy to see the beloved disciple, John, on your left. And unable to contain your love any longer, you gently draw him to you, rest his head on your heart, letting him know what only you foresee: paradise!

It is in this solemn hour that the two peoples, the reprobate and the elect, are portrayed by the two disciples: the reprobate in Judas, who already feels hell in his heart; the elect in John, who rests and delights in You. O my sweet Lord, I also draw near to You, who are all tenderness toward the sinners who want to love You. Make me worthy, unworthy creature though I am, of resting my tired head on your adorable Heart. I pray you to make me feel the delights of heaven now, so that, enraptured by the sweet harmonies of your heart, the earth may no longer be earth for me, but heaven. But in these sweet and divine harmonies, I sense that painful heartbeats escape from your heart. They are for the lost souls! O Jesus, I beg You, do not allow more souls to be lost. Let your heart beat in theirs, and make them feel the heartbeats of the life of heaven, just as your beloved disciple, John, felt them. Attracted by the gentleness and sweetness of your Love, may they all surrender to You!

O Jesus, while I remain here in your heart, feed me as you fed your apostles, with, the food of love, the food of your holy word the food of the divine will. O my Jesus, do not deny me this food, which You so yearn for me to have, so that your very Life may be formed in me. My dear, good Jesus, while I am here beside you, I see that the food you are eating together with your dear disciples is nothing other than a lamb. This is the figurative lamb. And, as no more vital life fluid remains in this lamb by force of the fire, so it is with you, the mystical lamb, who must consume yourself completely for creatures by force of love. You will not keep even a single drop of your blood for yourself, having to shed it all, for love of us.

O Jesus, there is nothing You do which does not portray vividly your most sorrowful Passion, which You keep always present in your mind, in your Heart —in everything. This teaches me that if I too would always have the thought of your Passion in my mind and in my heart, You would never deny me the food of your Love.

How grateful I am to you! O my Jesus, you have me with you in your every act, intending something special for me. I beg you for the grace to have your Passion always before me in my mind, in my heart, in my glances, in my footsteps and in whatever I do, so that no matter where I turn, interiorly or before others, you will always be present to me. Give me the grace never to forget what you have suffered and endured for me. Let this be my magnet which attracts my entire being to you and keeps me from going away from you.

Reflections and Practices.

Before eating, let us join our intentions to those of our lovable and good Jesus, imagining that our mouth and Jesus' are one, and that we are moving our tongue and our jaws together with his. In this way, not only will we draw into ourselves the life of Jesus Christ, but since He is present with his Will in the mouths of all creatures, we will unite ourselves with Him to give our Father the glory, praise, love, thanksgiving, and complete reparation that creatures owe Him, just as Jesus did while eating.

Let us also imagine being at the table near Jesus, now looking at Him, now praying Him to share a bite with us, now kissing the hem of His red mantle, now contemplating the movements of His lips and of His celestial eyes, now noticing the sudden clouding of His most lovable Face in foreseeing so much human ingratitude! Just as loving Jesus spoke of his Passion during supper, so will we, whenever we take food, reflect on how we have done the Hours of the Passion.

The Angels, just as they did when our Jesus was on earth, wait to collect our prayers and reparations and to present the divine disposition before the Father to mitigate, in some way, his just indignation for the many offences He receives from creatures. And when we pray, can we say we are recollected and reverent? Can we say that the Angels are happy to carry our prayers joyfully to Heaven, just as they carried those of Jesus, or are they saddened by our prayers? As sorrowful Jesus was eating, his Heart was pierced at the thought of the loss of Judas. In him, He saw all the souls who would be lost. And the loss of souls being the greatest of his sorrows, unable to contain it, he drew John to himself for relief.

In the same way, we will remain always close to Him like John, compassionating Him in His pains, relieving Him, and giving Him rest in our hearts. We will make His pain our own, we will identify ourselves with Him, to feel the heartbeats of that Divine Heart, pierced by the loss of souls. We will give Him our own heartbeats in order to remove those wounds; and in the place of those wounds we will put the souls who willingly free Him, so that they may convert and be saved. Every beat of Jesus' heart is an I love you that echoes in all the heartbeats of creatures; His desire is to be reciprocated by all created hearts in a continuous exchange of love. But loving Jesus is deprived of this response on the part of many, and his heartbeats are left, as it were, stifled and embittered.

Let us ask Jesus to seal our heartbeat with his I love you, so that our heart can also live the life of his heart. Then, echoing in the heartbeat of creatures it will compel them to say, "I love you, Jesus." We will even fuse ourselves in Him, we will take on the divine disposition so that every time we do so, loving Jesus will tell us "I love you." This "I love you" is so immense that it fills Heaven and earth, flows in the Saints, and descends into Purgatory. The hearts of all creatures are touched by this "I love you." The elements themselves experience new life in such a way that they all feel the effects of this "I love you," which issues forth from Jesus.

Even in his breathing, Jesus feels suffocated for the loss of souls. We will give him our breath of love to relieve him. And taking his breath, we will touch the souls that flee from his arms, to give them the life of the divine breath so that instead of running away they can return to him and cling to him more than before. Especially when we experience pain and find it difficult to breathe, let us think of Jesus who contains the breath of creatures in his own breath.

He also feels his breath being taken when souls are lost. Let us unite our painful and labored breaths with those of Jesus to relieve Him. In our sorrows, let us run after the sinner, compelling him to seek refuge in the Heart of Jesus. My beloved Good, may my breath be a continuous cry at every creature's breath, forcing her to enclose herself in your breath. The first word that loving Jesus said on the Cross was a word of forgiveness to pardon all souls before the Father. Jesus so loves the souls who stand around his Heart asking forgiveness, that He feels as if his arms were breaking and so replaces Justice with Mercy.

We will give Him our acts to excuse the sinner, so that moved by our excuses no soul can go to hell. We will join with him to keep guard over the hearts of creatures so that no one will offend him. We will let Him pour out His love, willingly accepting all that He may dispose for us —coldness, hardness, darkness, oppressions, temptations, distractions, slanders, illnesses and other things, so as to relieve Him from all that He receives from creatures.

Jesus pours more than his Love on souls. He often goes to a soul when He feels the coldness of creatures and lets the soul experience this coldness. If the soul is receptive, Jesus will feel relieved from all the coldness of creatures, and this cold will then serve to guard other hearts so that loving Jesus is loved. At other times, Jesus feels the hardness of hearts in his own. Unable to contain it, He seeks to expel it by drawing closer to us. He touches his Heart to ours so that we may partake of that hardness. When we embrace his pain as our own, we put it around the heart of the sinner to melt his hardness and bring him back to Jesus.

My beloved Jesus is beset by the carelessness of creatures and wants to give vent to his grief by sharing it with us. As we suffer with resignation, let us place these heedless acts around Him, as a breath of wind to ease his pains. And we shall shield Him from these willful acts of carelessness.

My beloved Good, You suffer greatly because of the loss of souls; and out of compassion I place my being at your disposal. I will take your pains and the pains of the sinners upon myself, leaving You relieved, and the sinner clinging to You. O my Jesus, melt my entire being into love so that I may continually comfort You and sweeten all your bitterness.

(Personal Offering and Thanksgiving)

Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Xavier]

From 8 P.M. to 9 P.M.The Eucharistic Supper.

Prayer of Preparation

My tender love, you are never satisfied in your love. I see that once you have finished the legal supper, you get up from the table together with your beloved disciples; and together with them you raise up a hymn of thanksgiving to the Father for the food he has given you, making reparation for all the souls who fail to thank You for the many ways our lives are sustained by You. This is why, O Jesus, in anything You do, touch or see, You always have on your lips the words, "Thanks be to You, O Father". I too, Jesus, united with You, take the words from your very lips, and I will say, always and in everything: "Thank You for myself and for everyone", to continue atoning for the lack of thanksgiving.

The washing of the feet

My Jesus, your love seems untiring. You have your beloved disciples sit down again. Then, taking a basin of water, and girding yourself with a white towel, you kneel at their feet in such a humble way that it draws the attention of all heaven, turning it rapturous. The apostles themselves, seeing you kneeling at their feet, are almost motionless.

But tell me, my Love, what do You want? What do You intend to do with this act so humble? Humility never before seen, nor will ever be seen again!

"O my little child, I want every soul. So, as a poor beggar kneeling humbly before them, I ask, I beg, I insist; with my tears, I construct snares of love to catch them.. Prostrate at their feet, with this basin of water mixed with my tears, I want to cleanse them of any imperfection and prepare them to receive me in this sacrament.

I so much cherish this act of receiving Me in the Eucharist, that I do not want to entrust this office to the angels, and not even to my dear Mama, but I Myself want to purify them, down to the most intimate fibers, in order to dispose them to receive the fruit of the Sacrament; and in the Apostles I intended to prepare all souls.

I intend to make reparation for all holy works, for the administration of the sacraments, and especially for all those things that priests do with the spirit of pride, empty of the divine spirit, and filled with self-interest. How many good works reach me more to dishonor me than to give me honor, more to embitter me than to please me, more to give me death than to give me life! These are the sins which sadden me most. Yes, my child, go over all the most intimate sins by which I am offended, one by one, and satisfy me with my own reparations, and console my embittered heart."

My tormented love, I make your life my own; and together with you I intend to make reparation to you for all these offenses. I want to enter into the most intimate hiding places of your Divine Heart and repair with your own Heart for the most intimate and secret offenses with which your dearest ones offend You. O my Jesus, I want to follow You in everything, and together with You I want to make present all the souls who are about to receive You in the Eucharist, enter into their hearts, and place my hands together with yours, to purify them.

O Jesus, with your tears and with the water with which You washed the feet of the Apostles, let us wash the souls who will receive You. Let us purify their hearts. Let us inflame them; let us shake them free of the dirt that soils them, so that when they receive You, You will find joy in them instead of bitterness.

But, my affectionate Good, while You are all intent on washing the feet of the Apostles, I look at You, and I see another sorrow which pierces your Most Holy Heart. These Apostles represent all the future sons of the Church. And in each one You see the variety of all the evils that will arise in the Church, each a continuation of your sorrow. In one you see weakness, in another deception; in this one, hypocrisy; in that one, love of interests. In Saint Peter you see the lack of determination, and all the sins of the leaders of the Church. In Saint John you see the sins of your most trustworthy. In Judas you see all the apostate, with the series of all the grave evils which are caused by them. Ah, your Heart is so flooded with sorrow and Love that You cannot bear it, and You pause at the feet of each Apostle. Your tears flow, as you pray and atone for each of these offenses, asking for the remedy corresponding to each need.

My Jesus, I too unite myself to You; I make your prayers, your reparations and your appropriate remedies for each soul, my own. I want to mix my tears with yours so that you may never be alone, but may always have me with you to share your pains.

My gentle love, while you continue to wash the feet of the apostles, you now come to Judas' feet. I hear your labored breathing; You not only cry —You sob. And, while You wash those feet, You kiss them. You press them to your Heart. Unable to speak—your voice choked by weeping—You look at him through eyes swollen with tears. With your Heart, You say to him:

My son! I beg you, with the voice of my tears, do not go to Hell! Give Me your soul. I lie prostrate at your feet, and I am begging you... Tell Me what you want. What do you ask of Me? I will give you everything —only do not join the lost. I am your God —spare Me this pain!"

And you again press those feet to your heart. It aches, seeing Judas fixed in his hardness. Your suffocating love almost causes you to faint. My Heart and my Life, let me hold You in my arms. I understand that these are the loving ways that You use with each hardened sinner. Please, my heart, as I share your sorrow and atone for the sins you receive from the souls that obstinately refuse to convert, I pray you to let us travel around the earth together. Wherever there are obstinate sinners, let us give them your tears to soften them, your kisses and your embraces of love to chain them to you so they cannot escape. I want to do this to console you for your pain at the loss of Judas.

Institution of the Eucharist

My Jesus, my joy and delight, I see that your love runs, and runs rapidly. Though suffering greatly, You rise and quickly approach the Altar where the bread and wine have been prepared for the Consecration.

My Love, I see you take on a tender and affectionate demeanor—one never seen before. Your eyes shine more brightly than the sun. Your ruddy Face is resplendent. Your lips smile and burn with Love. Your hands and all your members take on a creative attitude. My Love, You are completely transfigured. Your Divinity seems to overflow from your Humanity. O Jesus, my Heart and my Life, your entirely new appearance commands everyone's attention. A sweet rapture steals over the Apostles and leaves them breathless. Our sweet Mother runs in spirit to the foot of the Holy Table to witness the wonders of your Love.

The Angels descend from Heaven and ask one another, "What is this? What is this? This is the folly of follies and the excess of excesses: a God who creates not Heaven or earth, but Himself! And where? In the humblest of things—some bread and some wine."

O unquenchable Love, surrounded by the Apostles, You take bread into your hands and offer it to the Father. With your gentle voice I hear You say:

"Thank You, Holy Father, for always answering the prayer of your Son. Holy Father, concur with Me. One day, You sent Me from Heaven to earth to be incarnated in the womb of my Mama, to come and save Our children. Now, permit me to incarnate myself in each host, to continue their salvation and to be the life of each of my children. Do You not see, O Father? Few hours of my life remain: who would have the heart to leave my children orphaned and alone? Many are their enemies —the darkness, the passions, the weaknesses to which they are subject. Who will help them? Please, I beg you: let me remain in each host to be the life of each of my children. Then I will rout their enemies, and will be their light, strength and help in everything. Otherwise, where will they go? Who will guide them? Our works are eternal. My Love is irresistible; I cannot—nor do I want—to leave my children."

Moved at the Son's tender, loving voice, the Father descends from Heaven. He unites Himself with the Holy Spirit on the altar to concur with his Son. Jesus pronounces the words of the consecration with a powerful and moving voice; and without leaving himself he creates himself in that bread and wine. Then he gives communion to the apostles; and I believe that our heavenly mother does not remain without receiving him. Ah, Jesus, the heavens bow down and all send to You an act of adoration in your new state of profound annihilation.

But, sweet Jesus, while your love remains pleased and satisfied, lacking in nothing, I see, O my Good, on this altar, all the consecrated hosts which will exist until the end of the ages. I see all your painful passion formed in each host, because to the excesses of your love, creatures respond with excesses of ingratitude and of enormous crimes. Heart of my heart, I want to be with You always, in each tabernacle, in all the pyxes, and in every consecrated Host that will be until the end of the world. I want to offer You my acts of reparation for all the offenses that You receive. Therefore, my heart, I come beside you and kiss your majestic forehead. But as I kiss you, I feel my lips pricked by the thorns which surround your head. I see, O my Jesus, that you are not spared the thorns in this holy host, just as you are not spared them in your passion.

I see how many creatures come before You and instead of offering You the homage of their good thoughts, send You evil thoughts. That is why You bow your Head once again, as in the Passion, to receive and suffer the thorns of their evil thoughts. O my Love, I draw near You to share your pain. I place all my thoughts in your Mind to drive out the thorns that cause You so much sorrow. May my every thought flow in every thought of Yours to make up for all the evil thoughts of creatures and, in this way, to console your afflicted thoughts. My Good Jesus, I kiss your beautiful eyes. In this holy host I see your loving eyes looking with anticipation, waiting for all those who come into your presence, to look at them with your glances of love, and receive the exchange of their loving glances. But how many come before you, and instead of looking at you and seeking you, they look at things which distract them from you, and so deprive you of the pleasure of an exchange of glances between you and them. You weep. So, kissing you, I feel my lips bathed by your tears. My Jesus, do not cry; I want to place my eyes in yours to share in these pains with You, and to cry with You. And wanting to repair for all the distracted gazes of creatures, I offer You my gazes, always fixed in You. Jesus, my Love, I kiss your most holy ears. Ah, I see You listening intently to the needs of souls so that You can console them. In spite of this, they fill your ears with badly recited prayers, full of distrust, lacking true confidence; they are lifeless prayers said mostly out of habit. And your ears are aggravated more in this holy host than in the passion itself.

O my Jesus, I want to take all of the harmonies of Heaven and release them into your ears to make reparation to You. I want to place my ears in Yours, not only to share these sufferings with You, but also to offer You my continuous and instantaneous act of reparation and consolation. Jesus, my Life, I kiss your most holy Face; I see it bleeding, bruised and swollen. The creatures, O Jesus, come before the Holy Host, and with their indecent postures and evil discourses, instead of giving You honor, seem to send You slaps and spittle. Yet, as in the Passion, You receive them with perfect peace and patience and endure everything.

O Jesus, not only do I want to put my face near yours to caress you and kiss you as you receive these slaps, and to take away the spit, but I also want to put my face in yours in order to share these pains with you. I want to divide my body into tiny particles and place them before You as countless kneeling statues. I want to transform all my movements into continuous prostrations to make up for all the irreverence You receive from creatures. Jesus, my all, I kiss your most sweet mouth. I see that as you descend into the hearts of creatures, the first contact you make is on their tongue. Oh, how embittered you are to find many biting, impure and evil tongues! Yes, you feel as if poisoned by those tongues, and it is even worse when you descend into their hearts. O Jesus, if it were possible, I would like to be in each creature's mouth to make it sweet for you, and to make reparation for whatever offenses you receive from them.

My tired Lord, I kiss your most holy neck. I see you are tired and exhausted, and all absorbed in your crafting of love. Tell me, what are you doing? And Jesus replies:

"My child, in this host I work from dawn till dark, forming continuous chains of love, so that as souls come to me they find my chains of love ready to chain them to my heart. But, do you know what they do? Many do not want these chains of mine, and by means of force they free themselves and break them to pieces. But because these chains are bound to my heart, I remain tortured unto delirium. And, as these souls shatter my chains and ruin the work that I do in this Sacrament, they seek the chains of creatures. And they do this even in my presence, using Me in order to reach their own ends. The pain from this is so intense that it brings on a violent fever which makes me faint and become delirious."

O Jesus, how I give you compassion! You love is so overburdened by this. In order to relieve you from the offenses You receive from these souls, I ask You to chain my heart with those chains broken by them, in order to give You my requital of love in their place. The fire that it contains is so intense that, in order to give a little relief to your flames which shoot up too high—while wanting to take a little pause in your work—you also want to play in this sacrament. Your game is to form arrows and darts so that when creatures come before you, you begin to play with them by shooting arrows from your breast to wound them. When they receive them, you celebrate, and so it is that your game is played.

But many, O my Jesus, deflect them, reciprocating with arrows of coldness, darts of lukewarmness, and arrows of ingratitude. This saddens you to tears, because creatures make your game of love fail.

O Jesus, here is my breast, ready to receive not only the arrows destined for me but also those which the others refuse. This way, your games will not be frustrated any more. And in exchange, I want to make reparation to you for the coldness, lukewarmness and ingratitude you receive. O Jesus, I kiss your left hand, and I intend to make reparation for all the illicit and unholy touches made in your Presence. I beg You to always hold me close to your Heart! O Jesus, I kiss your right hand. I intend to make reparation for all sacrileges, especially for all badly-celebrated Masses. How many times, my love, you are compelled to descend from heaven into the hands of priests who, in virtue of the authority given to them, call you. But you find those hands full of mud, and oozing decay. And although you feel the nausea of those hands, your love compels you to remain.

In reality, it is worse in certain priests. In these, you find the priests of your passion who, with their enormous crimes and sacrileges, renew the deicide. My Jesus, it is terrifying just to think of it. Again, as in the passion, you find yourself in those unworthy hands, like a meek little lamb, waiting for your death once more. O Jesus, how you suffer! And how you would like to have a loving hand to free you from those bloody hands! Yes, when you find yourself in such hands, I pray you to make me be there to make reparation to you. I want to cover you with the purity of the angels, perfume you with your virtues to lessen the stench of those hands, and offer you my heart for an escape and a refuge. And while you are in me, I will pray to you for priests so that they may be your worthy ministers, and no longer endanger your sacramental life.

O Jesus, I kiss your left foot. And I intend to make reparation to you for those who receive you by habit and without the proper dispositions. O Jesus, I kiss your right foot, and I intend to make reparation to you for those who receive you to outrage you. Please, when they dare to do that, I pray you to renew the miracle you worked when Longinus pierced your heart with the lance: with the blood that flowed out and touched his eyes you converted him and healed him. Similarly, with your sacramental touch, convert offenses into love.

O Jesus, I kiss your heart, the center into which all offenses are poured. I intend to make reparation to you for everything and for everyone; to love you in exchange for your love; and always united with you, to share your pains. Please, heavenly archer of love, if I fail to make reparation to you for some offense, I pray you to imprison me in your heart and in your Will so that nothing can escape me.

I will pray our sweet mother to keep me alert; and together with her we will make reparation to you for everything and for everyone. Together, we will kiss you; and, sheltering you, we will drive away the waves of bitterness which, unfortunately, you receive from creatures. O Jesus, remember that I too am a poor prisoner. It is true that your prisons, which consist of the tiny space of the host, afford less space than mine. So, enclose me in your heart, and with the chains of your love not only imprison me, but tie my thoughts, affections and desires [to yours], one by one. Shackle my hands and my feet to your heart, so that I may not have any other hands or feet but yours.

And so, my Love, my prison will be your Heart, my chains will be made of love; your flames will be my food, your breath will be mine, the fences preventing me from going out will be your Most Holy Will. So I will see nothing but flames, I will touch nothing but fire; and while they give me life, they will give me death, like that You suffer in the Holy Host. I will give You my life, and so, while I remain imprisoned in You, You will be released in me.

Isn't this why you imprisoned yourself in the host: to be released from your prison by the souls that receive you, and to take life in them? Now, as a sign of love, bless me and give me a kiss. And I embrace you and remain O my sweet heart, I see that after you have instituted the Blessed Sacrament, and have seen the enormous ingratitude and the offenses of creatures before the excesses of your love, although you are wounded and embittered, still you do not retreat. Indeed, you want to drown everything in the immensity of your love. Jesus, I see that you give yourself in communion to your apostles. Afterwards, you add that what you have done, they also must do. With this, you give them the power to consecrate. And so you ordain them priests, and institute other sacraments.

In this way, you take care of everything, and make reparation for everything: the faulty sermons; the sacraments administered and received without the proper dispositions, and therefore, without effects; the mistaken vocations of priests, caused by the failure to use all the means necessary to discern true vocations—both on the part of the priests and on the part of those who ordain them. No, nothing escapes you, O Jesus. And I intend to follow you and to make reparation to you for all these offenses. Then, once you have finished with everything, you take your apostles with you and set out for the Garden of Gethsemane to begin your painful passion. I will follow you in everything to keep you faithful company.

Reflections and Practices.

Jesus is hidden in the host to give life to everyone, and in this hidden state he embraces all ages and gives light to everyone. Similarly, by hiding ourselves in him, through our prayers and reparations we will give light and life to everyone, even to heretics and infidels, because Jesus does not exclude anyone. What are we to do while hiding in him? In order to become similar to Jesus, we must hide everything in him: our thoughts, glances, works, heartbeats, affections, desires, steps and works. We must even hide our prayers themselves in Jesus' prayers.

And just as our loving Jesus in the Eucharist embraces all ages, together with him we will embrace them as well. United to him, we will be the thought of every mind, the word of every tongue, the desire of every heart, the step of every foot, the work of every arm. With this, we will repel from Jesus' heart all the wrongs that creatures would like to do him, and we will try to substitute them with all the good that we can possibly do, and so urge Jesus to give salvation, holiness and love to all souls. In order for our life to correspond to Jesus' life, it must be completely conformed to his.

The soul must have the intention of being in all the tabernacles of the world, to keep him company continuously and to give him perpetual relief and reparation. And with this intention we must do all our actions of the day. The first Tabernacle exists within us, in our hearts. So, we should attend closely to everything that good Jesus wants to do in us. Many times, abiding in our hearts, Jesus makes us feel the need to pray. Yes, it is Jesus who wants to pray, and he wants us with him. He makes himself practically one with our voice, with our affections, with our whole heart, so that our prayer may be one with his. And so, to honor Jesus' prayer, we will be careful to give him our entire being so that loving Jesus may raise his prayer to heaven, to talk to the Father and to renew the effects of his own prayer in the world.

We must be attentive to all the movements of our interior, because now good Jesus makes us suffer, now he wants us at prayer, now he puts us into one state of soul or another, in order to be able to repeat his own life in us. Let's suppose that Jesus gives us the occasion to exercise patience. He receives so many offenses from creatures that he feels compelled to pick up some scourge and strike creatures with it; and so he gives us the occasion to exercise patience. Now, we must honor him by patiently supporting everything, just as he does. This way, our patience will snatch from his hand the scourges that other creatures draw down on themselves, because he will be exercising his own divine patience in us. And as with patience, so too with all the other virtues.

In the Blessed Sacrament, loving Jesus exercises all the virtues; and it is from him that we will draw strength, meekness, patience, tolerance, humility, obedience. Good Jesus gives us his flesh for food; and we will give him our love, our will, our desires, thoughts and affections to nourish him. This way, we will compete with Jesus' love. We won't let anything enter into us that is not him. So, everything we do must serve to nourish our beloved Jesus. Our thoughts must nourish the divine thought. That is, realizing that Jesus is hidden in us and that he wants the food of our thoughts, by thinking holy thoughts we come to nourish the divine thought. The same goes for our glances that must nourish the divine glance, and for our words, heartbeats, affections, desires, steps, and works. In a word, all must serve to nourish Jesus, and, in doing so, we must have the intention of nourishing creatures in Jesus.

My sweet Love, in this hour You transubstantiated Yourself in bread and wine. O Jesus, please grant that everything I say and do may be a continual consecration of Yourself in Me and in souls.

My sweet Life, when You enter into Me, grant that my every heartbeat, desire, affection, thought, and word may endure your sacramental consecration, in such a way that, with my entire, tiny being consecrated, it may become so many hosts to give You to souls. And by virtue of your consecration.

O Jesus, may I consecrate all of You into all souls. O Jesus, my sweet Love, may I be your tiny host in order to enclose within myself, as within a living Host, your entire Being.

Prayer of Thanksgiving...

November 4, 1914 Volume 11 The new and continuous way to meditate the Passion.

I was doing the Hours of the Passion and Jesus, all pleased, told me: "My daughter, if you knew what great satisfaction I feel in seeing you repeating these Hours of my Passion - always repeating them, over and over again - you would be happy. It is true that my Saints have meditated on my Passion and have comprehended how much I suffered, melting in tears of compassion, so much so, as to feel consumed for love of my pains; but not in such a continuous way, and repeated many times in this order. Therefore I can say that you are the first one to give Me this pleasure, so great and special, as you keep fragmenting within you - hour by hour - my life and what I suffered. And I feel so drawn that, hour by hour, I give you this food and I eat the same food with you, doing what you do together with you. Know, however, that I will reward you abundantly with new light and new graces; and even after your death, each time souls on earth will do these Hours of my Passion, in Heaven I will clothe you with ever new light and glory."

November 6, 1914 Volume 11 The soul who does the Hours of the Passion makes the life of Jesus her own, and does His same office.

As I continued the usual Hours of the Passion, my lovable Jesus told me: "My daughter, the world is in continuous act of renewing my Passion; and since my immensity envelopes everything, inside and outside the creatures, from their contact I am forced to receive nails, thorns, scourges, scorns, spit and all the rest which I suffered in the Passion - and still more. Now, at the contact with souls who do these Hours of my Passion I feel the nails being removed, the thorns shattered, the wounds soothed, the spit taken away. I feel I am repaid in good for the evil that others do to Me, and in feeling that their contact does no harm to Me, but good, I lean more and more on them."

[Xavier]

So, with the 4 Preparatory Hours being completed, 5 P.M. to 9 P.M of Lord Jesus' and Mother Mary's Lives, we enter now into possibly Three of the Most Important Hours ever; for in those 3 Sacred Gethsemane Hours, the Son of God undid all sins of all time. Nothing could even conceivably be imagined more powerful in impetrating all kinds of favours from Heaven, and proceeding by eons along the road to sanctity ourselves, than constant, perpetual, and daily or even Hourly, meditation on the Holy Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.


   
The three hours of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane
Introductory Prayer

O my divine redeemer, Jesus, please take me with you, together with your three dear apostles, to assist at your agony in the Garden of Olives. Admonished by the sweet rebuke You gave to Peter and the other two sleeping disciples, I want to stay awake for at least an hour with You in Gethsemane; I want to feel at least one sharp pain of your agonizing Heart, one sigh of your labored breathing.

I want to fix my eyes on your divine face and contemplate how it turns pale, how it becomes troubled, how it is oppressed by anguish, how it bends low, even to the dust! O my suffering Jesus, I already see you staggering and falling, now to the left and now to the right. I see you join your loving, crippled hands. I begin to hear your moans, your cries of incomprehensible pain which you raise to heaven. O my Jesus, agonizing in the dreary Garden of Gethsemane, during this hour in which I will keep you company, make a splash, a stream of that adorable blood flow on me, which is streaming from all your adorable members.

O most precious bath of my greatest good, Jesus, who is agonizing for me, let me drink you to the last drop, and with you, drink at least one sip of the bitter chalice of my beloved. Let me feel inside of me the pains of his divine heart. Indeed, let me feel my heart broken by the sorrow of having offended my Lord, who reduces himself to the agony of death for me.

Yes, my Jesus, give me grace, help me to suffer, to sigh and to cry with you, at least for one hour in the Garden of Olives. O Sorrowful Mother, Mary, make me feel the compassion of your pierced heart for Jesus agonizing in Gethsemane. Amen.



From 9 P.M. to 10 P.M.
The first hour of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Prayer of Preparation
Introductory Prayer for the Agony in the Garden

My afflicted Jesus, I feel drawn into this garden as if by an electric current. I understand that you, powerful magnet of my wounded heart, call me. And I run, thinking to myself: What are these attractions of love which I feel in myself? Oh, perhaps my persecuted Jesus is in such a state of bitterness that he feels the need for my company. And I fly. But I don't believe it. I am terrified as I enter this garden.

The darkness of the night, the intensity of the cold, the slow movement of the leaves—as mournful voices—announce pains, sadness and death for my sorrowful Jesus. The gentle twinkling of the stars—which, as crying eyes, are watching attentively and echoing Jesus' tears—reproach me for my ingratitude. I tremble; and groping about, searching for him, I call him: "Jesus, where are you? You call me but don't show yourself? You call me, and then hide?" Everything is terrifying and frightening, and deeply silent. But, straining my ears I hear a labored breath: it is Jesus himself whom I find.

But what a woeful change! It is no longer the gentle Jesus of the Eucharistic Supper, on whose face there shone a dazzling and enrapturing beauty. Instead, it is sad, with a mortal sadness that disfigures his natural beauty. He is already agonizing, and I feel troubled thinking that maybe I won't hear his voice again, because it seems like he is dying. So I embrace his feet. I become more daring and go up to his arms and put my hand on his forehead to support it. Then whispering, I call him: "Jesus, Jesus."

Shaken by my voice, he looks at me and says:

"My child, are you here? I was waiting for you, since this is the sadness which most oppressed me: the total abandonment of everyone. I was waiting for you to make you the spectator of my pains, and to have you drink together with me the chalice of the bitterness which my heavenly Father will soon send me by means of an angel. We will sip from it together, because it will not be a chalice of comfort, but of intense bitternesses, and I feel the need of a few loving souls who would drink at least a few drops of it. This is why I have called you: to accept it, to share my pains with me, and to assure me that you will not leave me alone in complete abandonment."

Yes, my anguished Jesus, we will drink the chalice of your bitterness together, we will suffer your pains [together], and I will never leave your side.

So, assured by me, saddened Jesus enters into mortal agony, and suffers pains unheard of, pains never before seen. Unable to bear it, and wanting to sympathize with him and comfort him, I say to him:

"Tell me, why are you so sad, afflicted, and alone in this garden and on this night? It is the last night of your life on earth; only a few hours remain before your passion begins. I thought that I would at least find your heavenly mother, beloved Mary Magdalene, and the faithful apostles here. Instead, I find you all alone, and overwhelmed by a sadness which gives you cruel death, without making you die. O my good and my all, won't you answer me? Speak to me!"

But it seems you cannot talk, oppressed as you are by such sadness. But, oh my Jesus, that gaze of yours, full of light, yes, but afflicted and searching, such that it seems to be looking for help; your pale face, your lips parched with love, your Divine Person, trembling from head to foot, your Heart, beating so intensely — and those heartbeats search for souls and cause You such labor that it seems that, any moment now, You are about to breathe your last — everything tells me that You are alone, and therefore You want my company.

Here I am, O Jesus, together with You. But I don't have the heart to see You cast on the ground. I take You in my arms, I press You to my heart. One by one, I want to number your pains; and one by one, the sins which present themselves before you. I want to give you relief for everything, reparation for everything, and at least an act of compassion for everything.

O my Jesus, while I am holding you in my arms, your sufferings increase. O my life, I feel a fire flowing in your veins; I feel your blood boiling, and that it wants to burst your veins and run out. Tell me, my Love, what is it? I see neither whips, nor thorns, neither nails, nor a cross. Yet, as I rest my head on your Heart, I feel cruel thorns piercing it. I feel cruel whips that spare no part of your sacred Humanity, neither inside nor out. I see your hands contracted and contorted, worse than if they were nailed. Tell me, my sweet Good, who has so much power, also in your interior, as to torment You and make You suffer as many deaths for as many torments as he gives You?

Oh, it seems that blessed Jesus opens His lips, faint and dying, and says to me:

"My child, do you want to know what it is that torments Me more than the very executioners? Rather, those are nothing compared to this! It is the Eternal Love, which, wanting primacy in everything, is making Me suffer, all at once and in the most intimate parts, what the executioners will make Me suffer little by little. Ah, my child, it is Love which prevails in everything, over Me and within Me. Love is nail for Me, Love is scourge, Love is crown of thorns – Love is everything for Me. Love is my perennial passion, while that of men is in time. Ah, my child, enter into my Heart, come to be dissolved in my love, and only in my love will you comprehend how much I suffered and how much I loved you, and you will learn to love Me and to suffer only out of love."

O my Jesus, since You call me into your Heart to show me what love made You suffer, I enter into It. But as I enter, I see the portents of love, which crowns your head, not with material thorns, but with thorns of fire; which scourges You, not with lashes of ropes, but with lashes of fire; which crucifies You with nails, not made of iron, but of fire. Everything is fire, which penetrates deep into your bones and into your very marrow; and distilling all of your Most Holy Humanity into fire, it gives You mortal pains, certainly greater than the very Passion, and prepares a bath of love for all the souls who will want to be washed of any stain and acquire the right of children of love.

O Love without end, I feel overwhelmed before such an immensity of Love. I see that to enter into Love and to understand it, I should be all Love. O my Jesus, I am not! But, since you want my company, and want me to enter into you, I pray you to make me become all love. So, I beg you to crown my head and every thought of mine with the crown of love. I beseech you, O Jesus, to whip me with the whip of love. Let my soul, my body, my powers, my sentiments, my desires, my affections, in a word, everything, be scourged and sealed by love. O love without end, let there be nothing in me which does not receive its life from love.

O Jesus, center of all loves, I beg you to nail my hands and my feet with the nails of love, so that entirely nailed by love, I may become love, understand love, dress myself with love, nourish myself with love. May love keep me all nailed in you, so that nothing inside or outside of me dare to pull me away and distract me from love, O Jesus!

Reflections and Practices.

Abandoned in this hour by his eternal Father, Jesus Christ suffered such a blaze of fiery love, that he could destroy all sins, even possible and imaginable ones. He could inflame with his love all creatures of millions and millions of worlds, and all the damned in hell, if they weren't eternally fixed in their wickedness.

Let us enter into Jesus, and after penetrating into the most intimate parts of his whole interior, into those heartbeats of fire, into his intelligence (which was, as it were, inflamed), let us take this love and dress ourselves inside and out, with the fire that inflamed Jesus. Then, going out of him, and pouring ourselves into his Will, we will find all creatures. Let us give the love of Jesus to each, and retouching their hearts and their minds with this love, let us try to transform them all into love. Then, with the desires, the heartbeats and the thoughts of Jesus, let us form him in the heart of every creature.

After this, we will bring all creatures to him with Jesus in their heart, and we will place them around him, saying: "Jesus, we bring you all creatures with Jesus in the heart of each, to give you comfort and relief. We don't have any other way to relieve your love than to bring all creatures into your heart!" With this, we will give true relief to Jesus, for the flames that burn him are so many, that he is continually repeating, "I am burning, and there is no one to take my love. Please, relieve me: take my love and give me love!" To conform to Jesus in everything, we must go back into ourselves and apply these reflections to ourselves.

In all that we do, can be say that it is a continual flowing of love between God and ourselves? Our life is a continual flow of love which we receive from God: if we think, it is a flow of love; if we work, it is a flow of love; the word is love; our heartbeat is love. We receive everything from God. But do all our actions run toward God with love? Does Jesus find in us the sweet enchantment of his love which flows to him, so that, enraptured by this enchantment, he may lavish more abundant love on us?

If, in all that we have done, we did not made the intention of running together in the love of Jesus, let us enter into ourselves and ask his forgiveness for having made him lose the sweet enchantment of his love toward us.

Do we let ourselves be modeled by the divine hands, like the humanity of Jesus Christ did? With the exception of sin, we must receive everything that happens in us as the divine doings. Otherwise, we deny the Father his glory, we let the divine life escape us, and we lose holiness. Everything we feel within ourselves ­inspirations, mortifications, graces­ is nothing other than a crafting of love. Do we take them in the way God wants us to? Do we leave Jesus free to work in us? Or, by taking everything in a human sense and as indifferent things, do we reject the divine action and force Jesus to cross his arms? Do we abandon ourselves in his arms as if we were dead, to receive all those blows which our Lord disposes for our sanctification?

My love and my all, let your love flood me on all sides and burn everything in me which is not yours. And make my love always flow toward you to burn everything that could sadden your heart.

Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Agony in the Garden

O my sweetest Lord, I thank you for being pleased to have me in your company at least for an hour during your tremendous agony in the garden. Oh, my good Jesus, how little comfort did you find in me. Yet, your infinite love and the overflowing charity of your merciful heart make you find relief even in the least act of compassion that the creature shows you. I will never forget the sight of your adorable person trembling, struck down, crushed, humiliated in the dust, and all covered with the blood you sweat, in the dark horror of Gethsemane! O Jesus, I have experienced that to be with you in your sufferings, to feel even one drop of the distressing bitterness of your divine heart is the greatest fortune which anyone can have on earth.

O Jesus, I gladly renounce all vain and earthly things. I only want you, my oppressed, suffering, afflicted Lord. From this garden, to Calvary, I always want to give you my faithful and sweet company.

O Jesus, make me be captured with you, and dragged to the courts with you. Let me share in the abuses, the insults, the spit and the slaps your enemies are going to cover you with. Take me with you from Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate again. Tie me to the column with you, and let me feel a part of your scourgings. Jesus, pierce me with some of your thorns. Let me be condemned to death by crucifixion with you: you, as victim of love for me, and I as victim of atonement for my sins.

Give me the portion of the Cyrenian, to follow you to Calvary; and there, let me be nailed to the cross with you, and then agonize and die with you.

O sorrowful mother, you have given me help to sympathize with agonizing Jesus in the garden. Help me now to be crucified with you on the same cross of Jesus, and to know how to offer him the most worthy reparations with the same merits of his passion and death on the cross. Amen.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Remember, with each word we pray in these Hours of the Passion, for every time we pray it, we can save 1 soul! Provided we do so, in full Union with the Divine Will of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is only He, in acting through us, Who can produce that efficacious Grace!]

[Xavier]

From 10 P.M. to 11 P.M.
The second hour of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Prayer of Preparation
Introductory Prayer for the Agony in the Garden

O my sweet Jesus, one hour has already passed since You came to this Garden. Love took primacy over everything, making You suffer, all at once, everything which the executioners will make You suffer through the whole course of your most bitter Passion. Even more, Love compensates for it, and reaches the point of making You suffer what they cannot do to You, in the most interior parts of your Divine Person.

O my Jesus, I see you are already staggering, and yet you want to walk. Tell me, O my Lord, where do you want to go? Oh, yes, I understand: you are going to your beloved disciples. I want to go with you too, to hold you up if you stagger.

O my Jesus, here is another bitterness for your heart: they have fallen asleep. Always compassionate, you call them. You wake them; and with paternal love you admonish them, recommending vigilance and prayer to them. Then you return to the garden, but your heart is pierced with another wound. In this wound, O my love, I see all the stabbings caused by souls consecrated to you. Because of temptations, or state of soul, or their lack of mortification, instead of watching and praying to come closer to you, they let themselves go. Then, drowsy, instead of progressing in love and in union with you, they fall back. How I sympathize with you, O passionate lover! And I make reparation to you for all the unthankfulness of your most faithful ones. These are the offenses which most sadden your adorable heart, whose bitterness makes you become delirious.

O love without end, your love, which is already boiling in your veins, overcomes everything and forgets everything. I see you prostrate on the ground. You are praying, making reparation, offering yourself to the Father, and trying to glorify him in all things, for the offenses committed against him by creatures. O my Jesus, I too prostrate myself with you, and together with you I intend to do what you are doing.

But, O my Jesus, what do I see? I see You already burdened with all the sins of the world—our miseries, weaknesses, and enormous crimes; our shocking ingratitude, dreadful injustice, and brutal cruelty; our hatred, massacres, blasphemies, heresies, schisms, and abysmal human wickedness. They drive You onward and oppress You; they wound You and crush You. And what do You do? The blood that is boiling in your veins faces all these offenses, it bursts the veins and pours out in ample streams. It bathes your entire person, and runs down onto the ground, giving blood for offenses, life for death. O my love, what a pitiful state you are reduced to! You are already dying. My good Jesus, my sweet life, please, don't die! Raise your face from this ground which you have bathed with your most precious blood.

Come to my arms! Let me die in your place as I embrace You! But I hear the faltering and dying voice of my gentle Jesus, saying:

"Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done."

My gentle Jesus, this is the second time that I hear You say these words. O how your tortured voice pierces my heart! O Jesus, all the rebellions of creatures come before you. You see that "Fiat Voluntas Tua," which should have been the life of each creature, rejected by almost everyone, for which, instead of finding life they find death. And wanting to give life to everyone and make a solemn reparation to the Father for the rebellions of creatures, you repeat three whole times:

"Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me—the cup of all the souls that are lost by withdrawing from Our Will. Oh! How bitter this cup is for me! Yet, not my will but Yours be done."

But as you say this, the bitterness is so exceedingly intense that it reduces you to the extremes. You are agonizing, and are in the act of exhaling your last breath. O my good Jesus, since you are in my arms, I too want to unite with you, to make reparation and give you compassion for all the offenses and sins which are committed against your most holy Will. And at the same time, I want to pray you that I may always do your most holy Will in everything. Let your Will be my breath and my life. May it be my heartbeat, my heart, my thought, my life, and my death.

But, I beg You, my Jesus, do not die! Where would I go without You? To whom would I turn? Who else could help me? Everything would be finished for me. Ah, do not leave me. Keep me always with You. Let me never be separated from You even for an instant. Rather, let me soothe You, make reparation to You, and console You for everyone—because I see that sins of all kinds burden You. They weigh upon You; and they Therefore, my Love, I kiss your most holy head. But, what do I see? All the evil thoughts; and You feel disgust for them. For your most sacred head, each evil thought is a thorn which pricks You bitterly. Ah, the crown of thorns which the Jews will place upon You cannot be compared with these! How many crowns of thorns the evil thoughts of creatures place upon your adorable head, to the point that your Blood drips everywhere, from your forehead and from your hair!

Jesus, I compassionate You, and would like to place upon You as many crowns of glory; and in order to soothe You, I offer You all the angelic intelligences and your own intelligence, to give You an act of compassion and of reparation for all. O Jesus, I kiss your sorrowful eyes. I see in them all the evil gazes of creatures that make tears of Blood stream down your Face.

I offer You my compassion, and, in union with your Love, I want to soothe your eyes by showing You all the beauties of Heaven and earth. Jesus, my Lord, I kiss your most sacred ears. But what do I hear? In them I hear the echo of horrendous blasphemies, cries of vengeance, and slander. The voices of all souls resound in your most chaste ears.

Oh insatiable Love, I compassionate You, and I want to console You by making resound in it all the harmonies of Heaven, the most sweet voice of dear Mama, the ardent accents of Magdalene, and of all the loving souls. Jesus, my Life, I want to impress a more fervent kiss on your face, whose beauty has no equal. This is the face which the angels do not dare look away from, such is the beauty that enraptures them. And yet, creatures defile it with spit, they strike it with their hands and they trample it under their feet.

My love, what boldness! I would like to shout so loud until they run away! I sympathize with you. And to make reparation for these insults I go before the Most Holy Trinity, to ask for the kiss of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, and for the incomparable caresses of their creative hands. I also go to our heavenly mother to get her kisses, the caresses of her maternal hands, and her profound adorations. Finally, I go to all the souls consecrated to you. And I offer you all this, to make reparation for the offenses committed against your most holy face.

My sweet Good, I kiss your most holy mouth, embittered by horrible blasphemies, by the nausea of drunkenness and gluttony, by obscene discourses, by prayers done badly, by evil teachings, and by all the evil that man does with his tongue.

Jesus, I compassionate You, and I want to sweeten your mouth by offering You all the angelic praises and the good use of the tongue made by many holy Christians. My oppressed Love, I kiss your neck, and I see it loaded down with ropes and chains, because of the attachments and the sins of creatures. I compassionate You, and in order to relieve You, I offer You the indissoluble union of the Divine Persons; and fusing myself in this union, I extend my arms toward You, and forming a sweet chain of love around your neck, I want to remove the ropes of the attachments, which almost suffocate You; and to console You, I press You tightly to my heart. Divine Fortress, I kiss your most holy shoulders. I see them lacerated, and your flesh almost torn to pieces by the scandals and the evil examples of creatures.

I compassionate You, and in order to relieve You, I offer You your most holy examples, the examples of the Queen Mama, and those of all the saints. And I, O my Jesus, letting my kisses flow over each one of these wounds, want to enclose in them the souls who, by force of scandals, have been snatched from your Heart, and so re­join the flesh of your Most Holy Humanity. My labored Jesus, I kiss your breast, which I see wounded by coldness, lukewarmness, lack of reciprocity and ingratitude of creatures. I compassionate You, and in order to relieve You, I offer You the reciprocal love of the Father and the Holy Spirit and the perfect mutual love of the Three Divine Persons.

And plunging into your love, O my Jesus, I want to shelter You in order to reject the new blows that creatures throw at You with their sins; and taking your love, I want to wound them with it, that they may never again dare to offend You; and I want to pour it upon your breast, to soothe You and to heal You.

My Jesus, I kiss your creative hands. I see that all the bad actions of creatures, as so many nails, pierce your most holy hands. So, they are run through, not by three nails as on the cross, but by as many nails as the evil works which creatures do. I compassionate You, and to give You relief, I offer You all the holy works, and the courage of the martyrs in giving their blood and life for love of You. In sum, O my Jesus, I would like to offer You all the good works, in order to remove from You the many nails of the evil works. O Jesus, I kiss your most holy feet, always untiring in searching for souls. In them You enclose all the steps of creatures; but You feel many of them run away, and You would want to stop them. At each of their evil steps, You feel a nail being driven into You, and You want to use their very nails in order to nail them to your love; and the pain You feel, and the effort You make in order to nail them to your love is so intense and so great, that You tremble all over. My God and my Good, I compassionate You, and in order to console You, I offer You the steps of the good religious and of all the faithful souls, who expose their lives in order to save souls. O Jesus, I kiss your Heart.

You continue to agonize, not for what the Jews will make You suffer, but for the pain which all the offenses of creatures cause You.

In these hours You want to give primacy to love, the second place to all sins, for which You expiate, repair, glorify the Father, and placate the Divine Justice; and the third to the Jews. In this way You show that the passion which the Jews will make You suffer will be nothing but the representation of the double, most bitter passion which love and sin make You suffer. And this is why I see, all concentrated in your Heart: the lance of love, the lance of sin; and you wait for the third one, the lance of the Jews. Your Heart, suffocated by love, suffers violent movements, impatient rushes of love, desires which consume You, and burning heartbeats, which would want to give life to every heart. And it is exactly here, in your Heart, that You feel all the pain that creatures cause You, who, with their evil desires, disordered affections, profaned heartbeats, instead of wanting your love, look for other loves.

Jesus, how much You suffer! I see You faint, submerged by the waves of our iniquities. I compassionate You, and I want to soothe the bitterness of your Heart, pierced three times, by offering You the eternal sweetnesses and the most sweet love of dear Mama Mary, as well as those of all your true lovers.

And now, O my Jesus, let my poor heart draw life from your Heart, that I may live only with your Heart; and in each offense You will receive, let me be ever ready to offer You a relief, a comfort, a reparation, an act of uninterrupted love.

Reflections and Practices.

During the second hour in Gethsemane, all the sins of all times—past, present and future—present themselves before Jesus, and he takes them upon himself in order to give complete glory to his Father. So, Jesus Christ expiated, prayed, and felt all our moods in His Heart without ever ceasing to pray. Do we always pray, in whatever mood we may be —cold, hard, tempted? Do we give Jesus the pains of our souls as reparation and relief in order to copy Him completely, thinking that each mood of ours is a pain of Jesus? We must place it around Him as a pain of Jesus, to compassionate Him and relieve Him. And if possible we must say to Him: 'You have suffered too much. Take rest, and we will suffer in your place.'

Do we get discouraged, or do we remain steadfastly at Jesus' feet, giving him everything we suffer, so that he can find his own humanity in us? In other words, do we serve as Jesus' humanity? What did the humanity of Jesus do? It glorified his Father, it atoned and pleaded for the salvation of souls. Now, do we have these three intentions of Jesus in everything we do, so as to be able to say that we enclose the complete humanity of Jesus Christ in ourselves? In our moments of darkness, do we place the intention of making the light of truth shine in others? And when we pray with fervor, do we place the intention of melting the ice of many hearts hardened in sin? My Jesus, in order to compassionate You and relieve You from the total exhaustion in which You find Yourself, I rise up to Heaven and make your own Divinity my own; and placing It around You, I want to move all the offenses of creatures away from You.

I want to offer you your beauty to drive away from you the ugliness of sin; your holiness to drive away from you the horror of all those souls that make you feel such repugnance because they are dead to grace; your peace to drive away from you the dissensions, rebellions and agitations of all creatures; your harmonies to refresh your ears offended by the waves of so many evil voices.

My Jesus, I intend to offer you as many divine acts of reparation as offenses you receive. They assault you as if they wanted to put you to death, and with your own acts I want to give you life. Then, O my Jesus, I want to cast a wave of your divinity over all creatures, so that at your divine touch they will no longer dare to offend you. O Jesus, this is the only way I will be able to give you compassion for all the offenses you receive from creatures.

O Jesus, my dear life, may my prayers and my pains always rise up toward heaven to make the light of grace rain on everyone, and to absorb your own life into myself.

Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Agony in the Garden
Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Xavier]

From 11 P.M. to 12 P.M.
The third hour of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane

Prayer of Preparation
Introductory Prayer for the Agony in the Garden

My dear Jesus, my heart can't bear it any longer: I look at you and see that you continue to agonize. Streams of blood are flowing from all over your body, and so profusely that, unable to stand any longer, you fall into a pool of blood. O my love, my heart breaks to see you so weak and exhausted! Your adorable face and your creative hands rest on the ground and become stained with blood. It seems to me that at the rivers of iniquity which creatures send you, you want to give rivers of blood to drown these offenses in it, and with this, give each creature the assurance of your pardon.

But, please, O my Jesus, rise; what You suffer is too much. Let it be enough for your Love! And while my lovable Jesus seems to be dying in His own Blood, Love gives Him new life. I see Him move with difficulty. He stands up, and soaked as He is with blood and mud, He seems to want to walk, but not having strength, He can barely drag Himself.

Sweet Life of mine, let me carry You in my arms. Are You perhaps going to your dear disciples? But what is not the sorrow of your adorable Heart in finding them asleep again! And You, with trembling and feeble voice, call them:

"My sons, do not sleep! The hour is near. Do you not see how I have reduced Myself? Oh please, help Me, do not abandon Me in these extreme hours!"

And almost staggering, You are about to fall near them, while John extends his arms to sustain You. You are so unrecognizable that if it were not for the gentleness and tenderness of your voice, they would not have recognized you. Then, recommending that they watch and pray, you return to the garden, but with a second wound in your heart. In this wound, O my love, I see all the sins of those souls that, in spite of the manifestation of your favors in the form of gifts, kisses and caresses, in the nights of trial forget about your love and your gifts, and remain as it were, drowsy and sleepy, thus losing the spirit of continuous prayer and watchfulness.

My Jesus, how true it is that after having seen you and having tasted your gifts, great strength is necessary to stand firm when deprived of them. Only a miracle can make such souls endure the test. So, while I sympathize with you for these souls, whose neglect, levity and offenses are the most bitter to your heart, I beg you: If they should take even a single step which could displease you in the least, surround them with so much grace that will stop them, so that they may not lose the spirit of continuous prayer.

My gentle Jesus, as you return to the garden, it seems that you cannot go on. Your face is covered with blood and dirt, but you raise it to heaven and repeat for the third time:

"Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from me. Holy Father, help me! I need comfort. It is true that, because of the sins taken upon myself, I am nauseating, loathsome and the least among men before your infinite majesty. Your justice is roused to anger against me. But look at me, O Father: I am always your Son, who is one with you Please, Father, help me, have pity on me! Do not leave me without comfort!"

Then I seem to hear you, O my tender love, calling your dear mother for help:

"Sweet mother, hold me tightly in your arms as you did when I was a child. Give me that milk I used to take from you, to refresh me and to sweeten the bitterness of my agony. Give me your heart which was perfect contentment for me. My mother, Mary Magdalene, dear apostles, all you who love me: help me! Comfort me! Do not leave me alone in these extreme moments. Everyone, gather around me. Comfort me with your company and your love."

Jesus, my love, who can bear to see you in such extremes? What heart could ever be so hard that it would not break, seeing you so drowned in your own blood? Who would not shed streams of bitter tears, hearing the sorrowful words with which you seek help and comfort? My Jesus, console yourself. Now I see the Father who is sending you an angel for comfort and help, so that you can come out of this state of agony and be able to turn yourself over to the Jews. While you are with the angel, I will go around heaven and earth. You will permit me to take this blood which you have shed, so that I can give it to all men as the pledge of the salvation of each, and bring back to you in exchange, the comfort of their affections, heartbeats, thoughts, steps and deeds.

My heavenly mother, I come to you so that together we may go to all souls to give them Jesus' blood. Gentle mother, Jesus wants comfort, and the greatest comfort we can give him is to bring him souls. Mary Magdalene, come with us. All you angels, come and see how Jesus has been reduced. He wants comfort from everyone, and he finds himself in such a state of prostration that he will not refuse anyone.

O light of the sun, come to cast out the darkness of this night to give Jesus comfort. O stars, with your flickering rays, come down from Heaven. Come, to give Jesus comfort. Flowers of the earth, come with your fragrances. Birds, come with your singing. Come, elements of the earth, to comfort Jesus. Come, O sea, to refresh and wash Jesus. He is our Creator, our Life, our All. Come, all, to comfort Him, to give Him homage as our sovereign Lord.

But, oh, Jesus is not looking for lights, stars, flowers and birds. He wants souls, souls! My gentle good Jesus, here is everyone together with me. Your dear mother is near you. Please do rest in her arms. It will be a comfort for her as well, to press you to her bosom, for she has shared abundantly in your sorrowful agony. Mary Magdalene is here too, as well as all the loving souls of all centuries. O Jesus, please accept them, and say a word of forgiveness and of love to everyone. Bind them all in your love so that no soul may ever escape you again.

But, ah, it seems to me that You say, O daughter, how many souls flee Me by force and fall into eternal ruin! So how can my sorrow be soothed—if I love a single soul as much as I love all souls together?

Conclusion of the Agony

Agonizing Jesus, while it seems that your life is about to be extinguished, I can already hear the death-rattle of the agony. Your beautiful eyes are eclipsed by approaching death; all your most holy members have gone limp. Many times I can hear that you are not breathing. I feel my heart break for the pain. I embrace you and feel you are cold. I shake you but you give no signs of life. Jesus, are you dead?

Afflicted Mama, Angels of Heaven, come to cry over Jesus, and do not permit that I continue to live without Him. Ah, I cannot! I press Him more tightly to myself, and I hear Him taking another breath —and then, again, He gives no sign of life! I call Him: "Jesus, Jesus, my Life, do not die!"

But I already hear the clamor of your enemies, who are coming to take You. Who will defend You in your state?

Roused, He seems to rise from death to life. He looks at me and says:

"Child, are you here? Have you not been a witness of my pains and of the many deaths I suffered? Then know, O daughter, that in these three hours of most bitter agony, I have enclosed in Myself all the lives of creatures and have suffered all their pains and their very deaths, giving to each one my own Life. My agonies will sustain theirs; for their sake, my suffering and death will change into a fountain of sweetness and of life. How much souls cost Me! Were I at least requited! You have seen that while I was dying, I would return to breathe again: those were the deaths of the creatures that I felt within Me!"

My panting Jesus, since You also wanted to enclose my life in You, and therefore also my death, I pray You, for this most bitter agony of yours, to come to my assistance at the moment of my death. I have given You my heart as refuge and rest, my arms to sustain You, and all of my being at your disposal; and — oh, how gladly I would give myself into the hands of your enemies, to die in your place!

Come, O life of my heart, at that moment, to return to me all I have given You: your company, your Heart as bed and rest, your arms as support, your labored breath to alleviate my labors; in such a way that, in breathing, I will breathe through your breath which, like purifying air, will purify me of any stain, and will dispose me to enter the eternal beatitude.

Even more, my sweet Jesus, then You will give your very Most Holy Humanity to my soul, so that, in looking at me, You may see me through Yourself; and in looking at Yourself, You may find nothing for which to judge me. Then You will bathe me in your Blood; You will clothe me with the candid garment of your Most Holy Will; You will adorn me with your Love, and giving me the last kiss, You will let me take flight from earth unto Heaven.

And now I pray you to do for all the dying, what I have asked for myself. Hug them all in your embrace of love. And giving them the kiss of union with yourself, save them all and do not permit anyone to be lost.

My saddened, good Jesus, I offer you this hour in memory of your passion and death, to disarm the just wrath of God for so many sins, to obtain the conversion of all sinners, for peace among peoples, for our sanctification, and in suffrage for the souls of purgatory.

Now I see that your enemies are approaching, and you want to leave me to go meet them. Jesus, permit me to impress a kiss on your lips, which Judas will dare to kiss with his infernal kiss. Let me wipe your face, bathed in blood, which is about to be struck repeatedly and covered with spit. Press me close to your heart, and never permit me to be separated from you. I will follow you. Bless me.

Reflections and Practices.

In this third hour in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked for help from heaven, and his pains were so numerous that he even asked for comfort from his disciples. Now, do I always ask for help from heaven in any circumstance, pain or misfortune? And if I turn to creatures as well, do I do so in an orderly way, going to those who can piously comfort me? Am I at least resigned if I don't receive those comforts I was hoping for, making use of the indifference of creatures to abandon myself even more in Jesus' arms?

Jesus was comforted by an angel. Now, can I say that I am Jesus' angel, by being near him to comfort him and take part in his bitternesses? In order to be able to be a true angel to Jesus, I must receive my pains as pains sent to me by him, and so, as divine pains. Only then can I dare to comfort a God so embittered. Otherwise, if I take pains in a human way, I cannot use them to comfort this Man-God, and therefore I cannot be His angel.

In the sufferings that Jesus sends me, it seems like he sends me the chalice too, into which I must pour the fruit of these sufferings. And these pains, suffered with love and resignation, will be transformed into the sweetest nectar for Jesus. And I will go to my suffering Jesus and offer the chalice that He sent me, and my sorrows now turned into sweetness. Like an Angel, I will bring it to his lips that He may drink it, to comfort Him and soothe Him. In every sorrow I will then say to myself, "Jesus is calling me to be an Angel close to Him. He wants my comfort and, for this reason, He makes me share in his sorrows.

Jesus, my Love, in my suffering, I search for your Heart to rest, and in your suffering I wish to make reparation with mine. In this exchange, may I be your Angel of consolation.

Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Agony in the Garden
Prayer of Thanksgiving



Benefits of Meditation on the Passion:

The continuous thought in the Passion forms a spring of water in the heart of the soul for the glory of God and the good of all creatures.

Vol. 11, April 10, 1913

"One who always thinks about my Passion forms a fount within her heart, and the more she thinks about It, the larger this fount becomes.  And just as the waters that spring up are waters common to everyone, in the same way, this fount of my Passion which is formed in her heart serves for the good of the soul, for my glory, and for the good of all creatures."

The Hours of the Passion constitutes the same prayers and reparations of Jesus.

Vol. 11, September 6, 1913

"My daughter... the Hours of my Passion, which are my very prayers, my reparations, and all love, have come out of the very depth of my Heart.  Have you perhaps forgotten how many times I have united Myself with you to do them together, and I have changed chastisements into graces over the whole earth?"

[Xavier]

Now, we enter into those most tragic and painful Hours after Our Lord Jesus Christ was Betrayed and Arrested. For then He was handed over to the Jews and the Roman Soldiers to be imprisoned, to be mocked, to be scourged, to be handed over to death. And never in 20 Christian Centuries have we fully understood all the pains and all the torments and all the tortures that Our Lord Jesus Christ underwent that night, as He has made it known to His Saints and Mystics, like Saintly Luisa Piccaretta, of which St. Pius X said "These are the Words of Jesus. They should be read kneeling".

We review some more personal blessings that would accrue to us were we to pray the Hours of the Passion everyday before proceeding.

"The continuous thought in the Passion forms a spring of water in the heart of the soul for the glory of God and the good of all creatures ... The Hours of the Passion constitutes the same prayers and reparations of Jesus

"O, how I would like at least one person in each city, town and country to do these meditations! In fact, it would happen, then, as if I heard My own voice and prayers in each country, and My Justice, so despised in these times, would be partly appeased."

Vol. 11, October 1914
"These Hours are the most precious of all, because they are nothing less than the repetition of what I did in the course of my mortal life, and what I continue to do in the Most Holy Sacrament.  When I hear these Hours of my Passion, I hear my own voice, my own prayers.  In that soul I see my Will - that is, wanting the good of all and repairing for all - and I feel drawn to dwell in her, to be able to do what she herself does within her.  Oh, how I would love that even one single soul for each town did these Hours of my Passion!  I would hear Myself in each town, and my Justice, greatly indignant during these times, would be placated in part."



From midnight until 1 a.m.
Jesus is captured in the Garden of Olives.

Prayer of Preparation

My Jesus, we have already reached midnight. I hear your enemies approaching. Composing Yourself, drying your Blood, and feeling strengthened by the comfort You have received, You return to your disciples. You call them and admonish them; and, taking them with You, You go to meet your enemies. In this way with your promptness You make reparation for my slowness, unwillingness, and laziness in working and suffering for your Love.

But, O my gentle love, what a moving scene I see! The first to meet you is wicked Judas who comes up to you, throws his arms around your neck, greets you and kisses you. And you, my ardent love, do not refuse to kiss those infernal lips. You embrace him and press him to your heart, wanting to snatch him from hell by giving him new demonstrations of love.

My Jesus, how is it possible not to love You? The tenderness of your Love is so great that it should jerk every heart into loving You —and yet You are not loved! My Jesus, with this kiss, You make reparation for all the betrayals, pretenses, and deceptions worked under the cloak of friendship and sanctity, especially by consecrated souls. And with this kiss, You ask and obtain pardon for every and any penitent sinner that returns, humbled, to your most holy Heart.

O how sweetly the words that You spoke to Judas descend into my Heart:

"Friend, why have you come?"

Ah, it seems as though You address the same words to me—not in calling me "Friend," but with the sweet name of "child," saying, My daughter, for what have you come? You say it to hear me answer You, "Jesus, I come to love You." "Why have you come?", You repeat to me when I wake up in the morning; "Why have you come?", if I pray; "Why have you come?", You repeat to me in the Holy Host, if I come to receive You into my heart. What a beautiful call for me and for all!

But how many, to your "Why have you come?", answer: "I come to offend You!" Others, pretending not to hear You, give themselves to all kinds of sins, and answer your "Why have you come?" by going to hell! How much compassion I feel for You, O my Jesus! I would like to take the very ropes with which your enemies are about to bind You, in order to bind these souls and spare You this sorrow.

But, again, I hear your most tender voice which says, as You go to meet your enemies:

"Who are you looking for?"

And they answer:

"Jesus the Nazarene".

And You, to them:

"I AM"

Oh, what wickedness and ingratitude! Instead of humbling themselves and lovingly throwing themselves at your feet to ask your forgiveness, abusing your goodness and despising your graces and miracles, they lay their hands on you, and with ropes and chains, tie you and immobilize you. They throw you to the ground, trample you under their feet and tear out your hair. And, with inconceivable patience, You remain silent—suffering in atonement for the offenses of sinners, who do not surrender, but harden their hearts still more in spite of your miracles. With your ropes and chains, You rend the chains of our sins and bind us with the sweet chains of love.

You lovingly correct Peter who wants to defend You even by cutting off Malchus' ear. In this way, You want to make reparation for good works done without holy prudence and for those who fall into sin through excessive zeal.

My most patient Jesus, these ropes and chains seem to add something more beautiful to your Sacred Humanity. Your Forehead becomes more majestic, so much so that it even attracts the attention of your enemies. Your eyes radiate more light—and your Holy Face reflects a supreme peace and sweetness that even charms your executioners. With a few gentle and penetrating words, You make them tremble, and if they dare to offend You it is only because You permit it.

O bound and enchained love, are you going to be tied for me, to show an even greater love for me, and then permit that I, your little child, be without chains? No, no. Tie me with your most holy hands, using your own ropes and chains. So, while I kiss your divine forehead, I pray you to bind my whole being: all my thoughts, my eyes, my ears, my tongue, my heart, my affections. And at the same time, tie all creatures, so that, feeling the sweetness of your loving chains, they will not dare to offend you any more.

My most tender Jesus, You have already handed Yourself over to your enemies, giving them the power to do whatever they wish with You. My Jesus, I, also, put myself in your Hands so that You may freely do with me whatever pleases You. United with You, I want to follow your Will, share in your reparations, and suffer your pains.

I want to remain always in your Presence so that there is no offense I do not repair, no bitterness I do not soothe, no spittle or insult that You receive that I do not cover with my kisses and caresses.

In your falls, my hands will always be ready to lift You. I want to be with You always and I do not wish to leave You abandoned. And to be sure of this, fuse me with Yourself. Then I will be in your mind, in your gaze, in your Heart, and in all of You—so that what You do, I will also do. In this way, I will always have You for a faithful companion and none of your pains will be able to elude me, so that I can give You my love on behalf of all creatures.

My dear good Jesus, it is already one o'clock in the morning, and my mind is beginning to drift asleep. I will do all I can to stay awake, but if sleep should take me by surprise, I will leave myself in you to follow whatever you do. What is more, you yourself will do it for me. So, my Jesus, I leave my thoughts in you to defend you from your enemies; my breath as escort and company; my heartbeat to always tell you that I love you, and to make good for the love which the others do not give you; the drops of my blood to make reparation, and to give back to you the honors and the esteem that the others will take from you with their insults, spit and slaps.

O my Jesus, embrace me and bless me. If You want me to sleep, make me sleep in your adorable Heart. As your heartbeats intensify in Love and suffering, may they awaken me often, so that our communion will never be broken.

Reflections and Practices.

Seeing the Will of the Father in his enemies, Jesus readily handed himself over to them.

When I am deceived or betrayed by creatures, am I as ready to forgive as Jesus was? Do I take all the wrongs I receive from creatures, from the hands of God? Am I ready to do everything Jesus wants from me? In the crosses and the mistreatment I receive, can I say that my patience is similar to Jesus' patience?

My chained Jesus, let your chains bind my heart and keep it steadfast, ready to suffer whatever you want.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Xavier]

Next in the Ninth Hour, we experience an even greater tragedy befalling Our Lord Jesus: He is thrown from a ledge, and falls into the Cedron Stream. Let us bemoan and bewail our frequent falls into sin that caused Jesus to fall into torments in reparation of those sins.



From 1 a.m. to 2 a.m.
Pushed from a rock, Jesus falls into the Cedron Stream.

Prayer of Preparation

My beloved Good, my poor mind follows You between vigil and sleep. How can I leave myself prey to sleep, when I see that everyone leaves You and runs away from You? The Apostles themselves, the fervent Peter, who a little while ago said he wanted to give his life for You; the beloved disciple whom, with so much love, You allowed to rest upon your Heart – ah, they all abandon You, and leave You at the mercy of your cruel enemies!

My Jesus, You are alone! Your most pure eyes look around to see if at least one of those favored by You is following You to prove to You his love and to defend You. And as You see that no one – no one has remained faithful to You, your Heart catches, and You burst into crying. You feel more pain for the abandonment of your most faithful ones, than for what the very enemies are doing to You.

My Jesus, don't cry, or else let me cry together with you. But my gentle Jesus seems to say to me: "Ah, my child, let us weep together for the lot of so many souls consecrated to me, who, for little trials or for incidents of life, no longer attend to me and leave me alone; for so many others, timid and cowardly, who, for lack of courage and trust, abandon me. Let us weep for so many priests, who, not finding any profit in sacred things and in the administration of the sacraments, do not attend to me. For others who preach, celebrate and hear confession for love of their own interests and self­glory, so that while it seems they are around me I remain ever alone. O my child, how hard this abandonment is for Me! Not only do my eyes weep, but my Heart bleeds! O I pray you to make reparation for my bitter pain by promising never to leave Me alone."

Yes, O my Jesus, with the strength of your Divine Will and the help of your grace, I promise never to leave you alone. But as you weep over the abandonment of your dear ones, O Jesus, your enemies spare you no possible outrage. Bound and tied as you are, my good Jesus, so that you can't even take a step, they trample you and drag you through those ways full of rocks and thorns. So, there is no movement they make you do which does not make you stumble on the rocks and be pricked by the thorns. O my Jesus, while they drag You, I see that You leave a trail with your Precious Blood and with the golden hairs that they tear from your Head. My Life and my All, permit me to gather your steps and bind them to all the steps that creatures take to offend You, even at night. Indeed, some use the night to offend You even more than the day­light—some with meetings, others with pleasures or theaters, and still others with sacrilegious thefts. My Jesus, I unite with You to make reparation for all these offenses.

O my Jesus, we are now at the Cedron Stream, and the wicked Jews shove you in. As they do this, they make you strike so hard against a rock there, that from your mouth you shed your most precious blood, leaving that rock marked with it. Then they pull you down into those foul waters, making them enter into your ears, into your mouth, into your nose. O unsurpassable love! You are soaked and, as it were, cloaked by those foul, nauseating and cold waters. In this state, you realistically represent the pitiful state of creatures when they commit sin. Oh, how they are covered inside and out by a cloak of filthiness which disgusts heaven and whoever may see them, and draws down on themselves the thunderbolts of the divine justice! O life of my life, could there ever be a greater love? To strip us of this mantle of filthiness, you permit your enemies to drag you down into this stream. And so you make reparation for the sacrileges and the coldness of the souls that receive you sacrilegiously, forcing you to enter their hearts and making you feel, more than you do from the stream, all the nausea of their souls!

You also permit that these waters penetrate deep into your bowels; so much so, that the enemies, fearing that You may be drowned, in order to spare You for greater torments, lift You up. But You are so disgusting that they themselves feel nauseated to touch You. My tender Jesus, You are now out of the stream. My heart cannot stand to see you bathed in these nauseating waters like this. I see that you are trembling from head to foot because of the cold. You look around, searching with your eyes for that which you do not do with your voice: at least someone to dry you, clean you and warm you—but in vain. No one is moved to compassion for you. Your enemies ridicule and mock you, your dear ones have abandoned you, and your gentle mother is far away because the Father has so disposed it!

O Jesus, here I am! Come into my arms. I want to weep until I form a bath to wash you. With my hands I want to clean you and order your disheveled hair. My love, I want to enclose you in my heart and warm you with the warmth of my affections. I want to perfume you with my continuous desires. I want to make reparation for all these offenses, and unite my life to yours to save all souls. I want to offer you my heart as a resting place, to restore you some from the pains you have suffered up to now. Then, we will resume the way of your passion together.

Reflections and Practices.

In this hour, Jesus places Himself at the mercy of his enemies, who go so far as to throw Him into the Cedron stream. But gracious Jesus looks at them lovingly and endures everything for love of them. Do I cast myself upon God's mercy? Can I say that I am like a rubber ball in the hands of my Jesus, not intent on what I am suffering, but on what my Jesus wants from me? Have I ever thought about the purpose of a rubber ball? It's for playing, and very often Jesus likes to play with a soul, holding her in his hands just as he holds a ball, now squeezing it, now hitting it, now throwing it in the air or on to the ground, and the ball does not speak, allowing Jesus to do what He will with it.

Similarly, we must endure everything that Jesus wants from us and not mind if, like a little ball in Jesus' hands, we feel pain as we are hit and struck, as long as we keep Jesus amused, since He knows how profitable this is for us, and how He will reward us in this and the next life. Sometimes, Jesus steps on the ball with his feet, showing that He does not care for it, and the soul, pressing close to his divine feet, suffers Jesus' humiliation and indifference. At other times, He wants to hold the ball to his Heart, and if the soul was glad to have been Jesus' toy, both in humiliation and in suffering, the loving Jesus will amuse her in his own Heart, and will reveal to her the contentments of his divine Heart. In my weaknesses and failures, Am I ready to pick myself up again and throw myself into the arms of Jesus? Tormented Jesus was thrown into the Cedron Stream and experienced suffocation, nausea, and disgust.

Do I detest every stain and shadow of sin? Am I ready to shelter Jesus in my heart so that He does not experience the disgust that other souls cause Him through sin, consoling Him for the many times I myself have caused it?

My tormented Jesus, do not spare me in anything, but grant that I may be the object of your loving, divine games.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Xavier]

In the Tenth Hour, now fully at the mercy of the soldiers, and facing trial after being betrayed by us, the Lord Jesus is Presented to Annas.



From 2 A.M. to 3 A.M.
Jesus is presented to Annas.

Prayer of Preparation

"Jesus, be always with me. Sweet Mama, let us follow Jesus together."

My Jesus, divine sentinel, you are in my heart watching over me. And not wanting to remain alone without me, you wake me and make me find myself together with you in Annas' house.

You are now at that point in which Annas interrogates you concerning your doctrine and your disciples. To defend the glory of the Father, O Jesus, you open your most sacred mouth, and with a ringing and dignified voice, respond:

"I have spoken in public and everyone who is here has heard me."

At your dignified words everyone trembles. But, oh, what wickedness! Wanting to honor Annas, a servant with an ironclad hand comes up to you and slaps you so hard that you stagger, and your most holy face turns livid.

Now, my gentle life, I understand why you woke me. You were right; who would sustain You at this moment, as You are about to fall? Your enemies burst into satanic laughter, whistling and clapping, applauding an act so unjust. And You, staggering, have no one to lean on. My Jesus, I embrace You. And forming a wall with my body to support You, I offer You my cheek—to come quickly and boldly to bear any pain for your Love. I suffer this outrage with You, and I make reparation with You for the cowardice of so many souls who easily become discouraged; for those who fail to speak the truth out of fear; for the lack of respect due to priests, and for all murmuring.

My suffering Jesus, I see that Annas is sending you to Caiphas. Your enemies shove you down the stairs. My love, in this painful fall you make reparation for those who fall into sin at nighttime, taking advantage of the darkness. And you call heretics and unbelievers to the light of the faith.

I want to follow you in these reparations as well, and I send you my sighs to defend you from your enemies, until you reach Caiaphas. Continue to watch over me while I am asleep, and wake me when you need me. Now, give me a kiss, and bless me; and I will kiss your heart and continue my sleep in it.

Reflections and Practices.

Jesus, brought before Annas, is questioned by him about His doctrine and about His disciples. To glorify the Father, he answered regarding his doctrine, but to avoid offending charity he did not touch on his disciples.

Now when I am asked to glorify the Lord, am I fearless and courageous, or am I subject to human respect? I must always speak the truth, even in the presence of those who are influential.

In my conversations, do I always seek the glory of God? Do I seek God's glory by enduring everything patiently as Jesus did? Do I always avoid speaking badly of my neighbors, excusing their faults when I hear others speaking ill of them?

Jesus watches over our heart. But do I keep watch over Jesus' Heart so that He receives no offense for which I am unwilling to make reparation? In everything I do, am I always alert so that my every thought, glance, word, affection, heartbeat, and desire stay like sentinels around Jesus, keeping watch over his Heart and offering reparation for all the offenses It receives? To make this reparation to his Heart, do I ask Jesus to keep watch over our every act and to help us keep watch over our hearts?

Every act that we perform in God is a Divine Life that we acquire within us. Since we are very limited and God is immense, we are incapable of enclosing God within our menial acts. It is necessary, then, that we multiply these acts as much as possible at least to increase our capacity to understand and love.

When my Jesus calls me, am I ready to respond? God's call can be heard in many ways: through inspiration, reading good books, and by good example. One may even feel it tangibly through the attraction of grace and even in intemperate changes of weather.

My sweet Jesus, may your voice always echo in my heart. May everything that surrounds me both internally and externally be a continuous voice that always calls me to love You. And may the harmony of your divine voice keep me from listening to any distracting human voice.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Xavier]

In the Eleventh Tragic Hour, at 3 A.M. in the Morning, Our Lord Jesus already practically dies of a broken Heart, upon here St. Peter's Thrice Repeated Denials of Him. How often have we denied Jesus to please the world, how often have we loved and esteemed the world and its wickedness over God and His Goodness? As often as we do so, we pierce the Hearts of Jesus and Mary with new Swords.



From 3 to 4 AM
Jesus in the house of Caiaphas.

Prayer of Preparation

My afflicted and abandoned Good, while my weak nature sleeps in your sorrowful Heart, my sleep is often interrupted by the pangs of love and sorrow of your Divine Heart. Between vigil and sleep, I hear the blows that they give You, so I wake up and I say:

"My poor Jesus, abandoned by everyone! There is no one who takes your part. But from within your Heart I offer You my life as support for You, as they knock You about."

Then I drowse off again. But another pang of love of your divine heart wakes me, and I feel my ears deafened by the insults they give you, by the whisperings, the shouts and the stirring of people.

My love, why is everyone against you? What have you done, that, like so many rabid wolves, they want to tear you apart? I feel my blood freeze as I hear the preparations your enemies are making. I tremble and become sad, while thinking about what I can do to defend you.

Having me in his heart, my sad Jesus presses me closer to himself, and says:

"My child, I have done no wrong, and [at the same time] I have done everything. I have committed the "crime" of love which contains all sacrifices—love, which is of immeasurable cost. We are still at the beginning. Remain in my heart, observe everything, love me, be silent, and learn. Make your chilled blood flow in my veins to give relief to my blood which is all ablaze. Make your shivering flow in my members so that, unified in me, you may become steadfast; and warm yourself so you can feel part of my pains, as well as acquire strength by seeing me suffer so much. This is the best way to defend me. Be faithful and attentive."

My dear love, your enemies are making so much noise that I cannot go back to sleep. The shoves are becoming more violent. I can hear the rattling of the chains. They have bound you so tightly that blood is dripping from your wrists, and it stains those streets. Remember that my blood flows in yours, and as yours is poured out mine kisses it, adores it, and makes reparation. May it be light to all who offend you at nighttime, and magnet to draw all hearts around you.

My love and my all, as they drag you, and the air is deafened by shouts and whistles, you now come before Caiaphas. You are all meek, modest, humble; your sweetness and patience is such as to terrorize even your enemies; and Caiphas, full of rage, would want to devour You. O how easily sin and innocence are distinguished!

My Love, You stand before Caiphas to be condemned as the guiltiest of criminals. Caiaphas now asks the witnesses what your crimes are. Oh, he would have done better to ask about your love! Someone accuses you of one thing and another accuses you of something else, blundering and contradicting each other. While they are accusing you, the soldiers at your side pull your hair. They slap your most sacred face so hard that it echoes in all the room. They twist your lips. They beat you. You remain silent and suffer. When you look at them, the light of your eyes descends into their hearts, and unable to resist, they go away from you. But others take their place to torture you more.

Peter's three denials

In the midst of so many accusations and outrages, I see You become more attentive. Your Heart pounds violently as if it were going to burst for the pain. Tell me, my afflicted Good, what is it? I see that your love is so great that You anxiously await that which your enemies are doing to You, and You offer it for our salvation. With perfect calmness, your heart makes reparation for slander, hatred, false testimony, the wrong done to the innocent with premeditation, for those who offend you by instigation of their leaders, and for the offenses of the clergy.

United to You, I join in your reparations, and I feel a new sorrow grieving your most tender Heart—one never felt before. Tell me, tell me, what is it? Share everything with me, O Jesus.

"My child, do you want to know what it is? I hear Peter's voice saying that he does not know me. Then he swears again and again that he does not know me; and finally, vehemently cursing, he affirms he does not know me.

O Peter, how is it that you do not know me? Don't you remember how many goods I have showered on you? If the others make me die of pain, you make me die of sorrow! Oh, what a mistake it was to follow me from a distance, and then expose yourself to the occasions of sin!"

My denied Good, how quickly the offenses of your dearest ones can be recognized! O Jesus, I want to make my heartbeat flow within Yours to soothe the harrowing spasm that You suffer. And my heartbeat in Yours swears loyalty and love to You, and repeats and swears thousands and thousands of times that I know You. But your love still has not calmed down, and you are seeking out Peter with your eyes. Before your loving gazes, your eyes swollen with tears for his denial, Peter is moved, and he weeps as he goes away. Having saved him, you calm down again, and you make reparation for the sins of the popes and of the leaders of the Church, especially for those who expose themselves to the occasions of sin.

Meanwhile, your enemies continue to accuse you. Seeing that you do not answer their accusations, Caiaphas says to you:

"I solemnly order you under oath to the living God, tell me: Are you really the true Son of God?"

My Love, you always have the word of truth on your lips. And so, assuming an attitude of supreme majesty, with a resonant but gentle voice that strikes everyone and makes the demons themselves plunge into the abyss, you respond:

"You have said it. Yes, I am the true Son of God. And one day I will descend on the clouds of heaven to judge all nations."

At your creative words, everyone becomes silent. They are shuddering and frightened. But Caiphas, after a fearful moment, recovers. More furious than a wild beast, he says to everyone:

"What need have we of more witnesses? He has uttered a grave blasphemy. Why should we wait to condemn Him? He is already deserving of death!"

To give greater force to his sacrilegious words, he rends his garments with such rage and fury that all scream together, as one man, "He is guilty and must die! He is guilty and must die!" They attack You, my good Jesus. One hits You and slaps You, while another spits in your face. Still others trample You under their feet. They torment You in so many ways that the earth trembles and the heavens are shaken.

My Love and my Life, how they torment You! My heart breaks for sorrow... Oh, permit me to come out of your sorrowful heart to face all these outrages in your place. Yes, if it were possible, I would snatch you from the hands of your enemies, but you do not want me to because the salvation of everyone demands this. So I am compelled to resign myself.

My sweet love, permit me to clean you, arrange your hair, remove the spit and wipe away the blood, to then enclose myself in your heart, because I see that Caiaphas is tired and wants to retire, and that he is turning you over to the soldiers.

So, I bless you. And I ask your blessing on me, and that you give me the kiss of love. I enclose myself in the furnace of your divine heart to go to sleep. I place my mouth on your heart so that as I breathe I may kiss you. And by the difference of your heartbeats—more or less suffering—I will notice whether you suffer or rest. And now, forming wings with my arms to defend you, I embrace you, press myself close to your heart, and fall asleep.

Reflections and Practices.

Jesus is brought before Caiphas and unjustly accused. He is subjected to unprecedented torture and when He is interrogated, He speaks only the truth. When the Lord permits others to calumniate and unjustly accuse me, do I seek God alone who knows my innocence, or do I beg for the esteem and honor of other creatures? Do my lips always speak the truth? Am I the enemy of all deception and lies? Do I patiently endure the mockery and humiliations that others cause me? Am I ready to offer my life for the sake of their salvation?

My sweet Jesus, how different I am from You! I humbly ask You, grant that my lips always speak the truth, to wound the hearts of those who hear me and to guide all souls to You!.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

[Xavier]

After the ordeal and mock trial in the House of Caiphas, we come finally to the Twelfth Hour, completing one full cycle since we began at 5 P.M. Here, at 5 A.M early morning, when we may awake, let us spend some time reflecting that Jesus is in the Midst of Soldiers, being tormented by them, at this Hour, that He endures bitter mockery, horrible torments, and unspeakable pains for our salvation. Let us stop living lukewarm lives and live lives fully united to His Passion, so that He is enabled to repeat His Passion in act in our lives; for this is the only way the Triumph of His Cross will come, over all modern iniquities and sins. As Jesus went through it, so must we in Union with Him.



From 4 A.M. to 5 A.M.
Jesus in the midst of the soldiers.

Prayer of Preparation

My most sweet Life, Jesus, while sleeping, clinging to your Heart, I often felt the pricks of the thorns which pierce your Most Holy Heart. Wanting to wake up together with You, that You may have at least one who notices all of your pains and feels compassion for You, I cling more tightly to your Heart; and feeling your prickings more vividly, I wake up. What do I see? What do I hear? I would like to hide you in my heart to offer myself in your place and to receive upon myself such terrible pains, such incredible insults and humiliations. Only your love could endure such outrages. My most patient Jesus, what can you expect from such inhuman people!

Now I see that they are making fun of you. They cover your face with thick spit, and the light of your beautiful eyes is obscured by it. Then, shedding streams of tears for our salvation, you clear your eyes of that spit. But in the wickedness of their heart they cannot bear to see the light of your eyes, and so they cover them with spit again.

Others, becoming more daring in evil, open your most sweet mouth and fill it with disgusting spit, to the point that they themselves feel nausea. And since some of that spit flows away, revealing, in part, the majesty of your Face and your superhuman sweetness, they shudder and feel ashamed of themselves. In order to feel more free, they blindfold You with a miserable rag, to be able to hurl themselves, unrestrained, at your adorable Person. And so they beat You up without pity; they drag You; they trample You under their feet; they repeat blows and slaps to your Face and over your head, scratching You, tearing your hair, and pushing You from one point to another.

Jesus, my love, my heart cannot bear to see you in such pains. You want me to witness everything, while I would rather cover my eyes to avoid seeing such sorrowful scenes, capable of tearing the heart from every breast. But your love compels me to observe what is happening to you. I see that You utter not a breath, that You say not a word to defend Yourself; that You are in the hands of these soldiers like a rag, and they can do with You whatever they want. And in seeing them jumping on You, I fear You may die under their feet.

My Good and my All, the sorrow I feel for your pains is so great, that I would like to shout so loudly as to be heard up there in Heaven, and call the Father, the Holy Spirit and all the Angels; and here on earth, from one point to another, call sweet Mama first, and all the souls who love You, so that, forming a circle around You, we may prevent these insolent soldiers from drawing near You to insult You and torment You more. Together with you, we will make reparation for all the various kinds of sins committed during the night, especially for those committed during the night hours on your sacramental person, by those belonging to sects, as well as for all the sins of those souls that do not remain faithful in the night of the test.

My insulted Jesus, I see that the soldiers, drunk and tired, want to rest. My poor heart, oppressed and lacerated by all these pains of yours, does not want to remain alone with you, and feels the need for another companion.

Yes, my gentle mother, you be my inseparable companion. I clasp your maternal hand tightly and kiss it, while I ask you to strengthen me with your blessing. While together we embrace Jesus, let us rest our head on his sorrowful heart to console it. O Jesus, together with Mother Mary I kiss you and bless you. And now she and I will sleep the sleep of love on your adorable heart.

Reflections and Practices.

In this hour, Jesus stands in the midst of soldiers with composure and undaunted determination. Being the God that He is, He suffers all the abuses given by the soldiers and looks at them with so much Love that He seems to invite them to inflict even more pain.

Am I constant in the face of persistent suffering, or do I complain, become troubled, and lose peace—that peace of heart that is necessary for Jesus to dwell happily in me?

Steadfastness is the virtue that enables one to know whether God truly reigns in him. If our virtue is genuine, we will be steadfast in trials, with a constancy that is not subject to change. Only this kind of steadfastness can communicate peace to us. The more we remain steadfast in doing good, in suffering, and in working, the more we increase the space around us, wherein Jesus communicates his graces. So, if we fail to be constant, our space will be restricted and Jesus will have little or no room in which to move. But if we remain steadfast and constant, Jesus will find abundant space and will find his support and assistance in us—He will find a place to increase his grace.

If we want beloved Jesus to rest in us, let us surround Him with the same steadfastness with which He won the salvation of our souls. Defended in this manner, He will remain in our hearts to take his sweet rest.

Jesus lovingly gazed at those who mistreated Him. Do I gaze with the same love at those who offend me? Is the love that I show them so intense that, like a powerful voice penetrating their hearts, it converts them to Jesus?

My Jesus, boundless Love, grant me this love and let every pain I suffer lead souls to You.

Prayer of Thanksgiving