Devotions To The Sacred Heart - Catholic Prayers For June PDF

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
The origins of the devotion
Our Lord's promises
Development of the devotion
The value of the devotion
THE PRACTICE OF THE DEVOTION
Practice for every year
Practice for every month
Practice for every week
Practices for every day and every occasion
ACTS OF ADORATION
First Act
Second Act
Third Act
Fourth Act
Fifth Act
Sixth Act
Seventh Act
Eighth Act
Ninth Act
Tenth Act
Eleventh Act
Twelfth Act
Thirteenth Act
Fourteenth Act
Fifteenth Act
Sixteenth Act
Seventeenth Act
Eighteenth Act
Nineteenth Act
Twentieth Act
Twenty-first Act
Twenty-second Act
Twenty-third Act
Twenty-fourth Act
ACTS OF ATONEMENT
Act (1)
Act (2)
ACTS OF CONFIDENCE
Act (1)
Act (2)
ACTS OF CONSECRATION
Act of consecration of a person – short form
Act of consecration of a person – longer form
Act of consecration of a family
Act of consecration of a child
Act of consecration of a country
Act of consecration of all mankind
Act of consecration of religious (1)
ACT OF CONTRITION
ACTS OF DEVOTION
ACTS OF LOVE
Act (1)
Act (2)
Act (3)
Act (4)
Act (5)
ACT OF OBLATION
ACT OF PRAISE AND ADORATION
ACTS OF REPARATION
Act for the Feast of the Sacred Heart
Act for the first Friday of the month (1)
Act after receiving Holy Communion
Act for any occasion (1)
ACT OF REPARATION OF HONOUR
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
ACT OF ZEAL
ASPIRATIONS
Devout aspiration
Ten aspirations
EJACULATIONS
Short ejaculations
Ejaculatory prayer (1)
EXERCISE IN HONOUR OF THE HOLY TRINITY BY THE SACRED
HEART
INVOCATIONS
Invocations of the Saints
Invocations for every hour of the day
At Seven o'clock
At Eight o'clock
At Nine o'clock
At Ten o'clock
At Eleven o'clock
At Twelve o'clock
At One o'clock
At Two o'clock
At Three o'clock
At Four o'clock
At Five o'clock
At Six o'clock
Invocation of the blessing of the Sacred Heart on a friend
Invocations to obtain the cure of a sick person
OFFERINGS
Morning offering
Evening offering
Offerings of all one's actions
Offering of our sufferings
Offering of the Sacred Heart to God the Father
PIOUS AFFECTIONS
PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY
Morning prayer
Evening prayer
PRAYERS FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE
1 June
2 June
3 June
4 June
5 June
6 June
7 June
8 June
9 June
10 June
11 June
12 June
13 June
14 June
15 June
16 June
17 June
18 June
19 June
20 June
21 June
22 June
23 June
24 June
25 June
26 June
27 June
28 June
29 June
30 June
PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS
Prayer of Saint Alphonsus Ligouri
Prayer of Saint Claude de la Colombière
Prayer of Saint Gertrude
Prayer of Saint Leonard of Port Maurice
Prayer of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat
Prayer of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
Prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman
OTHER PRAYERS
Memorare of the Sacred Heart
Nine elevations of the soul
Prayer for a visit to the Sacred Heart
Prayer during suffering
Prayer asking for a particular grace
Prayer asking for a change of heart
Prayer asking for a happy death
Prayer of a penitent soul
Prayer to obtain the conversion of hearts
Prayer for those in agony
Prayer for the souls in Purgatory
Prayer for the Church
UNTITLED PRAYERS
Prayer (1)
Prayer (2)
Prayer (3)
Prayer (4)
CHAPLET OF THE SACRED HEART
LITANIES
Litany of the Sacred Heart (1)
Litanies for every day of the week
Monday - of the Sacred Heart of the Child Jesus
Tuesday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Conversing Among Men
Wednesday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Living in Solitude
Thursday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament
Friday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Suffering
Saturday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Dying
Sunday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Risen from the Dead
MEDITATIONS ON THE SACRED HEART
Meditation 1 – On the ends of the institution of the Most Holy Sacrament
Meditation 2 – In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of beatitude
Meditation 3 – In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of grace
Meditation 4 – In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of sacrifice
Meditation 5 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of humiliation
Meditation 6 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of love
Meditation 7 - In honour of the the Sacred Heart for its active life
Meditation 8 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its hidden life
Meditation 9 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its glorious life
Meditation 10 – In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of consummated
sacrifice
Meditation 11 - The priceless value of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Meditation 12 - The love of the Sacred Heart and our ingratitude
Act of consecration
Act of reparation
NOVENAS
Novena for the Feast of the Sacred Heart (1)
Novena for the first Friday of the month
Opening prayer
Act of reparation of honour
Acts of adoration
Act of oblation
Concluding prayer
Novena for a special intention
ROSARY OF THE SACRED HEART
On the cross
On the large beads after each decade
On the small beads
At the conclusion
Prayer
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII (1899)
USEFUL LINKS
SOURCES
DEVOTIONS TO THE SACRED HEART
Catholic Prayers for June
Rita Bogna
Cover image: The Sacred Heart, oil on canvas. Saint Francis
Xavier's Cathedral, Adelaide, Australia. Cover © Rita Bogna.
“Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the most effective school of
the love of God.” (Pope Pius XII)
Devotions to the Sacred Heart
Copyright © Rita Bogna
First edition, June 2011.
Second edition, May 2012.
The individual prayers in this book are in the public domain but all other
texts and images, and the selection, arrangement and editing of this
compiled work constitute an intellectual property and must not be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the copyright owner (Rita Bogna)
except in accordance with applicable copyright laws.
INTRODUCTION
The origins of the devotion
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the oldest forms of

Catholic piety. Saint Augustine, Saint Bonaventure, Saint Albert the Great,
Saint Gertrude, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Peter Canisius, Saint Francis
de Sales and Saint John Eudes all did much to promote it.
Saint John Eudes has been called the 'Apostle of the Sacred Heart.' In
1659 he wrote the first liturgical Office in honour of the Sacred Heart and in
1670 he obtained the permission of seven French bishops for his
congregations of priests and religious to celebrate a special feast using the
Office.
In 1673 Our Lord appeared in France to Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque,
a religious of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In a
vision Our Lord revealed to her his Sacred Heart – a heart pierced,
enthroned in flames, surrounded by a crown of thorns and surmounted by a
cross. Our Lord told her:
“My Divine Heart is so full of love for men, and especially for you,
that, unable any longer to keep within Itself the flames of its burning
love, It needs must spread them abroad through means of you, and It
must make Itself known unto them in order to enrich them with the
treasures which It contains. I make known to you the worth of these
treasures. They contain the graces of sanctification and of salvation
which are needful to free them from the abyss of perdition. I have
chosen you, who are an abyss of unworthiness and ignorance, to carry
out this great work, so that it may be seen that every thing has been
done by Me.”
Our Lord's promises
Our Lord also told Margaret Mary that he desired that the first Friday
after the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi be observed in a special
manner as a feast of his Heart, by the offering of Holy Communion with a
reparation of honour for all the insults and indignities his Heart had
received since the institution of the Holy Eucharist. He appeared to
Margaret Mary another two times and made the following promises to
those who practice devotion to his Sacred Heart:
“I will grant them the graces necessary for their state of life.
I will establish peace in their families.
I will comfort them in their afflictions.
I will be their safe refuge during life, and especially at death.
I will give abundant blessings on all their undertakings.
Sinners will find a fountain and a boundless ocean of mercy in My
Heart.
Tepid souls will become fervent.
Fervent souls will quickly achieve great perfection.
I will bless every place where the picture of My Sacred Heart is
exposed and honoured.
I will give to priests the power to touch the hardest hearts.
I will grant to all those who receive Communion on the First
Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance.
They will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the
sacraments, and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last
hour.”
Development of the devotion
With the help of Margaret Mary's confessor, the Jesuit priest Father
Claude de la Colombière, the devotion to the Sacred Heart quickly took
roots and began to spread.
After his death in 1682, and that of Margaret Mary in 1690, the devotion
spread rapidly in France, particularly in religious communities, due to the
efforts of the Visitation and Jesuit Orders.
By 1720 more than 30 confraternities of the Sacred Heart were
established. In 1730 the sudden end of the plague in Marseilles after the
consecration of the city to the Sacred Heart gave further impetus to the
spreading of the devotion throughout France.
By 1743 the number of confraternities reached 700, and by 1745 the
devotion to the Sacred Heart had spread to many parts of Europe and had
even found its way to India and China.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart was approved by the Holy See in
1765, and the bishops of Poland, the Arch-confraternity of the Sacred Heart
at Rome and the Visitation Order obtained permission from Pope Clement
XIII to celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart with its own Office and
Mass, so that
“the faithful, under the symbol of the Heart, might remember with
more devotion and advantage, the love which Jesus Christ testified, by
suffering and dying for the redemption of mankind, and instituting, in
memory of his death, the adorable sacrament of his Body and Blood.”
Pope Pius VI extended this privilege to many dioceses and religious

orders, and he and successive Pontiffs enriched the devotion with many
indulgences.
In 1815 Pope Pius VIII granted a plenary indulgence to all the faithful
who, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, having confessed and
communicated worthily, visit a church or public oratory and pray for the
intentions of the Pope.
In 1856 Pope Pius IX ordered the Feast to be celebrated on the first
Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi in every church throughout the
world,
“in order to move the faithful anew to love, and to make a return of
love to the wounded Heart of Him who loved us, and washed us from
our sins in His blood”.
In 1875 Pope Pius IX consecrated the Catholic Church to the Sacred

Heart. In 1898 Mother Mary of the Divine Heart, a nun from a noble
German Catholic family, told Pope Leo XIII that Our Lord had commanded
her to tell his Vicar on earth that he desired a formal consecration of the
entire world to his Sacred Heart.
In 1899, after a solemn Triduum held throughout the world, Pope Leo
XIII dedicated the whole of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and
raised the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the rite of Double of the First Class.
In 1929, on the occasion of the beatification of Claude de la
Colombière, Pius XI composed a new Office and Mass for the Feast of the
Sacred Heart and conferred on it a privileged Octave of the Third Order.
Margaret Mary Alacoque was beatified in 1864 and was canonised in
1920. Claude de la Colombière was canonised in 1992.
The value of the devotion
Margaret Mary Alacoque, who Pope Pius XI described as “the most

innocent disciple” of the Sacred Heart wrote:
“I know of no exercise of piety in the spiritual life, better calculated

to raise, in a short time, a soul to the highest state of sanctity, or
make it relish the true delight which is found in the service of God,
than the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Yes, I assert with
confidence, were it known how agreeable this devotion is to Jesus
Christ, that there is no Christian, how little soever he might be
influenced by love for this amiable Saviour, who would not eagerly
reduce it to practice.”
The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been the subject of many
Papal documents over the years. In 1956, on the centenary of the
extension of the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the universal Church, Pope
Pius XII wrote that
“the Heart of Jesus is the heart of a divine Person, the Word

Incarnate, and by it is represented and, as it were, placed before our
gaze all the love with which He has embraced and even now embraces
us. Consequently, the honour to be paid to the Sacred Heart is such as
to raise it to the rank – so so far as external practice is concerned – of
the highest expression of Christian piety. For this is the religion of
Jesus which is centred on the Mediator who is man and God, and in
such a way that we cannot reach the Heart of God save through the
Heart of Christ, as He Himself says: 'I am the Way, the Truth and the
Life. No one cometh to the Father save by Me.'” (Encyclical, Haurietis
Aquas, 15 May 1956)
His Holiness went on to say that
“Christians in paying homage to the Sacred Heart of the Redeemer

are fulfilling a serious part of their obligations in their service of God
and, at the same time, they are surrendering themselves to their
Creator and Redeemer with regard to both the affections of the heart
and the external activities of their life; in this way, they are obeying
that divine commandment: 'Thou shall love the Lord your God with
your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole
mind, and with your whole strength.'”
On the 150th anniversary of the extension of the Feast of the Sacred

Heart to the whole Church Pope Benedict XVI reiterated that the devotion
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus “has an irreplaceable importance for our faith
and for our life in love” and that
“it is still a fitting task for Christians to continue to deepen their

relationship with the Heart of Jesus, in such a way as to revive their
faith in the saving love of God and to welcome him ever better into
their lives.” (Apostolic Letter 15 May 2006).
The month of June, following immediately after the month dedicated to

Our Lord's Blessed Mother, has been set aside by the Church as the month
of the Sacred Heart, as it is in June that the Feast of the Sacred Heart is
celebrated throughout the Catholic world.
In 1873 Pope Pius IX granted:
(1) an indulgence of 7 years each day, to all the faithful who, with a
contrite heart, say daily during the month of June, either in public or in
private, some special prayers, or perform some pious acts in honour of the
Sacred Heart.
(2) a plenary indulgence on any one day of June, to those who, after
confession and communion, visit a church or public oratory, and pray there
for the intentions of the Pope.
In addition, the Church has consecrated the first Friday of each month
to the Sacred Heart, so that the faithful may receive Our Lord in Holy
Communion on the first Fridays of nine consecutive months to receive the
grace of final perseverance that he promised to Saint Margaret Mary.
This practice is known as “the Nine Fridays” or the “Novena of
Communions.”
In many churches throughout the world, Holy Mass on the first Friday of
the month is followed by all-night Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed
Sacrament which ends with the service of Benediction.
There is an immense wealth of prayers, meditations and other spiritual
exercises and devotions in honour of the Sacred Heart which have been
published in the past 200 years, particular since the second half of the 19th
century when the Feast of the Sacred Heart was approved for the universal
Church.
Thus, when compiling a prayer-book for the 21st century, the most
difficult task is to decide what to include and what to leave out. Why are
there are so many different acts of consecration, acts of reparation, litanies
and other devotions? Perhaps because, as Father Hieronymus Noldin SJ so
eloquently put it in his 1905 work, “The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus,”
“Just as all musical instruments are not tuned to the same key, nor
do all the strings of the same instrument give out one and the
selfsame sound, so all Christians do not pray in the same manner; nay,
the same soul is wont to frame his petitions in a different form at
different times.”
Prayers in this book are referenced to their source.

Those from the 19th century collection of Roman Catholic indulgenced
prayers known as The Raccolta were first compiled by Father Telesphorus
Galli, canon of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome in the
1850s.
Those from the Prayer-Book for Religious have been edited and
adapted, where necessary, to make them suitable for the use of lay
persons.
Rita Bogna
Adelaide, Pentecost Sunday, May 2012.
THE PRACTICE OF THE DEVOTION
Practice for every year
The first and principal practice of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
is the celebration of its festival, which is fixed for the first Friday after the
Octave of Corpus Christi.
This day ought to be solemnised, by approaching the sacraments,
prayer, spiritual reading, visiting our Lord in the Adorable Sacrament of the
Altar, and other good works.
The preceding evening prepare yourself for this great day by some acts
of penance or charity, to dispose your heart for the reception of grace.
On the day of the feast, approach the sacrament of penance and the
Eucharist. In your confession accuse yourself and detest your irreverences
and infidelities towards the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
You ought to communicate with peculiar fervour, as your intention
should be to repair the negligence and tepidity of all your former
communions.
After twelve, in a particular visit, which you will make to the blessed
Sacrament, offer to the Adorable Heart of Jesus an act of atonement, in
reparation of all the insults he every day suffers in the Eucharist, and
compensate for those of which you have been guilty.
Practice for every month
In addition to the principal feast, which occurs but once a year, the first
Friday of every month has been consecrated to honour the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, on which day may be performed all or part of the exercises
appointed for the feast, namely, to go to confession, to communion, to visit
the most holy Sacrament, to perform acts of atonement, etc so that those
who have an ardent zeal for the honour of the Heart of Jesus, may consider
this first Friday as a feast peculiar to themselves, which at the same time,
should not prevent them from pursuing their usual occupations, provided
they are careful to offer and direct all their actions to the glory of the
Sacred Heart, and in the spirit of reparation.
Practice for every week
Fervent souls who wish to obtain more abundant graces, are not
content with honouring the Sacred Heart of Jesus once a month.
They also consecrate to it one day every week, which is Friday.
On this day they practise some devout exercise, and recite some
particular prayer, in honour of this divine Heart, according to everyone's
devotion.
Practices for every day and every occasion
These practices are the more estimable, as they may be frequent, and
are within the reach of every one.
They consist, first, in performing all the actions of the day in union with
the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Thus, if you pray, pray with it. If you work, work
with it and in it. If you suffer, suffer with it and for it.
Admirable secret for amassing treasures of merits, graces, and glory!
For, as there is nothing so great in the sight of God, as the Heart of his
Son, so nothing can be more agreeable to him, than the union of our
actions and sufferings with those of this Adorable Heart. Its dispositions,
infinitely holy, will supply our imperfect dispositions, and by this union our
actions will become, as it were, of infinite value.
Secondly, think often of this divine Heart, and have recourse to it in all
your wants. Consult it in your doubts and perplexities. Address it in your
troubles and afflictions. Unfold to it all your thoughts, your views and
projects. Represent to it your defects, temptations and passions. Beg of a
remedy for all your sufferings. Live in it, and breathe only for it. It will be
your all, provided you seek all in this Sacred Heart.
Thirdly, approach often to the holy table, to unite yourself by a fervent
communion to the dearly beloved of your heart, and endeavour to
correspond with the ardent desire he has of giving himself to you.
Fourthly, often visit our Lord in his churches. When you have occasion
to pass one, be happy to enter it, and once more assure the God of love,
who dwells in it, that you love him, and that you never will love any other
but him.
Fifthly, if the severity of weather, indisposition, or the avocations of
your state, confine you to the house, and deprive you of the consolation of
going in person to pay homage to the God of your heart, in the sanctuary
where he resides, reflect a moment, and fly there in spirit, or invoke your
guardian-angel to present himself there for you, and in your name to
adore, love and praise your divine Redeemer.
Sixthly, should you unhappily have offended the Lord or learn that he
has been offended, immediately offer to the Divine Majesty, in sentiments
of humble compunction, and in the spirit of atonement, some one of the
virtues of the Adorable Heart of Jesus.
Seventhly, place in your oratory a picture of the Sacred Heart, and
every time you enter your house, or at least when you go out, go and
salute this divine Heart, and implore its holy benediction.
Several persons carry about them a scapular, or a medal of the Sacred
Heart, and kiss it frequently in the day.
The celebrated and pious Lanspergius, a Carthusian monk, speaks thus
of the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus:
“I would recommend you to put in such places as you frequently

pass, some pious picture of this Adorable Heart, the sight of which
may remind you frequently to renew your devout exercises in its
honour.
You may even, as you feel interiorly affected, kiss tenderly this picture,
with the same devotion that you would the very Heart of Jesus Christ,
entering in spirit to this deified Heart, ardently imprinting on it your
own heart, and immersing in it your whole soul, desiring that it may be
there absorbed, and endeavouring to inhale into your heart the spirit
which animates the Heart of Jesus, its graces, its virtues. In a word,
whatever is salutary in this Sacred Heart, “which surpasses all
measure, for the heart of Jesus is a superabundant source of all
goodness.
It is a most useful and pious practice to honour, with particular

devotion, this Adorable Heart, which ought to be your asylum and your
resource in all your necessities, that you may thence derive the
comfort and assistance of which you stand in need, for when all man
kind abandon and deceive you, be assured that this faithful Heart
never will deceive you, never will abandon you.”
We may here add, that our Lord revealed to the venerable religious,
whom he particularly raised up to renew this holy devotion, that he wished
that this picture should be honoured, and that he would communicate
abundantly his graces where it would be revered, and on those who would
honour it.
Happy those who know how to make use of it, in order to animate their
piety in prayer, their confidence in affliction, and to call to their minds, the
meekness, humility, and all the virtues, of which this Sacred Heart is so
perfect a model.
Eighthly, enter into a confraternity established in honour of the most
Sacred Heart of Jesus, and endeavour to be actuated by the spirit of that
body, and to be exact in the pious exercises which they practise.
Ninthly, endeavour to extend this devotion. The more you love the
amiable Jesus, the more will you desire that he should be loved. The love
which we bear him is a devouring fire, which seeks to communicate itself,
Ask then, often, and with fervent prayers, an increase of devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Exert yourself as much as your state of life and circumstances will
permit, or as far as an enlightened zeal may inspire you, to establish this
pious devotion in the cities or places in which you reside.
Would it be difficult for a father or mother to inspire their children with
this holy devotion, and to teach them to practise it?
Could not a master easily influence his pupils to relish this devotion? A
prior or prioress, their subjects? A confessor, his penitents? A preacher, his
hearers? A friend, his friends?
The ardent love with which some fervent souls are inflamed, prompts
them to holy exertions.
Sometimes they would get sermons preached on this devotion.
Sometimes they would erect new confraternities, new oratories, new
altars, in honour of the Adorable Heart of Jesus, or at least they would
contribute to them according to their power.
To distribute books which treat of the worship due to the Sacred Heart,
to get paintings, medals, and pictures executed, which represent it.
Are not these so many means which may be employed, according as
the state of everyone may permit?
Those who are devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, are particularly
careful to render, and to cause to be rendered by others, as much as they
can, to those pious images, the respect which is due to them, in order to
repair the injury which the devil has done to the Adorable Heart of Jesus,
in inspiring sometimes contempt for its picture.
We will here quote, for the consolation of souls devoted to this divine
Heart, what the venerable Marguerite mentions in one of her letters:
“I think that the Lord showed me the names of several persons,

which were written on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on account of the
desire they had to honour it, and on that account, he never would
suffer them to be effaced.”
Tenthly, those who are devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and those
who have the happiness of being received into any confraternity of the
Sacred Heart of our Lord, ought to be considered as disciples the most
devoted to Jesus Christ, and even as men called to be the friends of his
Sacred Heart.
From these glorious qualities three inferences may be especially drawn.
The first is, to look on themselves as particularly obliged to repair, as
much as they possibly can, by their homage and their love, the outrages
and reproaches to which love has exposed the Son of God in the course of
his holy life, and to which he exposes his love every day in the Most Holy
Sacrament of the Altar, and to redouble their love towards a God so good,
who gives them more particularly his Heart, to serve as an asylum and
retreat against dangers and temptations.
For this purpose, they should particularly devote themselves to those
exercises, the object of which is, the adoration of the Holy Eucharist,
namely, visit the Most Holy Sacrament, hear Mass daily, approach
frequently the holy table, to edify all by the respect and modesty of their
deportment in the churches.
Another effect which should result from these qualities is, to look on
themselves as being more obliged to practise charity towards their
neighbour, and to make a particular profession of it. “By this,” the divine
Heart again repeats, “Will all men know that you are my disciples, if you
have love one for another.” (John 13: 35)
For which reason they should pardon sincerely ordinary virtues, but they
should aspire to the most perfect.
The Heart of Jesus is particularly proposed to them as their model, in
order that they may possess its spirit, its affections, and its sentiments.
Let them esteem what this divine Heart esteems.
Let them hate and despise what it hates and despises.
To purify themselves from the smallest faults, and to avoid them.
To make frequent examinations of their interior.
To love retirement and prayer.
To fill their minds with good thoughts and holy affections, by reading
good books.
Assiduity in hearing the word of God, by the consideration of pious
pictures, and holy conversations with pious and enlightened persons.
To direct to God their actions, their affections, and their undertakings.
To accustom themselves to think of his divine presence, of his holy will,
of the dispositions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
These are so many holy practices, which will render them more and
more conformable to the spirit of Jesus.
Eleventhly, in a word, in order to animate you still more to augment
your devotion to the Adorable Heart of Jesus, and revive your fervour, if
unhappily it should have abated, devote from time to time half an hour, in
reflecting on the urgent motives which should induce you to practise this
pious devotion.
Consider how just and reasonable this devotion is, how useful and
salutary, how sweet and consoling, but reflect, in a particular manner, on
the excellence of the Adorable Heart of Jesus, its amiable and infinite
perfections, the striking proofs of the immense love which the Sacred Heart
has for us, and the extreme ingratitude with which we return its love.
Enter more and more into the dispositions suitable or necessary to
promote this tender devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
These dispositions are, a great horror of sin, a lively faith, an ardent
desire to love our Lord Jesus Christ, and a recollected and interior life.
Guard against the obstacles which may deprive you of it.
These are tepidity, self-love, inward pride, or any unmortified passion.
In a word, exert yourself to overcome these obstacles, by humility,
mortification, prayer, by frequent communion, visiting the Most Holy
Sacrament, meditation, and by fidelity in acquitting yourself of the
practices, either exterior or interior, suitable to this pious devotion.
Address yourself often to the august Mary, in order that she may
introduce you to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Invoke for this purpose the holy angels, especially your guardian-angel.
Implore the assistance of the saints, and particularly of Saint Joseph,
Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Francis of Assisi,
Saint Bernardino of Siena, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint
Aloysius Gonzaga, Saint Teresa, Saint Gertrude, and of so many others,
who have been inflamed with so ardent a love for the amiable Jesus, and
who are eager to procure for you an entrance into this Sacred Heart, if you
pray to them with fervour.
Jesus Christ pointed out Saint Francis of Assisi, as a special advocate, to
the venerable Marguerite, and revealed to her, that this great saint was
particularly united to his divine Heart, and that he had peculiar influence in
obtaining favours from it.
We will here relate the words which Saint Aloysius Gonzaga addressed
to Nicholas Lewis Celestini, a novice of the Society of Jesus, at Rome, who
being at the point of death, was suddenly restored, by the intercession of
this great saint, the 10th of February, 1765: “Through my intercession,”
said he, “the Lord grants you life, to employ it for your own perfection, and
to extend, as much as is in your power, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus: a devotion most pleasing to heaven.”
It is thus we read in the account of this miraculous cure, which was
published at Rome, with the authority of the judicial and authentic forms.
Can we therefore doubt, but this amiable saint interests himself in
procuring for us, by his intercession, the advantages of a devotion, to
which he himself invites in so extraordinary and miraculous a manner?
Father Joseph Joy Dean
(Devotions to the Sacred Heart (1845) 12)
Heart of Jesus, burning with love of us, inflame our hearts with love of
you.
ACTS OF ADORATION
The following 24 Acts of Adoration, corresponding in number to the hours of the day and
night, are addressed to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and may be recited by way of
reparation for all the sins committed against him by mankind.
First Act
Jesus, our Lord and our God, ever adorable, O that we could be present
in all the churches throughout the universe where you are not adored as
you ought to be, and where your inflamed love is not repaid with gratitude
worthy of your Majesty!
We fly, at least in spirit, to these holy places now profaned and offer on
your altars there the fervent love and adoration of your Holy Mother, in
compensation for the injuries ever done to you.
Eternal praise and thanksgiving be to the Most Holy and Most Divine
Sacrament.
Second Act
O Jesus, true Sun that enlightens the Church and raises into a flame the
hearts of your servants, we adore you.
To repair the sloth, indifference and tepidity of so many thoughtless
persons who, though favoured with the presence of so burning a luminary,
remain cold, insensible and inanimate, we offer up to you all the inflamed
desires of the seraphim.
Sacrament.
Third Act
We adore you, O eternal Wisdom.

To repair the gross ignorance which has caused us to offend you, we
offer up to you all the knowledge of those most enlightened spirits, the
cherubim.
Sacrament.
Fourth Act
We adore you, O most meek and merciful God.

To repair all the sins of anger, passion and revenge, highly offensive in
your sight, we offer up to you the peace, mildness and tranquillity of the
thrones.
Sacrament.
Fifth Act
We adore you, O Sacrament of Love.

To repair all the thoughts and criminal desires conceived even at the
foot of your altars, we offer up to you all the pure affections and chaste
desires of the dominations.
Sacrament.
Sixth Act
We adore you, O Immaculate Lamb, that takes away the sins of the
world.
To repair all the irreverences, gazing at dangerous objects and
disrespectful postures during the time of Holy Mass, we offer up to you the
profound respect of the choir of virtues.
Sacrament.
Seventh Act
We adore you, O source and origin of all sanctity and innocence.

To repair the abominations committed by wicked priests, who
consecrate and receive you in the state of mortal sin, we offer up to you
the profound adoration and holiness of the powers.
Sacrament.
Eighth Act
We adore you, sovereign Lord of the universe, to whom all knees, both
in heaven and earth, should bend and all reverence be paid.
In order to repair the many blasphemies against your honour, we offer
up to you the praises and homage of the principalities.
Sacrament.
Ninth Act
We adore you, Saviour of the world, to whom all fidelity and glory is
due.
To repair the sacrilegious communions and treacheries of so many false
consciences, we offer up to you the fervent and faithful zeal of the
archangels.
Sacrament.
Tenth Act
We adore you, the delight of heaven and earth.

To repair the neglect, indifference and contempt which mankind shows
of that loving invitation by which you call them to your sweet embraces in
the Holy Eucharist, we offer up to you the ready obedience, contempt and
happiness of the angels.
Sacrament.
Eleventh Act
We adore you, never-failing Bounty and Goodness, and to repair man's

offensive diffidence in your tender mercy, we offer up to you the steadfast
reliance and assurance of the holy patriarchs in your promises.
Sacrament.
Twelfth Act
We adore you, O amiable Jesus, and revere the sacred mystery of the
Blessed Eucharist, revealed by your Divine Word, taught by the Church and
proved by miracles.
To repair the doubts which men have had of your real presence in the
Holy Sacrament, we offer up to you the due submission shown by the
prophets to your divine oracles.
Sacrament.
Thirteenth Act
We adore you, most tender and most amiable of all fathers.

To make reparation for the errors and infidelities of your own children,
we offer up to you the faith of the apostles.
Sacrament.
Fourteenth Act
We adore you, most loving Shepherd, pattern of true charity.

To make reparation for the designs of revenge conceived in defiance of
your divine prohibitions, we offer up to you the patience and prayers of the
martyrs in favour of their persecutors.
Sacrament.
Fifteenth Act
We adore you, inexhaustible fund of treasures.

To make reparation for all the robberies committed in your churches,
we offer up to you the rich and bountiful donations of your devout servants.
Sacrament.
Sixteenth Act
We adore you, O most watchful Advocate.

To make reparation for the many negligences of those who have any
authority in the Church to correct the abuses and irreverences there
committed against you, we offer up to you the exact attention and careful
solicitude of holy bishops and prelates.
Sacrament.
Seventeenth Act
We adore you, O God of infinite Majesty, who we can never sufficiently

adore and reverence.
To make reparation for all the impious oaths pronounced against you,
we offer up to you the pious discourses made in your honour by the holy
Doctors of the Church.
Sacrament.
Eighteenth Act
We adore you, O hidden God.

To make reparation for all the contests, disputes, punctilios of honour
and scandal, by which you have been offended, we offer up to you the
humility of the holy confessors.
Sacrament.
Nineteenth Act
We adore you, eternal Priest, whose delight is to offer sacrifice.

To make reparation for the insults and affronts done to your priests,
religious and virgins, we offer up to you your own invincible patience,
together with the true and fervent zeal of all good priests and apostolic
preachers.
Sacrament.
Twentieth Act
We adore you, true Bread of angels.

To make reparation for the sins committed against your command of
abstinence, we offer up to you the fasts and temperance of the holy
anchorites.
Sacrament.
Twenty-first Act
We adore you, O God of all purity.

To make reparation for all the sins which have hitherto been committed
against the virtue of purity, we offer up to you the modesty and penance of
all holy religious men and women.
Sacrament.
Twenty-second Act
We adore you, amiable Spouse of our souls.

To make reparation for all the lukewarmness and indifference shown by
many, particularly in time of Holy Communion, we offer up to you the
raptures and ecstasies of holy virgins.
Sacrament.
Twenty-third Act
We adore you, most worthy object of the love and affection of men and
angels.
To make reparation for the profanations committed in your churches by
the effusion of so much innocent blood, as also to make some atonement
for the poor and indigent manner you are entertained there, we offer up to
you the piety of all the blessed saints and the distress and want in which
your persecuted servants were.
Sacrament.
Twenty-fourth Act
We adore you, Son of the ever-glorious Virgin.

To make a general reparation as much as lies in our power, for all the
indignities you have suffered from men since the institution of this adorable
mystery, we have recourse to your holy Mother, looking on her as, under
you, the greatest and most secure refuge of sinners.
Sacrament.
O Queen of heaven and earth, hope of mankind, who adores your divine
Son incessantly, we entreat you that, since we have the honour to be of
the number of your children, you would interest yourself on our behalf and
make satisfaction for us, and in our name, to our eternal Judge, by
rendering to him the duties which we ourselves are incapable of
performing. Amen.
(St Joseph's Manual (1877) 535)
ACTS OF ATONEMENT
Act (1)
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, humbly prostrate before you, we come to

renew our consecration with the resolution of repairing by an increase of
love and fidelity towards you all the outrages unceasingly offered to you.
We solemnly promise:
V. The more your mysteries are blasphemed.

R. The more firmly we will believe them, O Sacred Heart of Jesus!
V. The more impiety endeavours to extinguish our hopes of

immortality.
R. The more we will trust in your Heart, sole hope of mortals!
V. The more hearts resist your divine attractions.

R. The more we will love you, O infinitely Amiable Heart of Jesus!
V. The more your divinity is attacked.

R. The more we will adore it, O Divine Heart of Jesus!
V. The more your holy laws are forgotten and transgressed.

R. The more we will observe them, O Most Holy Heart of Jesus!
V. The more your sacraments are despised and abandoned.

R. The more we will receive them with love and respect, O Most
Liberal Heart of Jesus!
V. The more your adorable virtues are forgotten.

R. The more we will endeavour to practise them, O Heart, model of
every virtue!
V. The more the devil labours to destroy souls.

R. The more we will be inflamed with desire to save them, O Heart
of Jesus, zealous lover of souls!
V. The more pride and sensuality tend to destroy abnegation and

love of duty.
R. The more generous we will be in overcoming ourselves, O Heart
of Jesus!
Jesus, make us such true apostles of your Heart, that reparation to
you may be our best reward. Amen.
Good Jesus, who alone orders all things well,

I cast myself on your infinite, undeserved love.
I trust you with my all ... myself,
And all who I love, and all that I desire,
My present and my future, my hopes, and my fears,
My time and my eternity, my joys and my sorrows.
Deal with me as you will and know best,
Only bind me safe to your everlasting love!
(Prayer-Book for Religious (1914) 668)
Act (2)
O Adorable Heart of my Saviour and my God, penetrated with a lively

sorrow at the sight of the outrages which you have received, and which
you daily receive. in the Sacrament of your love, behold me prostrate at
the foot of your altar to make an acceptable atonement.
O that I were able, by my homage and veneration, to make satisfaction
to your injured honour and efface, with my tears and with my blood, so
many irreverences, profanations and sacrileges which outrage your infinite
greatness.
How well should my life be disposed of, could it be sacrificed for so
worthy an object. Pardon, divine Saviour, my ingratitude and all the
infidelities and indignities which I have committed against your sovereign
Majesty.
Remember that your Adorable Heart, bearing the weight of my sins in
the days of its mortal life, was sorrowful even until death. Do not suffer
your agony and your blood to be unprofitable to me.
Annihilate within me my criminal heart, and give me one according to
yours, a heart contrite and humble, a heart pure and spotless, a heart
which may be from now on a victim consecrated to your glory and inflamed
with the sacred fire of your love.
O Lord, I deplore in the bitterness of my heart my former irreverences
and sacrileges, which I wish in future to repair, by my pious deportment in
the churches, my assiduity in visiting and my devotion and fervour in
receiving the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
But in order to render my respect and my adoration more grateful to
you, I unite them with those which are rendered to you in our temples by
those blessed spirits who are at the foot of your sacred tabernacles.
Hear their vows, O my God, and accept the homages of a heart which
returns to you with the sole view of loving only you, that I may merit loving
you eternally. Amen.
ACTS OF CONFIDENCE
Act (1)
O Divine Heart of Jesus, your wisdom is infinite, your power is

boundless, your love is immense. You know all my wants, you are able and
willing to supply them. I will therefore have recourse to you with an entire
confidence. I will expose to you all my miseries that you may vouchsafe to
assist me and my hope will not be confounded.
I beg, O Heart infinitely merciful, that you intercede with the eternal
Father, to obtain for me the pardon of my crimes, but have you not merited
this pardon for me, I do not say by all the blood you have shed, but by the
weakest of your sighs?
Could the eternal Father refuse to grant me grace and the absolution of
my sins, at the request of the Heart of his beloved Son, the object of his
most tender complacency? Are not the wound in your sacred side, which
the eternal Father still beholds, and the Adorable Blood which flowed from
it, more powerful voices than that of my sins?
I hope then to obtain, by you and from you, the pardon of my iniquities,
how detestable, how innumerable they may have been. Yes, you will be
my refuge in the day of his wrath, and I will hide myself in your adorable
wound, which is a most secure asylum for all those who detest their sins in
the sincerity of their hearts.
I will have recourse to you, O Heart full of sweetness and goodness, in
all my dangers, my pains, my difficulties, my weaknesses. You will be my
strength and my defence in temptations. You will place me beyond the
assaults of the enemies of my salvation and enable me to triumph over
them.
In the most severe afflictions I will run to you with so much the more
confidence, as I know that you have a peculiar tenderness for afflicted
hearts, and remembering then the bitter sorrow with which you permitted
your divine soul to be overwhelmed, to expiate my sins, I will be ashamed
that my heart should rejoice, while yours has been delivered up to agony
for the love of me.
In prosperity, in affluence and even in the most innocent pleasures, I
will remember that your Heart, O the life of my soul, never rejoiced but in
God, and that mine also should rejoice only in him.
I further hope, O Heart, infinitely holy, that you will teach me to be
humble amid honours, poor in spirit and in heart in the midst of riches,
moderate and mortified in the most necessary relaxations.
Finally, I hope to obtain from your Heart infinitely liberal, meekness,
humility and charity, the facility of forgetting injuries, compassion for the
misfortunes of others, a perfect conformity to the will of God and generally
all the virtues which are necessary to please him and obtain eternal life.
I hope for all these things from you, because I know that you are the
inexhaustible source of all graces and that you desire more ardently to
communicate them to me than I do to receive them.
But I do not desire these virtues or this sanctity, but in order to satisfy
the desire which you have to see them in me and thereby merit to love the
celestial Father forever and ever. Amen.
Act (2)
O most Sacred and Divine Heart of Jesus, from the abyss of my

nothingness I prostrate myself in your presence in order to give you all the
homage of love, adoration and praise which I am able, to lay before you all
my wants, by making known to you, as to my best friend, all my
wretchedness, my poverty, my failings and my lukewarmness. In a word,
all the wounds of my soul, beseeching you to have pity and compassion on
me, and to help me, according to the greatness of your mercies.
O Heart of love, I beseech you, by all that can move you, to bestow on
me this grace to save my soul, and the souls of all those who, like myself,
are in danger of being lost forever.
O most merciful Heart, do not allow me to perish amid the deluge of my
sins. Do with me what you will, if only I may love you for all eternity. I
have placed all my hope in you. Do not cast me, O sovereign remedy of all
my evils, the chief of which is sin.
O destroy this in me, I beseech you, and grant me forgiveness for all
the sins which I have committed during my lifetime, for which I am most
heartily sorry.
O Sacred Heart, make me and all those hearts which are able to love
you, feel and experience your supreme power. I beg this grace for my
parents, my friends and for all those who have been recommended to my
prayers, or who pray for me, and for whom I am specially bound to pray. I
beseech you to help them according to the necessities of each.
O most loving Heart, soften hardened sinners and comfort the souls in
Purgatory. Be the safe refuge of the dying and the consolation of the
afflicted and of the needy.
O Heart of love, be, lastly, my all in all, but especially be the haven of
rest for my soul at the hour of my death. Yes, receive me, at that moment,
into the bosom of your mercy. Amen.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
ACTS OF CONSECRATION
Act of consecration of a person – short form
My loving Jesus, I, N., give you my heart and I consecrate myself wholly
to you out of the grateful love I bear you, and as a reparation for all my
unfaithfulness to grace, and with your aid, I purpose never to sin again.
(The Raccolta (1857) 139)
Act of consecration of a person – longer form
I, N., give and consecrate to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ
my person and my life, my actions, penances and sufferings, not wishing to
make use of any part of my being for the future except in honouring, loving
and glorifying that Sacred Heart.
It is my irrevocable will to be entirely his, and to do everything for his
love, renouncing with my whole heart whatever might displease him.
I take you then, O most Sacred Heart, as the sole object of my love, as
the protector of my life, as the pledge of my salvation, as the remedy of
my frailty and inconstancy, as the repairer of all the defects of my life and
as my secure refuge in the hour of death.
Be then, O Heart of goodness, my justification before God the Father
and remove far from me the thunderbolts of his just wrath.
O Heart of love, I place my whole confidence in you. While I fear all
things from my malice and frailty, I hope all things from you goodness.
Consume, then, in me whatever can displease or be opposed to you,
and may your pure love be so deeply impressed on my heart that it may be
impossible that I should ever be separated from you or forget you.
I implore you, by all your goodness, that my name may be written in
you, for in you I wish to place all my happiness and all my glory, living and
dying in very bondage to you.
Act of consecration of a family
Sacred Heart of Jesus who manifested to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

the desire of reigning in Christian families, we today wish to proclaim your
most complete dominion over our own.
We would live in future with your life, we would cause to flourish in our
midst those virtues to which you have promised peace here below, we
would banish far from us the spirit of the world which you have cursed, and
you will reign over our minds in the simplicity of our faith, and over our
hearts by the whole-hearted love with which they will burn for you, the
flame of which we will keep alive by the frequent reception of your Holy
Eucharist.
O Divine Heart, deign to preside over our assemblies, to bless our
enterprises, both spiritual and temporal, to dispel our cares, to sanctify our
joys and to alleviate our sufferings.
If ever one or other of us should have the misfortune to afflict you,
remind him or her, O Heart of Jesus, that you are good and merciful to the
penitent sinner.
And when the hour of separation strikes, when death comes to cast
mourning into our midst, we will all, both those who go and those who
stay, be submissive to your eternal decrees.
We will console ourselves with the thought that a day will come when
the entire family, reunited in heaven, can sing forever your glories and
mercies.
May the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the glorious patriarch Saint
Joseph present this consecration to you and keep it in our minds all the
days of our life.
All glory to the Heart of Jesus, our King.
Act of consecration of a child
O Most Sacred and Adorable Heart of Jesus, we consecrate to you this

child, N., his (her) soul with all its faculties, his (her) heart with all its
affections, his (her) body with its senses, now and for all the days of his
(her) life.
O Most Merciful Heart of Jesus, grant that this child may never sully by
mortal sin the white robe of his (her) baptismal innocence.
O Most Loving Heart of Jesus, preserve this child in your divine fear and
love all the days of his (her) life, protect him (her) at the hour of death,
and grant him (her) the grace to see his (her) God face to face in the joys
of paradise. Amen.
Act of consecration of a country
This act of consecration was first made on Passion Sunday in 1873 when Ireland was
dedicated to the Sacred Heart. It has been adapted here for use in any country. It should be
made in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
Humbly prostrate, O Lord Jesus Christ, before your altar, on which you
are really present, we dedicate ourselves and everything dear to us to your
Sacred Heart.
We believe, Lord Jesus, that you are the only Son of the eternal Father,
the Word made Flesh, true God and true man, uniting two really distinct
natures, the human and the divine, in one divine Person.
We believe, O Lord Jesus, that for our salvation you suffered and died in
your human nature and that we have been redeemed by the Precious
Blood which issued from your Sacred Heart.
We believe that the merits of your Sacred Heart, Lord Jesus, are
applied to us in the sacraments, and that you have given to the Catholic
priesthood the power of forgiving sins in the Sacrament of Penance, and
have left us in the Blessed Eucharist, your body and blood, with your soul
and divinity, to strengthen us in our pilgrimage through the darkness of this
world.
We believe, O Lord Jesus, that you have founded the Holy Catholic
Church, the depository of your doctrines and precepts, to be the unerring
guide of your children in this valley of tears, that you have committed the
supreme government of this Church to your Vicar on earth, the Roman
Pontiff, rendering him, by your divine assistance, infallible in his decisions
addressed to the Church, regarding faith and morals.
We believe that you will be always with the pastors of the Church,
when united and acting with your Vicar on earth, and that the powers of
darkness can never lead into error or destroy this divinely instituted
Church, or the Rock of Peter on which she is built.
How can we adequately praise you, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for so
many gifts and graces? How can we ever sufficiently admire and adore that
infinite love for us which burns in you, the source and origin of all
blessings?
With the thousands of thousands of angels and saints of the
Apocalypse, we cry out, “The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive
power, and dignity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and
benediction to him that sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, benediction,
and honour, and glory, and power, forever and ever.” (Apocalypse 5: 12)
Filled with thankfulness and gratitude for all these benefits conferred on
us, without any merit on our part, again we consecrate ourselves, our
thoughts, words, and actions, our sorrows and our hopes, our friends, our
families, our parish, our diocese and our country to you, O Sacred Heart of
Jesus.
We desire to belong entirely to you, to know nothing but you, to seek
you before all things and to despise the pleasures, riches and honours of
this world, if they be an impediment to us in your service.
Teach us, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, meekness and humility by your
example in the grotto of Bethlehem and by every act of your life.
Teach us patience and resignation to the holy will of God by your agony
and sufferings on the cross.
Teach us also to admire your power, and wisdom and love, which shine
forth so wonderfully in the mystery of the Holy Eucharist.
We recommend to you, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, the prosperity of the
holy Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, the welfare
and happiness of our Holy Father the Pope, now abandoned by the powers
of earth and surrounded by great difficulties.
We recommend to you also the cause of so many bishops, priests and
other faithful Catholics cruelly persecuted in many countries and doomed to
suffer the severest trials, equal to those of the early martyrs, because they
will not betray the rights and liberties of the Church and subject their
consciences to the powers of earth.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, grant that we and all our afflicted brethren,
clad with the breastplate of faith and the helmet of salvation, may fight a
good fight, persevere to the end and merit an imperishable crown.
Above all, grant us true charity, so that, while serving our Creator, we
may love our neighbours as ourselves and, united in the performance of
good works, co-operate with each other in upholding religion and
promoting God's glory on earth.
We recommend to you, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, unhappy sinners
detained in the bonds of iniquity and straying in the mazes of indifference,
heresy or infidelity. May they be converted and live. May they return to the
fold of Christ, and to the jurisdiction of the one Shepherd.
We recommend to you, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, our own dear country.
Grant to her children, rich and poor, the advantages of a good Catholic
education. Inspire our rulers with wisdom and mercy so that we may lead
good and holy lives and, freed from the fear of our enemies, spend our
days in sanctity and justice.
May we live altogether for you, O Sacred Heart of Jesus. May our
thoughts be ever directed to you. May it be our greatest desire always to
serve you and promote your glory on earth, and, when we are called to
another world, may we die with your sacred Name, and with the names of
Mary and Joseph, on our lips.
Holy Virgin and Saint Joseph, present our petitions at the throne of
mercy and obtain for us the grace that, having served God faithfully on
earth, we may hereafter see him face to face, enjoy the happiness of his
presence, rejoice with the angels and saints in heaven, and sing the
praises of the Lord Jesus and his Sacred Heart, with raptures of delight, for
endless ages in the regions of eternal bliss. Amen.
(The Dominican Manual (1913) 208)
Act of consecration of all mankind
This is the act of consecration made by Pope Leo XIII on 25 May 1899 and published with
his Encyclical Letter of that day.
Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down on us

humbly prostrate before your altar.
We are yours and yours we wish to be, but to be more surely united
with you, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to your
most Sacred Heart.
Many indeed have never known you. Many, too, despising your
precepts, have rejected you.
Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to your
Sacred Heart.
Be you King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken
you, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned you.
Grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house, lest they die
of wretchedness and hunger.
Be you King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom
discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbour of truth and unity of
faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.
Be you King also of all those who sit in the ancient superstition of the
Gentiles, and refuse not to deliver them out of darkness into the light and
kingdom of God.
Grant, O Lord, to your Church, assurance of freedom and immunity from
harm.
Give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from
pole to pole with one cry, Praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our
salvation. To it be glory and honour forever. Amen.
O my amiable Redeemer, I give and consecrate myself to your Sacred

Heart without reserve.
I have in a manner nailed myself to your cross by the vows of my
profession. I renew them in this divine Heart in presence of heaven and
earth, and I return you thanks for having inspired me to make them.
I know that the yoke of your holy service is neither hard nor heavy. I do
not find myself embarrassed with my chains. On the contrary, I would wish
to multiply them or rivet them yet closer on me.
I embrace, then, the dear cross of my vocation, even to my death. It
will be all my pleasure, all my glory and all my delight.
God forbid that I should glory, that I should ever rejoice, save in the
cross of Jesus Christ.
God forbid that I should ever have any other treasure than his poverty,
any other delight than his sufferings any other love than himself.
No, no, my amiable Lord, never will I separate myself from you, and I
will attach myself to none but you, the narrowest paths of the life of
perfection to which I am called give me no alarm, because you are my light
and my strength.
I hope, then, O Lord, that you will render me stead fast under all
temptations, victorious against the efforts of my enemies, and that you will
stretch out over me that beneficent hand, which has bestowed on me so
many favours, and make me ever more and more liberal toward you.
I entreat this of you, O my adorable Jesus, by your Blood, by all your
wounds and by your Sacred Heart.
Grant that by the consecration which I make to you of all that I am, I
may become this day entirely renewed in your love. Amen.
Saint Claude de la Colombière
O divine Jesus, when we consider all that you have done for our
salvation, the cruel death you have endured, the state of humiliation and
ignominy to which you have been reduced for our love, we know not how
to testify to you the sentiments of our lively gratitude.
What do you ask from us, amiable Saviour, for all you have done for us,
for having become incarnate for us, for having delivered up yourself to
death on the cross, for having given yourself entirely to us?
You require, no doubt, that we should profit by the merits of your
sufferings, by living alone for you, loving you alone, by conforming
ourselves entirely to your Heart, and by consecrating ourselves without
reserve to that Heart.
To this Heart, so worthy of our homage and adoration.
To this Heart which is not only the symbol, but the organ, the seat, the
centre of your immense charity for us.
To this Heart so desirous of saving all men, which, during the space of
thirty three years, beat only for our welfare.
To this Heart, which was the source of so many labours, fatigues and
pains endured for us, of so many tears, and of that bloody sweat poured
out for us.
To this Heart, which has been, for us, plunged in a sea, an ocean, an
abyss of woe.
To this Heart, which was pierced with a lance for us, and from which for
us blood and water gushed forth.
To this Heart, whose love could only be satisfied when entirely
exhausted for us.
To this Heart, which has so loved men, and is so little loved by men.
Heart of Jesus, infinitely good, infinitely amiable! O that we could gain
over and consecrate to you the hearts of all men!
We desire at least to love you for all those who have not loved you, for
those who do not love you.
Mary, Spouse of the Spirit of love! Cherubim! Seraphim! Angels, and
Saints, and Friends of God! Supply the deficiency of our love for the Heart
of Jesus. Offer to him that burning love with which you are incessantly
inflamed, in reparation for so many and such grievous outrages offered to
it, and which we would wish to expiate by torrents of tears, and the
effusion of our blood.
Heart of Jesus! True Ark of alliance! Throne of grace! Sanctuary of
mercy! O sacred Fire, which ever burns and is never consumed! Furnace,
which inflames the whole universe! Plenitude of love, from which all have
received! Source from which we must all draw!
Who will be able to separate us from you, who will deprive us of the
confidence we repose in you?
Jesus, amiable Saviour, have we not reason to believe that you have
deferred, until our unhappy age, to propose to public adoration your
wounded Heart, because most capable of moving us to compassion and of
triumphing over the most obdurate sinners?
We will, then, place all our confidence in this tender Heart, ever ready
to communicate to us the effects of your mercies, which vouchsafed to be
pierced with a lance, in order to show the excess of your charity for us, and
to afford us a secure refuge in all our misfortunes.
Yes, Jesus. We have the most firm hope that as you have granted the
Church the grace of honouring your Sacred Heart with solemn worship, you
will never abandon her, but that you will ever protect her in a most special
manner.
Jesus, our God, our Brother, our love and our all, we consecrate
ourselves anew to the worship of your adorable Heart. We offer to you our
country, the hearts of all your faithful servants. We reunite them in the
bonds of charity. We offer them and consecrate them to your Heart, in
order to enclose them in this sacred asylum, and that they may form but
one heart with yours, in time and eternity.
Holy Virgin, Mother of God, and our Mother! These hearts belong to
you. They are in your hands. We have put them at your disposal, by
consecrating ourselves to you, as our Protectress, our Advocate and our
Queen. We are no longer in our own power, and your maternal heart will
incline you to reclaim your rights over them.
Graciously forget all our offences and ingratitude. On this day, we
supplicate you to offer up our hearts to the most adorable Trinity, with
which you have contracted an ineffable alliance, and with which you enjoy
the most powerful influence.
Offer them to the most merciful Heart of your dear Son. When
presented by you, he will accept them, change them, bless them and
sanctify them. Their deficiencies being supplied by you, he will restore
peace to his Church. He will maintain order and happiness in the country.
He will make piety and virtue flourish and cause the Catholic faith to be
known and embraced through the land. He will thus establish his kingdom
permanently among us. Amen.
May the most Sacred Heart of the suffering Jesus be blessed, loved and
adored at every moment.
May the most holy Heart of Mary, which was pierced with the sword of
grief, be blessed, loved and venerated forever.
(Formulary of Prayer (1900) 149)
ACT OF CONTRITION
O my Saviour and my God, whose Heart, pierced with love and grief,
felt such sorrow for the sins of the whole world, why cannot I feel the same
grief which I have caused you by mine?
Supply, I beg of you, by the contrition you felt, for what is wanting to
me. Imprint in my heart a horror and fear of the slightest offences. Change
and remodel this unhappy heart after your own, which is infinitely pure,
infinitely holy and always inflamed with the love of your heavenly Father.
I protest that I wish to love nothing in future but what he loves and to
detest everything that displeases him. Amen.
(Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1863) 197)
ACTS OF DEVOTION
The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us.
Eternal Word, made man for love of us, humbly prostrate at your feet
we adore you with our soul's deepest veneration, and to repair our
ingratitude towards this great benefit of your Incarnation, we join our poor
hearts with the hearts of all who love you, offering you with them our
humble prayer of thanksgiving and praise.
Pierced with the though of the exceeding great humility, goodness and
tenderness which we behold in your Divine Heart, we pray you of your
grace, give grace, that in our lives we too may be your followers in the
practice of these virtues to you so dear.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
He was crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was
buried.
Jesus, loving Savour, humbly prostrate at your feet we adore you with
our soul's deepest veneration, and to give you proof of our real sorrow we
for our hardness of heart towards you, in all those outrages and woes
which your loving Heart made you suffer for our salvation in your sad
Passion and most bitter death, we here unite ourselves with the hearts of
all who love you and with them we give you thanks with our whole soul.
We marvel at the boundless patience and generosity of your Sacred
Heart, and we pray you fill our poor hearts with the spirit of true Christian
penance, that thereby we may courageously embrace all suffering and
make your Cross our great comfort and our glory.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
You gave them bread from heaven to eat, containing in itself all
sweetness.
Jesus, burning with love for us, humbly prostrate at your feet we adore
you with our soul's deepest veneration, and in reparation for the outrages
which your Sacred Heart daily receives in the Most Holy Sacrament of the
Altar, we unite ourselves with the hearts of all who love you and give you
tenderest thanks.
We love too, in that Sacred Heart of yours, the incomprehensible your
fire of love of your eternal Father, and we pray you inflame our poor hearts
with burning charity towards you and our neighbours.
Lastly, most loving Jesus, we pray you, by the sweetness of your Sacred
Heart, convert the sinner, console the sufferer, help the dying, succour the
souls in Purgatory.
Make all our hearts one with yours in the bonds of true peace and
charity, deliver us from sudden and unforeseen death, and grant us a death
holy and peaceful. Amen.
V. Heart of Jesus, burning with love of us.

R. Inflame our hearts with love of you.
LET US PRAY. Grant, we beseech you, Almighty God, that we who glory
in the most Sacred Heart of your well-beloved Son and renew in our minds
the remembrance of the great benefits of his heavenly charity towards us,
may feel the delight of those same benefits by their operation and the fruit
within our souls. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Sacred Heart of my Jesus! I adore you with the three powers of my
soul. I consecrate to you my thoughts, my words, my works, myself.
I purpose to give you acts of adoration, love and glory, like those you
give your eternal Father.
Be, I beseech you, the reparation of my transgressions, the protection
of my life, my refuge and asylum in the hour of my death.
By your sighs, and by that sea of bitterness in which you were drowned
for me throughout your mortal life, grant me true contrition for my sins,
contempt of earthly things, burning desire of eternal glory, trust in your
boundless merits and final perseverance in your grace.
Heart of Jesus, all love! I offer you these humble prayers for myself and
for all who unite with me in spirit to adore you.
Vouchsafe of your great goodness to hear and answer them, chiefly for
that one of us who will first close this mortal life.
Sweet Heart of Jesus, pour into his (her) heart in his (her) death agony,
your inward consolations. Take him (her) within your sacred wounds.
Cleanse him (her) from all stains in that furnace of love, that so you may
soon open to him (her) the gate your eternal glory, there to intercede with
you for all those who yet tarry in this their land of exile.
Holiest Heart of my most loving Jesus! I purpose to renew and offer
these acts of adoration and these prayers for myself, the wretched sinner,
and for all who are associated with me in adoration of you, every moment
that I live, down to the last moment of my life.
I recommend to you, my Jesus, the Holy Church, your well-beloved
Spouse, my own true Mother, the souls who are satisfying your justice, the
sinner, the sorrowful, the dying and all men on the whole face of the earth.
Let not your Blood be shed in vain for them, and vouchsafe lastly to
apply it to the relief of the souls in Purgatory, and above all to those who
in life were wont devoutly to adore you.
Most loving heart of Mary, who among the hearts of all God's creatures
are at once purest, most inflamed with love for Jesus, and most pitiful
towards us poor sinners, gain for us from the Heart of Jesus our Redeemer
all the graces which we ask of you.
Mother of Mercies, one throb, a single beat of your heart offered by you
to the Heart of Jesus, full of that filial love he had for you, and will ever
have, will not fail to hear and answer our request. Amen.
ACTS OF LOVE
Act (1)
O most amiable Heart of Jesus, which unites to the divine perfections

proper to the Son of God, all the human perfections proper to the Son of
Man.
Heart the most noble, the most powerful, the most liberal, the most
magnificent of all hearts, and at the same time the most sweet, the most
humble, the most pure, the most innocent, the most patient and the most
charitable.
Heart of our God, of our Redeemer, of our Benefactor. Heart of our
Friend, of our Brother, of our Father, of the Spouse of our souls, worthy by
these amiable titles, of all our tenderness, you are the true and solid lover
of men.
Not only the just but sinners are included in your boundless charity.
You were pierced with a lance on the cross, for our love. You are open
to be the refuge of pure souls, and the place of their repose.
You have been the innocent victim of our sins, and, in order to expiate
them, you were immolated to the divine justice with inexpressible anguish.
O Sacred Heart, which by all these qualities are the most worthy object
of our love, of our gratitude and of our tenderness, I wish I were able to
consume myself for your love.
Yes, from this moment, assisted by your grace, I love you with all my
heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and I would wish to make you
loved by all men.
I rejoice for the infinite perfections which you possess, and for the
homages, praises and benedictions, which you continually receive from the
angels and saints.
How much do I grieve that I have until now loved you so little.
Kindle in my heart a flame, which may atone for my former tepidity and
which may always increase, until I will have the happiness of being entirely
and perfectly inflamed with your love in a happy eternity. Amen.
Act (2)
O good and merciful Saviour, it is the desire of my heart to return you

love for love. My greatest sorrow is that you are not loved by men, and in
particular that my own heart is so cold, so selfish and ungrateful.
Deeply sensible of my own weakness and poverty, I trust that your own
grace will enable me to offer you an act of pure and sincere love. And I
wish to offer you this act of love in reparation for the coldness and neglect
that are shown to you by your creatures in the Sacrament of your love.
O Jesus, my sovereign Good, I love you, not for the sake of the reward
which you have promised to those who love you, but purely for yourself.
I love you above all things that can be loved, above all pleasures, and
in fine above myself and all that is not you, protesting in presence of
heaven and earth, that I will live and die purely and simply in your holy
love, and that if to love you thus I must be persecuted, tormented, and put
to death, I am perfectly satisfied, and I will ever say with Saint Paul,
Nothing can separate me from the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ,
which I love and will love eternally.
O Jesus, supreme Master of all hearts, I love you, I adore you, I praise
you, I thank you, because I am now all your own. Rule over me, and
transform my soul into the likeness of yourself, so that it may bless and
glorify you forever in the abode of the saints.
Act (3)
O most loving Heart of my only beloved, being unable to love and

glorify you according to the extent of the desire you have given me, I invite
all heaven and earth to assist me, and I unite myself to the burning
seraphim in order to love you.
O Heart, burning with love, why do you not set heaven and earth on fire
with your pure flame, to consume whatever they contain, that all creatures
may breathe only your love?
Make me suffer or die, or at least change my heart entirely, and
consume me with your most ardent heat, that I may love you perfectly.
Divine fire, most pure flames from the Heart of my only love, burn me
without compassion, consume me without resistance.
Why do you spare me, since I am only fit to burn, and only deserve fire?
O Love! Love of heaven and earth, come into my heart and reduce me to
ashes! O devouring fire of the Divinity, come and dissolve me, burn me,
consume me in the midst of your pure flames, which cause those who die
in them to live.
Act (4)
Permit me to turn to you, O Divine and Adorable Heart of Jesus my

Saviour, abyss of love and mercy, and to ask you, full of astonishment at
the sight of your goodness and my own ingratitude, why, O my God, have
you invented a new method of immolating yourself for me in the Divine
Eucharist?
Do you think it little, O Lord, to have once endured for me the scourges,
pains, insults and death of the cross? Now that you are glorious and
immortal, must I still see you continually exposed to insults in your
Sacrament of love, where you are so often despised, insulted and trodden
underfoot even by those who ought to love you most ardently.
Can I see myself in the number of those ungrateful wretches without
dying of grief and shame? O my God, pierce my heart with your love and
put an end to my ingratitude. Remember that your Adorable Heart, bearing
the weight of my sins on the Mount of Olives and the cross, was afflicted
and grieved at the sight of my miseries.
Do not permit that your sadness and sorrows, your blood, tears and
sweat should be unprofitable to me. Touch my heart efficaciously, O my
divine Saviour. Though I am ungrateful and unworthy of your love, you
cease not to love me. You loved me when I loved you not, when I did not
even wish that you should love me. But now that I wish it, grant me what I
ask of you.
I give you my heart, place me within yours. Grant that this moment
may be that of my conversion, that I may begin to love you, never again to
cease doing so, that I may be wholly dedicated to your love as your slave,
that I may die to myself to have no longer any life but for you and in you.
Amen.
Act (5)
I have nothing, O my loving Saviour and my God. I have nothing that

can please you. I can do nothing. I am nothing. But I have a heart and that
suffices. My health, my honour and my life may be taken from me, but no-
one can ever take from my my heart. I have a heart and with this heart I
can love you, O my adorable Jesus, and with this heart I desire to love you.
O my God, I wish to love you and always to love you, and for no other
reason than to love you always.
ACT OF OBLATION
An oblation of the Sacred Heart and sufferings of Jesus to his eternal Father in satisfaction
for offences committed.
Almighty and eternal Father, permit me to offer you the Sacred Heart of
your dearest Son, inflamed with love of you and wounded with love of us.
Receive, O merciful Father, this Divine Heart pleading for us through
that ready obedience to your holy will by which he subjected himself on
earth to all our miseries, pains and afflictions.
Receive, in satisfaction for our sins, that love of his Sacred Heart which
caused him to undergo for us that cruel flagellation at the pillar and that
tormenting crown of thorns.
Receive that Divine Heart which, through love of us, embraced the
heavy cross and bore its weight to Calvary.
Receive, O eternal Father, that most inflamed and humble Heart of
Jesus, which through love of us, laid itself on the hard wood of the cross
and offered its sacred hands and feet to cruel executioners, to be pierced
through with iron nails.
Behold, O heavenly Father, this sacrifice of love, offered to you for us
poor sinners in the Heart of your dear Son. It is wounded, it bleeds and
expires, through the infinite love it has for us.
My God, if we have offended you, will not the sight of this Heart suffice
to appease your anger?
Receive it, merciful Father, in atonement for our many offences. It is
most worthy of your love and everlasting complacency. Amen.
ACT OF PRAISE AND ADORATION
Adorable Heart of Jesus, hypostatically united to the eternal Word, and

thereby the true Heart of God, ineffable Heart of incomprehensible
perfection, every sentiment and affection of which correspond to the
greatness and infinite majesty of God, and therefore worthy of infinite
adoration and praise.
In you, O Divine Heart, all celestial gifts are united.
You are the inexhaustible source of every good. You are the principle of
all the virtues, the most pure, the most sublime, the most heroic. You are
the throne of the created and eternal charity. You alone have been a victim
worthy of the divine justice, alone capable of satisfying it.
You are by all these titles, the most worthy object of the praise,
homage and adoration of angels and men.
Prostrate in your presence, with the most profound submission of which
my heart is capable, I acknowledge with joy and admiration your greatness
and unbounded excellence. I am sorry I cannot, by my homages, my
adorations and praises procure for you the glory which is your due.
O that I could captivate with your love all those who do not know you,
who do not adore you, and engage them to render to you the worship and
the honour which you deserve!
But, alas, as I am very sensible that the affections of my heart are
nothing, that they are unworthy of you, I offer you, in order to supply my
unworthiness and my inability, all the honours and all the praises which
you receive from the angels and saints.
I offer you that which is still more acceptable, namely, the Heart of the
august Mary. I unite my misery to this sublime Heart, which, as far as a
pure creature can do it, is alone capable of honouring and praising you.
Supported by these merits, I offer myself entirely to you, and I
consecrate to your glory all that I am. Hear my vows, O Adorable Heart,
receive me under your amiable and all-powerful protection. Amen.
ACTS OF REPARATION
Act for the Feast of the Sacred Heart
O most amiable and adorable Heart of Jesus, centre of all hearts,

glowing with charity and inflamed with zeal for the interest of your Father
and the salvation of mankind! Heart ever sensible of our misery and ever
ready to redress our evils!
The real victim of love in the holy Eucharist, and a propitiatory sacrifice
for sin on the altar of the cross, seeing that the generality of Christians
make no return for your mercies other than contempt for your favours,
forgetfulness of their own obligation and ingratitude to the best of
benefactors, is it not just that we your servants, penetrated with the
deepest sense of the indignities offered to you, should, as far as is in our
power, make a due and satisfactory reparation of honour to your most
sacred majesty?
Prostrate, therefore, in body, and with humble and contrite hearts, we
solemnly declare before heaven and earth our utter detestation and
abhorrence of such conduct.
Inexpressible was the bitterness which our manifold sins brought on
your tender Heart. Insufferable the weight of our iniquities, which pressed
your face to the earth in the Garden of Olives, and inconceivable your
anguish when, expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary, yet
you did, with your last breath, pray for sinners and invite them to their duty
and repentance. This we know, dear Redeemer, and would most willingly
redress your sufferings by our own or share with you in yours.
O merciful Jesus, ever present on our altars with a heart open to
receive all who labour and are burdened! O adorable Heart of Jesus, source
of true contrition, give to our hearts the spirit of sincere penance, and to
our eyes a fountain of tears, that we may bewail all our sins and the sins of
the world.
Pardon, divine Jesus, all the injuries and outrages done to you by
sinners. Forgive all the impieties, irreverences and sacrileges which have
been committed against you in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist since
its institution.
Graciously receive the small tribute of our sincere repentance, as an
agreeable offering in your sight, and in requital for the benefits we daily
receive from the altar, where you are a living and continued sacrifice, and
in union with that bloody holocaust you presented to your eternal Father
on the cross.
Sweet Jesus, give your blessing to the ardent desire we now entertain,
and the holy resolution we have taken, of ever loving and adoring you with
our whole mind and whole heart, in the Sacrament of your love, thus to
repair, by a true conversion of heart and ardent zeal for your glory, our
past negligences and infidelities.
O adorable Jesus who knows our frailty, be our Mediator with your
heavenly Father who we have so grievously offended. Strengthen our
weakness, confirm our resolutions, and with your charity, humility,
meekness and patience, cancel the multitude of our iniquities. Be our
support, our refuge and our strength, that nothing from now on in life or
death may ever separate us from you. Amen.
Adorable Heart of Jesus, glowing with love for us, and inflamed with
zeal for our salvation.
O Heart ever sensible of our misery and the wretchedness to which our
sins have reduced us, infinitely rich in mercy to heal the wounds of our
souls, behold us humbly prostrate before you to express the sorrow that
fills our hearts for the coldness and indifference with which we have so
long requited the numberless benefits that you have conferred on us.
With a deep sense of the outrages that have been heaped on you by
our sins and the sins of others, we come to make a solemn reparation of
honour to your most sacred Majesty.
It was our sins that overwhelmed your Heart with bitterness.
It was the weight of our iniquities that pressed down your face to the
earth in the Garden of Olives, and caused you to expire in anguish and
agony on the cross.
But now, repenting and sorrowful, we cast ourselves at your feet and
implore forgiveness.
Adorable Heart of Jesus, source of true contrition and ever merciful to
the penitent sinner, impart to our hearts the spirit of penance, and give to
our eyes a fountain of tears, that we may sincerely bewail our sins now
and for the rest of our days. Oh, would that we could blot them out, even
with our blood!
Pardon them, O Lord, in your mercy, and pardon and convert to you all
that have committed irreverences and sacrileges against you in the
Sacrament of your love, and thus give another proof that your mercy is
above all your works.
Divine Jesus, with you there is mercy and plentiful redemption.
Deliver us from our sins, accept the sincere desire we now entertain
and our holy resolution, relying on the assistance of your grace, from now
on to be faithful to you.
In order to repair the sins of ingratitude by which we have grieved your
most tender and loving Heart, we are resolved in the future ever to love
and honour you in the Most Adorable Sacrament of the Altar, where you
are ever present to hear and grant our petitions and be the food and life of
our souls.
Be, O compassionate Jesus, our mediator with your heavenly Father,
who we have so grievously offended, strengthen our weakness, confirm
these, our resolutions of amendment, and as your Sacred Heart is our
refuge and our hope when we have sinned, so may it be the strength and
support of our repentance, that nothing in life or death may ever again
separate us from you. Amen.
Divine Jesus! Ever present on our altars, we cast ourselves at your

sacred feet, penetrated with lively sorrow at the sight of the ingratitude
and outrages which unceasingly afflict your Heart.
Look on us as victims laden with our own sins and the sins of all
mankind, that, by this homage, we may offer you an acceptable atonement
and solemn reparation.
Have on mercy us, O Jesus, have mercy on us! From the cross you
forgave your executioners. Pardon us also. Listen to the pleadings of your
Sacred Heart and our sins will be consumed in its love.
We do not merit this grace, but with the fire of your love, destroy in us
all that may be displeasing to you and implant in our hearts sentiments
worthy of appeasing your justice.
Sacred Heart of Jesus! Watch over our Sovereign Pontiff and your holy
Church, our Mother. Be the salvation of Christians, the safeguard of those
who have recourse to you, the refuge of sinners.
Grant us the grace of devoting ourselves solely and entirely to your
service and thus gaining souls to your love, may we finally share in the
inheritance you have reserved for those who love you. Amen.
Act after receiving Holy Communion
O Adorable Heart of my divine Redeemer, which infinite love has

concealed under the Eucharistic species, to be the food, strength, refuge,
consolation and director of our souls, pierced, as I am, with sorrow, in
reflecting on the impious and sacrilegious conduct of many bad Christians,
who receive you in the state of mortal sin and dishonour you in such a
variety of ways, considering the negligence of many lukewarm Christians,
who receive you without preparation, devotion, and scarce without any
reflection, when I think, in fine, of the faults I have so often committed
against this august Sacrament, I detest all these crimes, from the bottom
of my heart, and I desire to make you reparation for them.
Pardon us, O source of infinite love, and to render us more worthy of
pardon, change our hearts entirely.
Grant us the grace never to approach your holy table unprepared,
through human views or through custom, and that we never absent
ourselves through negligence, but that we may always approach with a
pure conscience, a lively faith, right intention, ardent charity and profound
humility.
Grant, also, O God of goodness, that we may have the happiness to
receive you worthily at our death, and live by you, and with you, for a
blessed eternity. Amen.
O Jesus, only Son of the Living God, who by an incomprehensible effect

of your love was pleased to be made man, to be born in a stable, to live
amid labours and sufferings, to die on a cross and to leave us, as a
perpetual pledge of your tenderness, your own Body and Blood for the
nourishment of our souls, in the ineffable Sacrament of the Eucharist, you
behold at your feet a criminal covered with confusion, who comes, in the
spirit of union with all the associates in the adoration of your Divine Heart,
humbly to confess his ingratitude, his iniquities, and those of all other men,
that he may make reparation for them as far as in him lies.
O loving Jesus, we have sinned against heaven and before you. What
has your most Sacred Heart not suffered on our part in the course of your
sacred life, in your bitter Passion, and from the moment that you have
dwelt among us in the Sacrament of your love!
O with how much bitterness, opprobrium and grief have we deluged
your Divine Heart! Pardon, mercy.
O Adorable Heart of Jesus! Mercy for me, mercy for all men and for our
land in particular!
I detest, with all the sincerity of my soul, and with the most profound
and bitter grief, everything which has ever offended you in myself or
others. I detest it for the love you deserve and which is supremely due to
you.
O that I could efface with my tears and wash away with my blood, the
injuries which we have done to you.
O that I could repay you, by my repentance, by my works and by my
love, all the glory, honour and satisfaction of which you have been robbed
by the injuries and outrages that have been committed against you!
Accept at least the earnest desire with which you inspire me.
Vouchsafe, O Heart infinitely rich in mercy, to light again in my heart
and that of all men the sacred fire which you came to kindle on the earth.
Let it purify them, let it inflame them, let it make of them one heart with
your Heart.
Pour down, I beseech you, your most precious and abundant
benedictions on your holy Church, and those who govern it, on this diocese,
on this region, and on all those who are united with us in devotion to your
Sacred Heart.
O Heart of Jesus, live, reign in all hearts, for time and eternity. Amen.
(A Manual of Prayers (1898) 343)
O Sacred Heart of my amiable Saviour, how sensible your love renders

you to our miseries!
O my God, what goodness in you to become for us a victim in the
Adorable Eucharist, and yet, what do you see in the heart of most men, but
revolt against your will and ingratitude for your benefit!
Was it not enough, O Jesus, to abandon yourself once to a cruel agony
in the Garden of Olives, where you bore the burden of our sins?
Must these same pains be daily renewed on your altars at the sight of
so much iniquity?
What were then and what are now the sentiments of your Heart?
How can hearts be so hard as not to be touched by it?
Permit me, O my Redeemer, prostrate and annihilated before you, to
make you now an act of reparation for all the insults with which your
children still load you, and for all the bitterness with which they fill your
Heart.
Would that I could wash in my tears and blood every spot where you
are outraged and by every species of humiliation atone for the unworthy
contempt shown for your graces!
Would, above all, that I could dispose all hearts to become a sacrifice to
you and console you by this homage for the guilty insensibility of those
who have been unwilling to know you, or knowing, been unwilling to love
you!
I will at least, O Lord, offer myself. Immolate me, consume me as your
victim, but before all purify me, make me begin to love but you, live for
you, nor ever take back my heart once consecrated to you.
In fine, let me find in your Heart my perpetual asylum, my peace at the
hour of death and beatitude for eternity. Amen.
(St John's Manual (1855) 765)
ACT OF REPARATION OF HONOUR
O Divine Heart of Jesus, boundless source of love and goodness, how

much do I regret that I have so often forgotten you and so little loved you.
O Sacred Heart, you deserve the love and the devotion of all those
hearts which you have infinitely loved and cherished, yet you receive from
them nothing but coldness and ingratitude, and especially from my
unfaithful heart which justly merits your anger.
But as you are a Heart of love you are also full of goodness, from which
I hope for forgiveness and reconciliation.
Alas, O Divine Heart, I acknowledge with the deepest sorrow my too
great lukewarmness, and confess the unrighteousness of my wicked heart
in robbing you unjustly of the love which is due to you alone, in order to
appropriate it to myself or some other earthly object.
O most gentle Heart, if the sorrow and the shame of a heart which sees
its error can make atonement to you, forgive my heart, for its want of love
and fidelity has put it in this state.
Alas! What could it expect but hatred and punishment unless it hoped
for every thing from your mercy?
O Heart of my God, most holy Heart, Heart to which alone the pardon
of sinners belongs, have mercy, I beseech you, on this wretched heart of
mine. All its faculties unite to make, with the utmost humility, a reparation
of honour to you for all its wanderings and infidelities.
Oh, how could I have refused so long to give you my heart, for you
alone are its rightful owner. I am sorry, with my whole heart, for having
strayed so far from you and your love, from the fountain of all good, in a
word, from the Heart of my Jesus, who, without having any need of me,
first sought for and loved me.
O most Adorable Heart, how could I have thus treated you, on whose
love and goodness I am wholly dependent, and if withdrew either the one
or the other for a moment, I should be brought to the greatest
wretchedness or be utterly destroyed.
O loving Heart, how infinite has been your goodness to have borne so
long with me in gratitude. There remains nothing but for your mercy to
forgive my wretched and inconstant heart.
O Heart of my Jesus, I now consecrate and give you all my love and my
heart. I give both to you forever, but with a profound feeling of shame on
account of having so long refused you that which was your own.
O Divine Heart, you would prove to me the excess of your love by
making me capable of loving you, and, alas, I have profited so badly of this
opportunity of meriting your favours.
I am truly sorry and I most humbly beseech you, O Heart of my Jesus,
to renew my heart, until now so faithless.
Grant that it may be bound to you from now on by the bonds of love
and may draw so much nearer to you as it has until now wandered far from
you and, as you are my Creator, be also, I beseech you, my everlasting
reward. Amen.
ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
My good Lord, my dear Jesus! I am sorry for having wounded your

loving Heart by my sins, because you are infinitely good and sin displeases
you.
Like the beloved disciple, let me rest on your Heart, and let me grieve,
together with you, for the outrages that are committed against you in the
Sacrament of your love.
I give you my heart and my love, if my poor love can comfort you. I
love you above all things, and I desire to possess you within my soul.
Since I am unable now to receive you sacramentally, come at least
spiritually into my heart, and nourish my soul until life everlasting.
Let my soul, O Lord, feel your sweetness. Let me taste how sweet you
are, O Lord, that, being allured by your love, I may never sin by running
passionately after worldly pleasures.
“You are the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever.”
O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, take away from
me whatever may hurt me and displease you.
Give me but your love and your grace! May the sweet flame of your
love consume my soul, that so I may die to the world for the love of you,
as you vouchsafed to die on the cross for the love of me.
ACT OF ZEAL
Through the Heart of Jesus, my Way, Truth and Life, I approach you, O
eternal Father. I adore you for those who adore you not. I love you for
those who love you not. I acknowledge you for all who are wilfully blind,
who, through contempt, do not acknowledge you.
I wish through this Divine Heart to satisfy for the duties of all mankind.
In spirit I go throughout the world to seek for souls redeemed by the
Precious Blood of my divine Lord, in order to make reparation for all
through this Divine Heart.
I embrace them in order to present them to you through him and
through him I beg the grace of their conversion. Eternal Father, would you
suffer them not to know Jesus and not to live for him who died for them?
You see, O heavenly Father, that as yet they do not live. O make them
live in this Divine Heart. You know, O Incarnate Word, Jesus my beloved,
all that I desire to say to your divine Father through your Divine Heart and
holy soul, for you are in the Father and he is in you.
Grant then, my request. In union with you I present these souls to him.
Grant that they may be one with you. Amen.
(The Manual of the Sacred Heart (1866) 198)
ASPIRATIONS
Devout aspiration
Most amiable Heart of Jesus, beloved object of our most tender

affections, may all honour, glory, love and benediction be ever given to
you.
Be our comfort in adversity, our guide in prosperity, our safety in
dangers and protection against all our enemies, visible and invisible. Amen.
Ten aspirations
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, Admirable Heart, worthy of the majesty of God

and of the mercy of the Redeemer, how little are your perfections known!
Enlighten my soul in the knowledge of your unbounded excellence, that I
may render to you the glory and the praises which are your due.
O Heart of my Jesus, infinitely amiable! Possess my heart, unite it so
closely to you, that it may never be separated from you.
O Heart, infinitely holy, model of all hearts! Sanctify my heart and
render it like yours.
O Sacred Heart, inexhaustible source of graces! Enrich my soul with the
treasures which are contained in yours.
O Sovereign King of Hearts! Submit to your sweet empire my ungrateful
and rebellious heart.
O Heart of Jesus, always inflamed with the divine love, the most pure
and the most perfect! Kindle in my heart your divine charity.
O Heart of Jesus, the most delightful object of the complacency of the
eternal Father! Make me become worthy of his benign countenance,
perfect my affections with yours and deign to supply, by the sanctity of
your works, the imperfection of mine.
O Divine Heart, the seat of all virtues! Teach my heart to relish and
imitate these virtues.
O Heart, sorrowful until death for the sins of the world! Penetrate me
with sorrow for my sins.
O amiable Heart, pierced with a lance for the love of me, and open to
serve as a refuge for pure souls! Purify me, in order that I may be admitted
into this holy and pleasing abode.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, abounding in goodness and tenderness for us,
may all in us be consecrated to you!
V. Jesus, meek and humble of Heart.

R. Make our hearts like yours.
Great God who has deposited all the treasures of grace and of science
in the Sacred Heart of your well-beloved Son, open to us this plentiful
source of all gifts and make us worthy to receive the influence of its
superabundant merits. Amen.
EJACULATIONS
Short ejaculations
All praise, honour and glory to the Divine Heart of Jesus.

Divine Heart of Jesus, convert sinners, save the dying, set free the
holy souls in Purgatory.
Heart of Jesus, burning with love of us, inflame our hearts with love
of you.
O Heart of Jesus, saturated with indignities, make me share in your

chalice.
O Heart of Jesus, steeped in an ocean of sorrows, steep my heart

in your tears.
O Heart of Jesus, plunged in an abyss of humiliations and suffering,

destroy my self-love and pride.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like yours.

May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere!

O sweetest Heart of Jesus! I implore that I may ever love you more
and more.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, your kingdom come.

Sweet Heart of Jesus be my love.

O sweet Jesus, grant that I may die the death of those devoted to
your Divine Heart.
Good Jesus, too late I have known you, too late I have loved you! I will
love you, because you have loved me first. Grant me a heart that may
think of you, a soul that may love you.
I will know you Lord, who knows me, I will know you, the strength of
my soul. Show yourself to me, O my comforter.
Grant that my heart may desire you. Desiring you, may seek you.
Seeking you, may find you, and finding you, may love you.
O love, which burns always and is never extinguished, inflame me
wholly with your fire, with your love, with your sweetness!
O my joy, draw my heart to you! Sweet food of my soul, may I feed on
you!
You have loved me Lord more than myself, for you have been willing to
die for me, that you might redeem a servant, you have delivered up
yourself.
Grant to my heart repentance, to my spirit contrition, to my eyes a
fountain of tears.
Extinguish in me the desires of the flesh and inflame me with the fire of
your love.
Look down, O holy Father, on the torments of the Redeemer and forgive
the sins of the redeemed.
O Lord Jesus! I am the wound of your torments and the cause of your
death. I am the bruises of your Passion. I am the burden of your anguish.
I entreat of you, O my hope, through all your mercies, to forgive my
iniquities.
I could offend you, O holy Father, of myself, but I could not appease
you. Behold in your Son what will cause you to show mercy to your
servant.
He is a Priest and a sacrifice for us to you, and he is a sacrifice, because
he is a Priest.
I should despair, on account of my exceeding great sins, unless your
Word, O my God, had been made Flesh and had dwelt among us.
O charity! O mercy! O my Redeemer and my hope! In you I breathe, to
you I sigh.
I, who you love, am not worthy, but certainly you, who I wish to love,
are not unworthy.
Hope of my heart, if I have not as yet deserved to love you as much as
I ought, at least I desire to love you as much as I ought.
Grant that I may see you, the joy of my heart. Grant that I may love
you, the life of my soul.
Be in my mind, be in my heart, because I languish with love, because
without you I die. It is better for me not to exist, than to be without Jesus.
O Lord Jesus, light of the hearts of those who see you, and life of the
souls of those who love you, come into my heart, I beseech you!
Come into my soul, that you may possess it, and that I may place you
as a seal on my heart.
Be with me, you who I seek, who I love, who, with my heart and
mouth, as I as I am able, I praise and adore.
O my God, my Jesus, who will I love, if I love not you, my sovereign

Good?
Place me within your wounds, unite me to your Heart, that I may never
more separate myself from you.
O most merciful Jesus! I weep for the time when I did not know you, I
weep for the sins by which I have offended you. Ah, how many years have
I lost, in which I might have loved you!
I weep for my sins, and I will always weep for the outrages that are
committed against your love and against your most sweet Heart.
Accept, O holy Father and my God, the most sweet sentiments of the
Heart of your blessed Jesus. I offer them to you in satisfaction for my sins
and those of the whole world.
O my Beloved, my Lord, why do men forget you! Why do they not love
you, who died to love us!
What can I give you to repay some little of the great debt I owe you?
O offer my heart to your love, your love to yourself.
My adorable Saviour and my God, I hope you, in you I will live and die.
O Heart, wounded through love of me, wound mine with your holy love.
O may my heart burn with your most sweet love, and melt with
contrition for having so much offended you.
May I live in grief and contrition, to die loving you, in you and with you.
When, my Jesus, will I see you, to love you always.
When will I cling to your adorable feet, embrace your sacred side and
wholly unite myself to your most loving Heart?
O my Saviour, my mercy, show now what you can do in me. Help me in
my sorrows, in my afflictions, in my fears.
In your mercy watch over me in life, defend me in dangers, save me at
my last hour.
I consecrate to you my life forever, to you every breath I draw, to you
all the motions of my poor heart.
I offer and unite, to your life and Passion, every action, every good
work I do. Help me to do much that I may love you more.
Glory be to you, O my God, as it was, as it is, and as it ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
EXERCISE IN HONOUR OF THE HOLY TRINITY
BY THE SACRED HEART
O Supreme and Adorable Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one only
God, I adore you with the most profound respect.
God the Father, Sovereign Creator, Father infinitely powerful, the
heavens and the earth are your works, and you have created me to your
likeness. All that I have, I possess from your bounty, and all that I am, is
already yours.
God the Son, Divine Word, my Redeemer, my Model, my Salvation, you
have delivered me from hell, you have opened heaven to me in shedding
your Precious Blood and in dying for me.
God the Holy Spirit, essential Charity of the Father and of the Son,
consoling Spirit, you have sanctified me, imparting to me the inestimable
gifts of your grace,and coming to dwell in me.
O sovereign Trinity, infinite Majesty, it is in your name that I received in
my baptism the character of Christian. From that time you adopted me for
your child and I contracted with you the most glorious alliance and the
most ineffable union.
Receive, Holy Trinity, infinite and incomprehensible Greatness, receive,
I beseech you, the most lively sentiments of my gratitude.
I thank you, I praise you, I glorify you with all my heart, and I bless you
for all the inestimable benefits of my creation, redemption and
regeneration.
I bless you for all the goods with which you have loaded me, and which
you incessantly impart to me, both in the order of nature and grace.
I bless you for all the goods which you have destined for me in your
eternal mercy, in virtue of my adoption, and of which I have rendered
myself unworthy by my innumerable infidelities.
I bless you with all those who bless you in heaven and on earth.
I bless you for all those who do not know you, and who knowing you,
do not bless you, and I wish that we all together may bless you eternally in
heaven.
But as we can never sufficiently acknowledge your infinite mercies, O
most Holy Trinity, permit me, in order to supply the deficiency, to thank
you through the Adorable Heart of Jesus, and to offer to you the acts of
thanksgiving which it has rendered you, the praises which it has given you
while it lived on the earth, and which it will continue to give you for all
eternity.
The pleasing recollection of your innumerable benefits will never be
effaced from my mind, and by the return of a grateful heart entirely
devoted to your service, I will endeavour to prove to you my gratitude.
But, alas, O Father, infinitely good, I here acknowledge in your
presence, with the most lively sorrow, that I have been an ungrateful and
unnatural child and that I have dishonoured your image by a thousand sins.
Word made Flesh, I have neglected, I have despised your holy maxims,
to follow those of the world, and I have rendered unavailing to myself the
price and infinite merits of your life and death.
O sanctifying Spirit, I have rejected your gifts and your inspirations. I
have grieved you by my infidelities.
I acknowledge, O Holy Trinity, the enormity of my offences. They are
innumerable. I have violated the promises which I made to you. I have
forgotten my most sacred and solemn engagements. I have basely
forsaken you, to become a slave to the world and the devil.
Penetrated with sorrow at the sight of my sins, I earnestly desire to
atone for them and do most humbly implore your pardon.
But, O Holy Trinity, O my God, will I dare to appear before you without
the precious robe of innocence with which you clothed me in my baptism,
and which I have lost by my sins? And can you yet acknowledge me for
your child?
I confess, that I am unworthy of so glorious a name, but if I have
ceased to be a child submissive to your law and docile to your voice, you
have not ceased, O Holy Trinity, to be the God of Mercies.
It is your mercy which I implore, and I implore it by the Adorable Heart
of the divine Jesus. This Sacred Heart was always perfectly subject to your
will and obedient until death, even to death on the cross. It was always
filled with an ardent, perfect and infinite love for you.
I offer you, in reparation of my offences, the bitter sorrow which the
Heart of your divine Son experienced at the sight of my sins, and the blood
which it shed, in order to expiate them. It entreated you to grant me
grace, and I firmly hope that you will hear its prayers and desires.
In this sweet confidence, I ratify and renew, with all my heart, the
engagements and the promises of my holy baptism. I renounce forever the
devil and his works, the world and its pomps, and I detest its pernicious
maxims. I embrace, with all my soul, your holy yoke, and I desire to live
from now on in a manner worthy of the august name of Christian, with
which you have honoured me.
Animated with a desire of fulfilling more perfectly these holy resolutions
with which your grace inspires me, I entreat you to accept the entire
consecration and dedication which I make of myself to you.
Almighty and eternal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Adorable Trinity
of Persons, Unity, of Essence, Sovereign Creator of all things, who has
given me being, life and all that I am, prostrate before your infinite
Majesty, with the most humble sentiments, and the most lively gratitude,
in union with the love with which the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and of Mary
offered themselves to your supreme and infinite greatness, I offer and
consecrate myself to you by an entire dedication, to the end that I may
apply myself from now on entirely to know you, to love you and to serve
you.
By this particular dedication I desire to obtain from your boundless
goodness abundant graces, which may kindle through the universe the
lights of faith at a time when they are weakened and obscured by so many
errors and crimes, which continually outrage your adorable Majesty.
With this view, I unite in a holy alliance with all those who have the
same intention of loving you alone, and in order to put myself in a state of
living from now on with them in the faithful practice of this holy love, I
make you an entire sacrifice of my body and my soul.
I submit myself in all things to your good pleasure, wishing sincerely to
lose my will in yours. To give up all my interest, that I may have nothing at
heart but your glory. To deprive myself of all things, that I may entirely
depend on you and seek only what will be most agreeable to you.
I wish, in fine, to the utmost of my power, to augment your love in all
hearts, to the end, that being all united on earth by the ties of this holy
love, we may one day be united by it in heaven, to possess you, bless you
and love you for all eternity. Amen.
Saint Gertrude
INVOCATIONS
Invocations of the Saints
O wounded Heart of my Redeemer! O most happy dwelling of souls

fired with divine love! Ah! Do not refuse to receive also my own soul!
Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri
My Lord, I desire nothing but you, and never will I find rest until I
succeed in concealing myself entirely in your Divine Heart.
Saint Catherine of Genova
Heart of Jesus, fountain of love, source of graces, ocean of goodness,

permit me to enter into your wound to receive the forgiveness which you
have merited for me on the cross.
Saint Frances de Seraphs
O love, o sovereign love of the Heart of Jesus, what heart will ever
praise you with sufficient devotion?... May this Heart live forever in our
hearts.
Saint Francis de Sales
O Jesus, my sweet hope, may the Divine Heart, already torn by love for
me and open to all sinners, be the safe asylum of my soul.
Saint Gertrude
(The Week Sanctified (1874) 4)
Invocations for every hour of the day
At Seven o'clock
Heart of Jesus, worthy and true adorer of the Most High, teach me to
adore him with you and by you, in spirit and in truth.
At Eight o'clock
Heart of Jesus, perfectly humble, subdue my pride and annihilate all

that is arrogant in me.
At Nine o'clock
Heart of Jesus, wounded and inflamed with love for me, grant that in
my turn I may love only you in all things and all things in you.
At Ten o'clock
Heart of Jesus, the only victim worthy of God, unite me to your state of
suffering and of sacrifice, by the exercise of a generous and continual
denial of myself and of all creatures.
At Eleven o'clock
Heart of Jesus, penetrated and oppressed with sorrow for the sins of
men, grant me the grace to weep and lament as I ought for my guilt.
At Twelve o'clock
Heart of Jesus, perfectly submissive and ever in conformity to the will of

your celestial Father, grant that in all things my will may be happily
obedient to yours.
At One o'clock
Heart of Jesus, infinitely pure, give me a perfect purity of body, heart
and intention.
At Two o'clock
Beneficent Heart of Jesus, model of meekness and of charity, render my

heart meek, charitable and beneficent, that it may resemble yours.
At Three o'clock
Heart of Jesus, the school where all faithful souls go to learn the
science of the saints, make me one of your most constant and docile
disciples.
At Four o'clock
Heart of Jesus, consumed by the ardour of your zeal for the glory of the
Most High, inflame my heart with a pure and ardent zeal for the glory of
God and the salvation of souls.
At Five o'clock
Heart of Jesus, obedient until death, and even to the death of the cross,
be the vanquisher of my rebellions and subject me to the sweet yoke of a
perfect obedience.
At Six o'clock
Heart of Jesus, burning with zeal for my salvation, animate me with the
same zeal to labour for my sanctification, with fervour and without
relaxation, until the last moment of my life.
Invocation of the blessing of the Sacred Heart on a friend
May the grace and blessing of the Sacred Heart be with you, the peace
of the Sacred Heart encompass you, the merits of the Sacred Heart plead
for you, the love of the Sacred Heart inflame you, the sorrows of the
Sacred Heart console you, the zeal of the Sacred Heart animate you, the
virtues of the Sacred Heart shine forth in every word and work, and may
the joys of the beatific vision be your eternal recompense. Amen.
Invocations to obtain the cure of a sick person
Heart of Jesus, ocean of goodness and inexhaustible source of mercy,

vouchsafe to hear our prayers for N.
Heart of Jesus, whose delight is to be with the children of men,
vouchsafe to hear our prayers for N.
Heart of Jesus, our consolation in our trials, our remedy in our
distresses and our comfort in our miseries, vouchsafe to hear our prayers
for N.
Heart of Jesus, infinitely good, sweet and compassionate, vouchsafe to
hear our prayers for N.
Heart of Jesus, who, being moved with a tender compassion, worked a
miracle at the marriage feast of Cana, comfort and cure your servant N.
Heart of Jesus, touched and softened by the cries of the Canaan woman
and who restored health to her daughter, comfort and cure your servant N.
Heart of Jesus, who, with divine affection and goodness, said, in
speaking of Lazarus, “Our friend Lazarus is sick,” comfort and cure your
servant N.
Heart of Jesus, who wept with Martha and Mary at the grave of their
brother, and who called him back to life, comfort and cure your servant N.
Heart of Jesus, who felt such great compassion on seeing the son of the
widow of Nairn borne to the grave, and raised him from the dead, comfort
and cure your servant N.
Heart of Jesus, who, with an admirable clemency, gave back life to the
youthful daughter of the high-priest of the synagogue, comfort and cure
your servant N.
Heart of Jesus, who, with a fatherly tenderness, fed five thousand men
in the desert lest they should faint in the road, console and cure your
servant N.
Heart of Jesus, who, to show forth your power and goodness, restored
thousands of the sick and infirm to health, console and cure your servant N.
Heart of Jesus, to who all power has been given in heaven and on
earth, console and cure your servant N.
Heart of Jesus, who loves not to punish but to pardon, and delivers us
so willingly from the evils which oppress us, console and cure your servant
N.
Heart of Jesus, best and most indulgent of all hearts, console and cure
your servant N.
In memory of your agony in the garden of Olives, hear us, Divine Heart.
In memory of the wound you received on the cross through love for us,
hear us, Divine Heart.
In remembrance of all your goodness and mercy, hear us, Divine Heart.
LET US PRAY. Sacred Heart of Jesus, we beseech you not to deny us

the favour we so earnestly beg of you We will not leave you, Divine Heart,
till you have said, “I will be your salvation,” until you have said, “I will let
(him or her) be made whole.”
Heart of Mary, compassionate heart of our tender Mother, speak to
Jesus on our behalf. Beseech of our merciful Lord to grant us the cure of
this his (her) servant, which we solicit so earnestly. Heart of Mary, help us.
Heart of Jesus, hear us. Amen.
(The Catholic's Companion (1882) 203)
OFFERINGS
Morning offering
O Lord Jesus Christ, in union with that divine intention with which you,
while on earth, gave praise to God through your Most Sacred Heart, and
which you still everywhere offer to him in the Holy Eucharist, even until the
consummation of the world, I, in imitation of the Most Sacred Heart of the
ever-Immaculate Virgin Mary, most cheerfully offer to you, during this
entire day, all my thoughts and intentions, all my affections and desires,
my words and all my works.
(The New Raccolta (1903) 212)
Evening offering
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, how indulgent is your goodness! You would

have me sleep and you would watch over me. Your affections burn while
mine are buried in sleep. Nevertheless, I desire, as often as my heart will
beat this night, to unite it to yours and to whatever will be done in your
honour by the Immaculate Heart of Mary, by my good Angel, by holy Saint
Joseph and all the Blessed. Divine Jesus, I offer you the rest I am about to
take, beseeching you to open to me your Sacred Heart and allow me to
repose in it this night and forever.
Offerings of all one's actions
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I offer you my will that you may strengthen
it, my understanding that you may enlighten it, my memory that you may
occupy it, and all my desires and affections that you may purify them.
I offer you also all my projects that they may be guided by you, my toils
and labours that they may be blessed by you, and all my interior and
exterior occupations that they may be sanctified by you.
Your Divine Heart, O Jesus, will possess all that I have and all that I
am. In the love which you bear me, I place all my hope and confidence. O
Jesus, hear my prayer and grant that I may never be separated from you.
Amen.
Offering of our sufferings
O Adorable Heart, refuge of afflicted hearts, permit me, in the afflictions

which I experience to have recourse to you.
You have been for my sake overwhelmed in the bitter sea of affliction
and grief, and though you were the purest and the most holy of hearts, you
have been nevertheless the most afflicted.
Is it not just, then, that a heart criminal as mine is should experience
sufferings and afflictions? But grant, O divine Jesus, by your grace, that I
may render them advantageous to my soul and acceptable to your celestial
Father.
It is with this intention that I come to unite them to yours, to lay them
up in your Sacred Heart, and there to seek fortitude and consolation.
Vouchsafe to look down with pity on the deplorable state to which I am
reduced.
Sorrow wrings my heart. I am a burden to myself. Afflictions weigh me
down. Poverty and want press me on all sides. My character is injured by
detractors and calumniators. My enemies persecute me. My friends forsake
me. Temptation importunes me. My passions disturb me. The past, the
present and the future frighten me and plunge my afflicted soul into deep
consternation.
O Adorable Heart, it is to you that I have recourse. It is in you I place
all my hope. You will alleviate my misfortunes, or at least you will assist
me to support and sanctify them. Fortify me, I entreat you, against myself.
Support my weakness and strengthen my dejected courage. Make me a
partaker of your magnanimity, of the submission with which you suffered
the most lively pangs, the most bitter sorrows.
Give me that love of sufferings with which you were incessantly
inflamed. Grant that I may conceive so high an esteem for them, that I
may fear being deprived of them. Teach me, after your example, to adore
the paternal hand which strikes me, and to know the spiritual advantages
of the afflictions with which you are pleased to visit me.
You have chosen humiliation, poverty and grief, in preference to riches,
pleasure and glory, and you treat your friends as you have wished to be
treated yourself. Grant, then, O my amiable Saviour, that from now on,
walking in your footsteps, my glory and all my delight may be to suffer for
you and like you.
I adore the dispensations of your Providence in my regard without a
wish to investigate them. You are a God infinitely just, infinitely merciful. I
will throw myself into your arms and submit myself in all things to your
will.
That such may always be the disposition of my soul, I beg of you, O
Jesus, by the submission of your Adorable Heart, and I hope for it through
that infinite love which you have shown for me. Amen.
Offering of the Sacred Heart to God the Father
O eternal Father, let me offer up to your mercy the Sacred Heart of your
dearly-beloved Son, even as he offered himself up a sacrifice to your
justice.
Accept, on my behalf, all the thoughts, sentiments, affections, motions
and all the actions of this Sacred Heart.
They are mine, because it was immolated for me. They are mine,
because for the future I am resolved to admit nothing into my heart but
what has place in yours.
Receive, then, O God, the merits of this Sacred Heart in satisfaction for
my sins and in thanksgiving for all the benefits conferred on me.
Receive them, O Lord, as so many motives for granting my petitions.
Give me, O Lord, for their sake, all the graces I need, but especially the gift
of final perseverance.
Receive them as so many acts of love, adoration and praise, which I
now offer to your divine Majesty.
This Sacred Heart, this Heart alone, can love, honour and glorify you as
you deserve. Amen.
PIOUS AFFECTIONS
Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of God, inflame my

heart with your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, worthy of the majesty of God, inflame my heart with
your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, holy by the sanctity of God, inflame my heart with your
divine love.
Heart of Jesus, good by the goodness of God, inflame my heart with
your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, to be adored with the adoration due to God, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, to be loved with the love worthy of God, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, ineffable, inflame my heart with your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, incomprehensible, inflame my heart with your divine
love.
Heart of Jesus, the most worthy temple of the eternal Father, inflame
my heart with your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, the true and proper abode of the Holy Spirit, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, the sanctuary of the most Holy Trinity, inflame my heart
with your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, the most worthy seat of eternal charity, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, in which dwells the plenitude of the Divinity, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, in which are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,
inflame my heart with your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, a never-failing treasure, inflame my heart with your
divine love.
Heart of Jesus, bountiful to those who invoke you, inflame my heart
Heart of Jesus, of the fullness of which we all partook, inflame my heart
Heart of Jesus, our peace and reconciliation, inflame my heart with your
divine love.
Heart of Jesus, the fountain of living waters springing up to eternal life,
inflame my heart with your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, the beginning and origin of all virtues, inflame my heart
Heart of Jesus, in which the Father was well pleased, inflame my heart
Heart of Jesus, the living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, the propitiation for our sins, inflame my heart with your
divine love.
Heart of Jesus, filled with sorrow on our account, inflame my heart with
your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, treated with ignominy, inflame my heart with your
divine love.
Heart of Jesus, struck for our crimes, inflame my heart with your divine
love.
Heart of Jesus, obedient even to the death of the cross, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, pierced with a spear, inflame my heart with your divine
love.
Heart of Jesus, the fountain of all consolation, inflame my heart with
your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, the solace of afflicted souls, inflame my heart with your
divine love.
Heart of Jesus, our refuge in the day of tribulation, inflame my heart
Heart of Jesus, the safety of those who hope in you, inflame my heart
Heart of Jesus, the hope of those who die in you, inflame my heart with
your divine love.
Heart of Jesus, the safeguard of those who worship you, inflame my
Heart of Jesus, the delight of all saints, inflame my heart with your
divine love.
V. Jesus, meek and humble of Heart.

R. Make my heart according to yours.
LET US PRAY. Grant, we beseech you, O almighty God, that we who

glory in the most Holy Heart of your beloved Son, and call to mind the
principal acts of his love towards us, may not only rejoice in their
participation, but also in their fruits. Through the same Christ our Lord.
Amen.
O Lord Jesus Christ, who has, by a new benefit, vouchsafed to open to your
Church the unspeakable treasures of your Heart, grant that we make some
return for this love, and by our homage and adoration, atone for the insults
offered by ungrateful men to your most afflicted Heart. Amen.
Soul of my Saviour, be my guide.

Feed me, O Jesus, with your flesh.
Wash me with water from your side.
And with your blood my thirst refresh.
Benignant Jesus, hear my prayer.

Do not permit my steps to stray,
But save my heart from every snare,
Which the malignant foe can lay.
Make me enjoy your blessed sight,

When the last sigh of life is over,
That with your saints I may delight,
To sing your praise for evermore.
PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY
Morning prayer
I adore, praise and salute you, O most sweet Heart of Jesus Christ,
fresh and gladdening as the breath of spring, from which, as from a
fountain of graces, sweeter than the honeycomb flows evermore all good
and all delight.
I thank you with all the powers of my heart for having preserved me
throughout this night, and for having rendered to God the Father praises
and thanksgivings on my behalf.
And now, O my sweet Love, I offer you my wretched and worthless
heart as a morning sacrifice. I place it in your most tender Heart, and
entrust it to your keeping, beseeching you that you would deign to pour
into it your divine inspirations and kindle it with your holy love. Amen.
Saint Gertrude
Evening prayer
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I adore you, I love you and I thank you for all
the favours I have received from you this day and in the course of my life.
O my divine Saviour, penetrated with grief at the sight of my sins, I
detest them with all my heart, for your love. Pardon me them, and bless
the repose which I am going to take to repair my strength, which I do not
wish to employ with the assistance of your grace, but to serve you and to
love you.
Sacred Heart of Mary, my good angel, my holy patron, adore and love
the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and let your prayers ascend to it in my favour.
Protect me for this night, during the remainder of my life, and at the hour
of my death. Amen.
PRAYERS FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE
1 June
O good Master and Saviour Jesus Christ, vouchsafe to accept our loving
adoration on this first day of the month dedicated to your Sacred Heart.
What joy to come each day and offer you our homage, and what a source
of grace and blessings will it be to us! Help us to profit by this holy time,
and, O Virgin Mary, our Mother, lead us to the Heart of Jesus, and lend us
your own with which to love him. Amen.
2 June
O Jesus, how wonderful you are in the outpourings of your love! We

bless you for communicating to us the treasures of your Heart and ask you
to grant us your divine assistance, that we may profit by them.
O Saint Margaret Mary, friend and apostle of the Heart of Jesus, we
congratulate you that the divine Master selected you as the instrument to
accomplish his merciful designs. Obtain for us that this Adorable Heart may
be always the object of our love and the pledge of our salvation. Amen.
3 June
My Saviour and Master, Jesus Christ, how can I sufficiently thank you for
the countless blessings which you have promised to those who honour your
Heart, your loving Heart which is like an overflowing fountain, the waters
of which neither time nor eternity can exhaust?
Teach me to love, to venerate, and imitate this bountiful and generous
Heart, so that I may profit by its glorious promises. Amen.
4 June
Behold, Jesus, I give you my heart. I place it in your hands and beg of
you to keep it as a precious trust. Preserve it for me as you did that of your
beloved servant Margaret Mary. If ever I have the misfortune to desire to
recall my gift, restore it not to me, but oblige me by an act of your mercy,
to leave you master and possessor of it forever. Amen.
5 June
O Heart of Jesus, receive the homage of my heart, which is penetrated

with admiration and gratitude at the thought of your immense love for
man. Grant me the assistance of your grace, that loving you with the
most tender and generous love on earth, I may obtain from your infinite
goodness the favour of glorifying and loving you forever with the angels
and saints in heaven. Amen.
6 June
O Jesus, our loving and adorable Redeemer, in past ages the treasures
of your Sacred Heart were but little known. This favour you reserved to
these days, when by a wondrous act of your love, it has pleased you to
make known to men the riches of this Divine Heart. We will bless and
praise for all eternity this your infinite mercy and beg of you the grace to
profit by it. Amen.
7 June
O Heart of my beloved Jesus, the refuge opened for me by the lance,

and where no I need more fear either divine vengeance or the fury of hell,
permit me to hide myself in yours and there forget the world and myself.
There let me rest after the weary toils of life and there let me lose myself
for time and eternity. Amen.
8 June
O Heart of Jesus, how much have you loved me! What would have
become of me if I had not been redeemed by your Precious Blood? Alas! I
should most certainly have been lost. Oh priceless balm, springing from the
fountain of infinite love! Sweet Saviour continue to sprinkle me with the
dew of your saving Blood, so that it may purify me more and more, and
obtain for me the glory of heaven. Amen.
9 June
O O Jesus crowned with thorns, from now on I will accept, with

patience, all the interior and exterior sufferings which it may please you to
send me. Nature may rebel, and I may, perhaps, say like you, in the
Garden of Olives, “Father, let this chalice pass from me.” But love will
quickly make me add, “Not my will, my God, but yours be done.” Amen.
10 June
O Jesus, when I meditate on the motives which should induce me to

love and attach myself to the cross, I feel ready to embrace sufferings of
every kind, but when they present themselves, I am dismayed and my
courage forsakes me. Sometimes even I give way to impatience,
murmuring and discouragement.
Grant me grace, O Jesus, to be resigned and patient under all the
afflictions it may please your divine providence to have in store for me.
Amen.
11 June
O Heart of Jesus, you always love us, despite our sins and innumerable
crimes. In you love is stronger than death. Grant, by the assistance of your
grace, that loving you with the most ardent love we may obtain the
pardon of our faults, final perseverance and eternal happiness. Amen.
12 June
Grant, O Lord, that your glory may be the end of all our thoughts, words
and works, and that we may take as our motto these sublime words, “All
for the greater glory of God.” O Jesus, kindle in us this divine zeal, that it
may consume us as victims and holocausts entirely sacrificed to the fire of
your love. Amen.
13 June
O Heart of Jesus, grant that I may be always the favoured child of the
most holy Virgin. Inspire me with the most tender and filial confidence
towards her, and give me the grace to invoke her unceasingly. Grant that
her blessed name, united to yours may be always on my lips, that thus
living here below with Jesus and Mary, I may one day behold them in
heaven. Amen.
14 June
O Jesus, I also thirst for the salvation of my brethren. Would that it

were in my power to include them all in the embraces of your love. Supply
my deficiency, O Divine Heart. Make yourself known and loved by all the
souls for who you have shed your Blood and sacrificed your life. Amen.
15 June
O Lord Jesus, these poor souls in Purgatory belong to you. They loved
you on earth, they still love you amid the flames of Purgatory. By the
merits of your cross and your Divine Heart, deliver them from that abode of
expiation. Above all, deliver the souls of my relations my friends and
benefactors, so that, united to the choirs of angels, they may praise and
bless you through all eternity, Amen.
16 June
O Heart of Jesus, Heart infinitely amiable, and infinitely holy ! To what

else will we devote our lives, if not to making you known? To love you Lord
is not enough for us. We wish to make others love you. We would willingly
possess all hearts, so that we might place them in yours. Give us the zeal
of apostles that proclaiming your mercies, we may save souls redeemed at
the price of your Blood. Amen.
17 June
Lord Jesus, pardon the numberless Christians who disown your love,
refuse to serve you and despise your commandments and those of your
Church. Pardon the unhappy sinners who voluntarily remain in this
wretched state, forget their ingratitude and hard-heartedness and open
your Adorable Heart, so that copious streams of grace, mercy, and pardon
may flow from it. Amen.
18 June
Divine Heart of Jesus, I wish to love and serve you fervently and
generously, but, alas, my fervour and piety quickly die away and I remain
without love or zeal. Oh how many of my days have been spent in
lukewarmness and tepidity! Generous Heart of Jesus, be my strength and
support, and grant that in future I may always labour for my salvation with
energy, courage and perseverance. Amen.
19 June
O Jesus, I would rather die a thousand times than ever approach your
sacred table unworthily. Before seating myself at the banquet of angels, I
will prove and purify myself from all stains. Then, Lord, you will descend
into my soul, reign over it with joy and find there your delights. Amen.
20 June
O Jesus, it is with a heart overwhelmed with grief that I ask your

pardon a thousand and a thousand times, for the indifference of all those
who refuse to receive you. From now on I will communicate frequently, in
order to console and make amends to you for the neglect of others. Grant
that I may always approach your holy table with a heart free from sin and
adorned with virtue. Amen.
21 June
Divine Heart of Jesus, I bless and thank you for all the favours you have
bestowed on me despite my unfaithfulness to grace. I thank you also for all
that you have granted to my relatives, friends and benefactors. I offer you
in return the thanksgivings of all fervent souls, those of the Blessed Virgin
and the saints, and with your prophet I will never cease to say, “Give
praise to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.” Amen.
22 June
O my God, how much does my indifference terrify me and my

lukewarmness afflict me. Alas, how often have I not forgotten to eat the
Bread of life. How many communions have I not missed through my own
fault. Divine Jesus, grant me a great hunger and thirst for your sacred Body
and Blood. I will in future communicate as often as I am allowed, and
every day if I am able. Amen.
23 June
O Jesus! O incomprehensible love! Since you are so good as to dwell

among us, I now resolve to visit you frequently in the Holy Eucharist.
Shower down your graces on me during the happy moments of intercourse
with you. My poor heart needs rest, and this rest may be found in you even
here below while we wait to possess it in all its plenitude in our heavenly
home. Amen.
24 June
O Jesus, in future I resolve to keep each first Friday of the month as a

festival in honour of your Sacred Heart. I will invoke you with greater
confidence, I will communicate with more fervour, and you will shower
down on me your most abundant graces and blessings. Amen.
25 June
Divine Jesus, I will cherish and venerate the representation of your

Sacred Heart, which recalls to my mind the love with which it burns for me.
I will give it to my friends and relations, to the sick and afflicted as a pious
remembrance. Grant that it may be for all a pledge of benedictions during
life and at the hour of death. Amen.
26 June
Heart of Jesus, give us a filial love for her whom you have bequeathed
to us as our Mother with your last breath on the cross. Grant that her
protection may be our safeguard, her example the rule of our conduct, her
heart our refuge and shelter in all dangers, and grant that she may be our
hope during life and at the dread moment of death. Amen.
27 June
O most merciful Jesus, full of love for souls, I implore you by the agony
of your most Sacred Heart and by the sorrows of your Immaculate Mother,
to purify in your blood the sinners of the whole world who are now in their
agony and this day to die. Amen. Agonising Heart of Jesus, have pity on
the dying.
28 June
Adorable Heart of Jesus, consumed with love for men and thirsting for
their salvation. Heart so loving yet so little loved, deign to accept this act
of reparation that we eagerly offer to make amends to you for the
outrages, the irreverences and profanations which you receive in the
Adorable Sacrament of the Altar.
Pardon, O Most Sacred Heart, the forgetfulness and ingratitude of men,
the abandonment and indifference with which they repay your immense
love! Forgive us all, forgive all poor sinners! Remember not our
innumerable faults and from the open wound of your Sacred Side let floods
of grace and mercy descend on us.
Guard and protect us, hide us in this divine wound till that happy
moment comes, when in our heavenly country we repeat with the angels
throughout eternity, “Glory, love, gratitude and unceasing praise be to the
most loving Heart of our Saviour!”
29 June
O good and loving Heart of Jesus, we understand full well your sadness
and sorrow. We will strive from now on to offer you, by our fervent
communions, our acts of reparation and our daily sacrifices, some small
amends for the outrages you receive from those who have been redeemed
at the cost of your Blood. Amen.
30 June
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul!

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, assist me in my last agony.
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul in peace with you.
(Month of the Sacred Heart (1885) 6)
PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS
Prayer of Saint Alphonsus Ligouri
O Adorable Heart of Jesus, heart created expressly for the love of men.
Until now I have shown towards you only ingratitude. Pardon me, O my
Jesus.
Heart of my Jesus, abyss of love and of mercy, how is it possible that I
do not die of sorrow when I reflect on your goodness to me and my
ingratitude to you?
You, my Creator, after having created me, have given your blood and
your life for me and, not content with this, you have invented a means of
offering yourself up every day for me in the Holy Eucharist, exposing
yourself to a thousand insults and outrages.
O Jesus, wound my heart with a great contrition for my sins, and a
lively love for you. Through your tears and blood give me the grace of
perseverance in your fervent love until I breathe my last sigh. Amen.
Prayer of Saint Claude de la Colombière
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, teach me an entire forgetfulness of myself,

since there is no other way of entering into you. Grant that I may do
nothing that is not worthy of you. Teach me what I ought to do to attain to
your pure love, with the desire of which you have inspired me.
I feel in myself a great wish to please you, and a great inability to do so
without special light and assistance, which I can look for only from you.
Accomplish in me, O Lord, your will. I oppose it, I know well, but I
would fain not do so. It is for you, O Divine Heart, to do all. Yours alone
will be the glory of my sanctification if I become a saint. This is as clear to
me as the day. It will be greatly to your glory, and it is for this alone I
desire to be perfect. Amen.
Prayer of Saint Gertrude
Hail, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, living and quickening source of eternal

life, infinite treasury of the divinity, burning furnace of divine love! You are
my refuge and sanctuary.
O my amiable Saviour, consume my heart with that burning fire with
which yours is ever inflamed.
Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from your love, and let
my heart be so united with yours that our wills may be one, and mine in all
things conformed to yours.
May yours be the standard and rule of my desires and actions. Amen.
Prayer of Saint Leonard of Port Maurice
Hail wound of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, opened by the cruel
lance and from which gushed forth Blood and water to wash away the
stains of our sins. Pierce my heart, O Lord, with the darts of your love, so
that, in all my actions, I may regard your love above all, and love my
neighbour as myself for love of you. By that life-giving Blood and water
that flowed from your side, O beloved Saviour, purify my heart, so that
being cleansed from all stain of sin, I may be admitted to contemplate your
face forever in heaven. Amen.
(The Hidden Treasure (1895) 124)
Prayer of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me, according to you great

mercy, and do with me, and in me, whatever you will. I abandon myself to
you with full confidence that you will never abandon me.
Prayer of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
Eternal Father, suffer me to offer you the Heart of Jesus Christ, your
beloved Son, as he himself offered it in sacrifice to you. Receive this
offering for me, as well as all the desires, sentiments, affections,
movements and acts of this Sacred Heart.
They are all mine, since he offered himself for me, and from now on I
wish to have no other desires but his. Receive them in satisfaction for my
sins, and in thanksgiving for all your benefits.
Grant me through his merits all the graces necessary for my salvation,
especially that of final perseverance. Receive them as so many acts of
love, adoration and praise, which I offer to your divine Majesty, since it is
through the Heart of Jesus that you are worthily honoured and glorified.
Amen.
Prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I adore you in the oneness of the Personality

of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
I worship you, O Heart of Jesus, as being Jesus himself, as being that
Eternal Word in human nature which he took wholly and lives in wholly,
and therefore in you. You are the Heart of the Most High made man. In
worshipping you, I worship my Incarnate God, Emmanuel.
I worship you, as bearing a part in that Passion which is my life, for you
burst and broke, through agony, in the garden of Gethsemani, and your
precious contents trickled out, through the veins and pores of the skin, on
the earth.
And again, you had been drained all but dry on the cross, and then,
after death, you were pierced by the lance and gave out the small remains
of that inestimable treasure which is our redemption.
My God, my Saviour, I adore your Sacred Heart, for that heart is the
seat and source of all your tenderest human affections for us sinners.
It is the instrument and organ of your love. It beat for us. It yearned
over us. It ached for us, and for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal,
that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us. It is the channel
through which has come to us all your overflowing human affection, all
your divine charity towards us.
All your incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our
Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes, in one
inseparably mingled stream, through that Sacred Heart.
O most sacred symbol and Sacrament of love, divine and human, in its
fullness. You saved me by your divine strength, and your human affection,
and then at length by that wonder-working blood, with which you
overflowed.
O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, you are concealed in the
Holy Eucharist, and you beat for us still. Now as then you say, “With desire
I have desired.”
I worship you then with all my best love and awe, with my fervent
affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will.
O my God, when you condescend to suffer me to receive you, to eat
and drink you, and you for a while take up your abode within me, make my
heart beat with your Heart.
Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is
hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it
with you, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the
time may have power to ruffle it, but that in your love and fear it may have
peace.
(Meditations and Devotions (1912) 571)
OTHER PRAYERS
Memorare of the Sacred Heart
Remember, O Jesus, meek and humble of Heart, that you have never
yet beheld misery without being moved to mercy and compassion.
Animated, therefore, with boundless confidence in your unwearied love,
I come to you, sweet Saviour. Burdened with miseries, I fly to you. Laden
with sorrows, I throw myself on your compassionate mercy.
Do not, O my Lord, my Father, cast me off, but graciously receive me
into your munificent Heart, nor suffer me ever to be separated from it.
Aid me, I beseech you, in all my difficulties.
Bless me, O benign Heart of Jesus, in the name of the Father, and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and let your blessing descend on all those
for whom I desire to pray. Amen.
Nine elevations of the soul
Heart of Jesus, perfect adorer of God, teach me to adore your heavenly

Father with you and by you.
Heart of Jesus, inflamed with love for me, inflame me with your divine
love.
Heart of Jesus, victim alone worthy of God, unite me to your divine
sacrifice.
Heart of Jesus, overwhelmed with bitterness for the sins of men, break
my heart with sorrow for my sins.
Heart of Jesus, infinitely humble, annihilate my pride.
Heart of Jesus, perfect model of meekness, inspire me with that
salutary virtue.
Heart of Jesus, infinitely pure and spotless, give me an inviolable purity
of body, mind and heart.
Heart of Jesus, full of zeal for the glory of your heavenly Father,
animate my heart with an ardent zeal for your glory and my own
sanctification.
Heart of Jesus, reign forever in my heart and grant me grace to reign
one day with you in heaven.
(The Catholic's Companion (1882) 206)
Prayer for a visit to the Sacred Heart
Prayer for a visit to an image or picture of the Sacred Heart in a church or oratory.
Heart of Jesus, which remains with us night and day, inviting, awaiting
and receiving all who come to visit you, I adore you and acknowledge my
misery and nothingness in your sight.
I thank you for all the graces you have bestowed on me, especially for
having freed me from the slavery of the devil, for having restored to me
the title of your child which I had forfeited by sin, for having given me Mary
as an Advocate, and for having now inspired me to come into your sacred
presence.
I thank you with my whole soul for admitting me and I wish to atone for
the insults I have been so unhappy as to offer you, by my former coldness
and indifference in your service.
I earnestly wish that I could honour you as you should be honoured in
all the places of the world where you are most abandoned.
(St John's Manual (1855) 762)
Prayer during suffering
Sweet Jesus, may your own patient, loving Heart teach me to love
suffering and prize highly every thorn you give me from your crown, every
splinter of your sacred cross.
O most loving Heart of my Jesus who are the fruitful source of all
graces, deign to inflame my heart with a most perfect love of you and your
dear Mother Mary, an ardent charity for my neighbour, an entire
resignation to your most holy will, a contempt for worldly pleasures, a holy
life and a happy death. Amen.
Prayer asking for a particular grace
Most merciful Heart of Jesus, through the bitter anguish which you
endured in the Garden of Olives for our sake, we beseech you, in union
with Mary, your most holy Mother, have compassion on us and grant us the
grace we earnestly implore of you.
Hail Mary.
Most merciful Jesus, through the distress and shame felt when your
garments were stripped off you, we beseech you, in union with Mary, your
most holy Mother, have compassion on us and grant us the grace we
earnestly implore of you.
Hail Mary.
Most merciful Jesus, through the bitterness and grief you experienced
when you were scourged and crowned with thorns, we beseech you, in
union with Mary, your most holy Mother, have compassion on us and grant
us the grace we earnestly implore of you.
Hail Mary.
Most merciful Jesus, through the agonising pain you suffered when
expiring on the cross, have compassion on us and grant us the grace we
earnestly implore of you.
Hail Mary.
Most merciful Jesus, through the cruel wound made by the lance which
pierced your side on the cross, have compassion on us and grant us the
grace we earnestly implore of you.
Hail Mary.
Most sweet Jesus, who repels no-one who comes to you but receives
even the greatest sinners with open arms, provided only they repent of
their sins, have compassion on those who call on your holy Name,
graciously hear the prayers of those who worship you in spirit and truth.
Grant that those who truly adore your Sacred Heart may, in accordance
with your loving promise, find in it succour and peace, protection and
strength, and fervent love of you for time and eternity. Amen.
(The Devotion to the Sacred Heart (1905) 264)
Prayer asking for a change of heart
Only Son of the eternal Father, Divine Word, permit me to say to you,
from the profound abyss of my nothingness, that you have not taken a
heart like mine, but in order that my heart should become like yours.
Grant then, if you please, my adorable Redeemer, that your admirable
designs may be accomplished in me. Your heart is pure. May mine be pure.
Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Your Heart is humble. May mine be humble.

Your Heart is patient. May mine be patient.
Your Heart is docile. May mine be docile.
Your Heart is sincere. May mine be sincere.
Your Heart is exempt from all evil. May mine be exempt from all
evil.
Your Heart is all love and sanctified love. May mine be all love and
all holy love.
May your Heart, O my Jesus, entirely possess mine.
May mine, O my Jesus, be entirely absorbed in yours.
May it be a faithful heart, a contrite heart, a generous heart, a
charitable heart, a perfectly Christian heart.
My divine Saviour, I will from now on endeavour, with the assistance of

your grace, to have nothing in my heart but that which is in yours, namely
purity, humility, patience, docility, fortitude, meekness and charity.
To possess only Jesus and his love. My heart is no longer mine, it
belongs to Jesus. Open it, close it, inflame it. It is yours.
Alas, it has not always been so, but, O Heart of Jesus, O love of Jesus,
it is so at present by your grace, and I trust that it will be so forever, Jesus,
Jesus, Jesus.
Prayer asking for a happy death
O amiable Saviour, whose Heart is still open to receive me and hear my

prayers, I come, deploring the wanderings of my past life, to beseech you
to grant me the grace to finish it well and die in your holy love.
I acknowledge that the bad use which I have made of my life renders
me unworthy of the grace which I ask of you, but I pray you to grant me, in
your mercy, what you may refuse me in your justice.
From this moment I desire to begin, and with your holy grace do begin,
a new life. Grant that this change may be true, entire and constant until
death, in order that I may from now on live and finally die in your holy
love.
I believe, O my God, all that which you have revealed to your Holy,
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church because you, who are truth itself,
have revealed it, and I wish to live and die in this belief.
I hope to obtain your holy grace in this life, and heaven in the next,
because you are infinitely good and faithful to your promises, and because
the merits of my Saviour are infinite.
I love you, my God, with all my heart, for your sake because you are
infinitely perfect and infinitely amiable. I love my neighbour as myself, for
the love of you. I pardon him sincerely all the injuries he may have done
me, or wished to do me.
Deign then, I beseech you, to pardon me also my past iniquities. I
detest them in the bitterness of my soul, because they displease you, and I
am resolved to amend my life for the future, with the assistance of your
holy grace, on which alone I rely, since of myself I can do nothing.
I adore you, Sovereign Majesty, and I acknowledge you for my Lord and
my God, my Creator, and my last end. I unite my adorations with those
which are rendered you by the angels and saints in heaven.
I thank you most humbly for all the graces, as well general as
particular, with which you have favoured me. I thank you particularly for
giving me the means of preparing for death.
I entreat the angels and the saints to thank you for me, and I ardently
desire one day, in union with them, to render my acknowledgements
perpetual.
Eternal Father, O my God, in union with the sufferings and death of my
divine Redeemer, and with that of the most holy Virgin, my good Mother, I
accept sufferings and death.
First, to acknowledge your supreme power and sovereign dominion, by
the humiliation and destruction of my body.
Secondly, to acknowledge your infinite goodness, and to thank you for
all the spiritual and temporal goods which I have received from your liberal
hand, by depriving myself of all worldly goods.
Thirdly, to satisfy your divine justice and expiate my offences, by the
sacrifice of my life.
Fourthly, to obey your will, infinitely equitable, and to repair all my
disobedience to your holy law.
Fifthly, to obtain from your mercy the graces necessary to die well.
Sixthly, to evince to my divine Saviour my love and gratitude in wishing
to die like him, for him and with him.
Seventhly, in a word, to be in that happy state in which I can no longer
offend you and in which I will love you eternally.
O bounty, O infinite greatness of my God! Father, Son and Holy Spirit
have pity on me, grant me mercy. Into your hands I commend my soul.
Jesus, be to me a Jesus, now and at the hour of my death.
O Mary, protect me in these last moments, you who are the Mother of
Mercy, and who has obtained for me so many graces. I return you thanks
and beseech you to obtain for me a happy death.
Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, may my heart be united with yours,
during my life and at my death. May I live and may I die inflamed with your
holy love.
Great Saint Michael, who has conquered the infernal spirits, and who I
trust will one day present my soul to the Sovereign Judge, obtain for me
the victory over all my enemies, principally at the hour of my death.
My holy angel guardian, who has shown so much zeal for my salvation
during my life, accept my just acknowledgements and protect me
particularly in these last moments.
Great Saint Joseph, patron of the agonising, obtain for me to die, as
you did, in the arms of Jesus and of Mary.
My holy patrons N., and N., who have assisted and protected me during
my life, assist and protect me, particularly at the hour of my death.
All you holy angels and saints of heaven, assist me now, every moment
of my life, and, above all, at the hour of my death.
O my Sovereign Lord, I beg of you a happy death, through the merits of
Jesus Christ, my Saviour, and through his Adorable Heart, through the
intercession of the most holy Virgin, and through her most revered Heart,
through the intercession of all the holy angels and blessed in heaven.
Amen.
Prayer of a penitent soul
O Sacred Heart of my amiable Jesus, you were filled with the bitterest
sorrow for the sins of mankind, and it is from you I have imbibed that lively
sorrow, these precious tears, which the remembrance of my past sins
draws from me.
Divine Heart, if I see you plunged into the most grievous and mortal
anguish, should I not reproach myself, convinced that it is my depraved
heart which has thus afflicted you?
I detest and abhor these sins and crimes which I have had the
misfortune of committing, the sight of which pierced you with such pain
and affliction, and, at the same time, with such tender zeal and
compassion for an unworthy sinner.
O Jesus, my Lord and my God, it is thus I have repaid your love? Can I
ever weep sufficiently to wash away my crimes!
O that I could unite in my heart the sorrow of the most penitent hearts!
Blind as I have been, I sought the friendship of men, and despised yours. I
have given them my heart and refused it to you, O most amiable Heart,
and I have not loved you, O Jesus, all burning with love for me!
I wish, through the ardour of my love and my heart felt sorrow, with the
assistance of your holy grace, to make you forget, if possible, these fatal
moments when my ungrateful heart has not been devoted to you.
O Jesus, receive it, I beseech you, and with it accept all that I am and
possess. I give you all goods, honour, reputation, health, life. Dispose of all
according to your will. Provided I love you I am content.
O Sacred Heart, vouchsafe yourself to supply for the want of that
sorrow which I ought to conceive for my crimes. It is by you I detest them,
through you, and for the love of you, I sincerely grieve for having
committed them.
Could I, O divine Jesus, present to your Father a heart more capable of
satisfying his justice? Are not your Sacred Heart and the bitter sorrow with
which you were pierced, and all your merits, assuredly mine? Has not your
love surrendered them to me?
O Heart ever open through love, to receive the sinner, permit me to
enter with confidence into your sacred wound, there to be secured from the
anger of the eternal Father, so justly irritated against me. Be my assured
asylum against the enemies of my salvation, and particularly at the hour of
my death.
O sacred, O divine love, how can I express my gratitude to you? You
wish and require that I should love you, and yet I have been cold and
indifferent to you.
O love, O generous Heart, pardon mine, which is base and perfidious,
but now, by your grace, contrite and humbled for its baseness and perfidy.
O ardent and active love, O Heart of Jesus, still burning with love for
me, and desiring my love, pierce my heart with one of those inflamed darts
with which you are filled. Inflict a deep wound. May it daily increase more
and more, and may it remain incurable.
O Adorable Heart, may my love for you know neither change nor limits.
May my love for you make me always detest my past life, render me like
you, and both an agreeable and faithful victim of your love.
Be mine, O Sacred Heart, and may I be yours. May my heart, O Jesus,
be entirely conformable to yours. May I no longer live, desire, nor love, but
according to your Heart and for your glory, during time and eternity. Amen.
Prayer to obtain the conversion of hearts
Heart of Jesus, legitimate Lord of Hearts, deign to subject to your

obedience all our hearts. Possess them all, even those which are rebellious
to your law. Induce them by the attractions of your grace to submit
themselves to your dominion. Never suffer them to withdraw an obedience
so just, necessary and glorious for them. Render them docile to your will.
Be, O most holy and perfect of all hearts, the model of ours.
Make them become like yours, humble, pure, meek and patient.
Restrain the passions which agitate them. Purify them from terrestrial
desires, which defile them. Settle their inconstancy. Soften their hardness.
Enrich their poverty. Elevate their desires to heavenly pursuits. Inflame
them with the fire of your divine love.
In a word, render them such as will make them agreeable to you, that
they may honour, love and imitate you, and thereby possess you eternally.
Amen.
Prayer for those in agony
O most merciful Jesus, lover of souls, I pray you, by the agony of your
most Sacred Heart and by the sorrows of your Immaculate Mother, cleanse
in your own Blood the sinners of the whole world who are now in their
agony and who are to die this day. Amen.
Heart of Jesus, once in agony, pity the dying.
Prayer for the souls in Purgatory
O Jesus, whose merits and love are infinite, we implore you for the
souls which love you, and which you love.
If you punish them with justice to render them worthy of possessing
you, you wish that we should implore your mercy in their favour, to shorten
the time of their sufferings.
Hear favourably the prayers which we address to you in their favour.
Remember, in particular, we conjure you, those who on earth were
devoted to your Sacred Heart and zealous for its glory.
O amiable Jesus, suffer them no longer to be deprived of your presence.
They are dear to your Heart, and it is through this same Heart, that we
beseech you to put them in possession of the happiness which alone they
desire, and which you have merited for them by the effusion of your
Precious Blood. Amen.
Prayer for the Church
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, bestow your blessings on the Holy Church, on

our Holy Father the Pope, on the ministers of the Church and on all its
children. Sustain the just, convert sinners, enlighten unbelievers, console
the afflicted, comfort the sick, assist the dying, deliver the souls of
Purgatory and extend over the hearts of all the sweet dominion of your
love. Amen.
(The Week Sanctified (1874)
UNTITLED PRAYERS
Prayer (1)
O Jesus, I cast myself and all my concerns into your Sacred Heart,
overflowing with all sweetness.
I commit to you with perfect confidence all my spiritual and temporal
interests.
I beg of you in the hours of my weakness and excitement, when I forget
and neglect to call on you for help, to be still my protector and guide.
Give me light to see your will, strength to do it and the grace not to
offend you by the least deliberate fault. Amen.
Prayer (2)
Fire of the Heart of Jesus, inflame my heart.

Charity of the Heart of Jesus, fill my heart.
Strength of the Heart of Jesus, sustain my heart.
Mercy of the Heart of Jesus, pardon my heart.
Patience of the Heart of Jesus, forsake not my heart.
Reign of the Heart of Jesus, establish yourself in my heart.
Wisdom of the Heart of Jesus, teach my heart.
Will of the Heart of Jesus, dispose of my heart.
Zeal of the Heart of Jesus, absorb my heart.
Prayer (3)
Heart of Jesus, who alone has lawful dominion over the hearts of
mankind, deign to make all hearts subject to your sway.
Take possession of them all, even of those that are now in rebellion
against you.
Force them to submit to you by that sweet and loving rule you exercise
over them when it pleases you.
Do not permit them at any time to withdraw themselves from your
dominion over them, which is so just, so necessary, so glorious for them.
Make them ever docile to your will.
At the same time, O holiest and most Perfect of hearts, be the model of
our hearts.
Make them humble, meek, patient, charitable and pure like yours.
Curb the passions that disturb them, by pouring into them those
heavenly desires of which you are the fruitful source.
Purify them from the earthly desires that defile them.
Strengthen them where they are inconstant, soften their hardness,
enrich their poverty, raise up their desires to Heaven, and inflame them
with the fire with which you yourself are ever burning.
In a word, make them such that they may be pleasing to you, and may
honour, love and imitate you so as to possess you for all eternity. Amen.
(The Adorable Heart of Jesus (1890) 286)
Prayer (4)
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I fly, I come to you, throwing myself into the
arms of your tender mercy.
You are my sure refuge, my unfailing and only hope.
You have a remedy for all my evils, relief for all my miseries, reparation
for all my faults.
You can supply for what is wanting in me, in order to obtain fully the
graces that I ask for myself and others.
You are for me, and for us all, the infallible, inexhaustible source of
light, of strength, perseverance, peace and consolation.
I am certain that my importunity will never weary you. Certain too, that
you will never cease to aid, to protect, to love me, because your love for
me, O Divine Heart, is infinite.
Have mercy on me, then, O Heart of Jesus, and on all that I
recommend to you, according to your own mercy, and do with us, for us,
and in us, whatever you will, for we abandon ourselves to you with the
full, entire confidence and conviction that you will never abandon us either
in time or eternity. Amen.
CHAPLET OF THE SACRED HEART
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
V. Incline to my aid, O God.

R. Lord, make haste to help me.
Most loving Jesus! My heart leaps for joy in thinking on your loving
Sacred Heart, all tenderness and sweetness for sinful man, and, with trust
unbounded, it never doubts your ready welcome.
Ah me, my sins, how many and how great! With Saint Peter and Saint
Mary Magdalen, in tears, I bewail and abhor them, because they are an
offence to you, my sole and chief good.
Grant me, O grant me pardon for them all. May I die, I beseech you, by
your loving Heart. May I die rather than offend you and may I live only to
correspond to your love.
Our Father. Five Glory Be.
O sweetest Heart of Jesus! I implore that I may ever love you more and
more.
My Jesus, I bless your most humble Heart and I give thanks to you who,
in making it my model, not only urges me with much pressing to imitate it,
but, at the cost of so many humiliations, stoops to point me out the path
and smooth for me the way to follow you.
Foolish and ungrateful that I am, how have I wandered far away from
you.
Mercy, my Jesus, mercy! Away, hateful pride and love of worldly
honour! With lowly heart I wish to follow you, my Jesus, through
humiliations and the cross, and thus to gain peace and salvation. Only be
at hand to strengthen me, and I will ever bless your Sacred Heart.
more.
My Jesus, I marvel at your most patient Heart, and I thank you for all
those wondrous examples of unwearied patience which you left me to
guide me on my way. It grieves me that I have still to reproach myself with
my extravagant delicacy, shrinking from the slightest pain.
Oh, pour, then, into my heart, dear Jesus, eager and enduring love of
suffering and the cross, of mortification and of penance, that, following
you to Calvary, I may with you attain the joys of paradise!
more.
Dear Jesus, at the sight of your most gentle Heart, I shudder to see
how unlike mine is to yours, since at a shadow, at a look, at a word of
opposition, I fret and grieve.
Oh, then, pardon my excesses, and give me grace that, in every
contradiction, I may follow the example of your unchangeable meekness,
and so enjoy an everlasting holy peace.
more.
Sing praise to Jesus for his most generous Heart, the conqueror of
death and hell. Yet never will you reach its due with all your praise.
More than ever am I confounded, looking on my coward heart, which,
through human respect, dreads even a passing word.
Courage, my soul! It will be so with you no more. My Jesus, I pray you
for such strength that, fighting and conquering on earth, I may one day
rejoice triumphantly with you in heaven.
more.
Let us turn to Mary, consecrating ourselves to her more and more, and,
trusting in her maternal heart, let us say to her:
By the precious gifts of your sweetest heart, obtain for me, great
Mother of my God and my Mother Mary, a true and lasting devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, your well-beloved Son, that, united in every thought
and affection with that heart, I may fulfil all the duties of my state of life
with ready heart, serving my Jesus evermore, but especially on this day.
R. Heart of Jesus, burning with love of us.

V. Inflame our hearts with love of you.
LET US PRAY. Lord, we beseech you, let your Holy Spirit kindle in our
hearts that fire of charity which Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, sent forth
from his inmost Heart on this earth and willed that it should burn with
vehemence. We ask this through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
LITANIES
In 1899 Pope Leo XIII approved this Litany for both public and private devotion.
Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, Son of the eternal Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin
Mother, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of God, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, of infinite majesty, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sacred temple of God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, tabernacle of the Most High, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, house of God and gate of heaven, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, burning furnace of charity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abode of justice and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of goodness and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abyss of all virtues, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, most worthy of all praise, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, king and centre of all hearts, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom dwells the fullness of divinity, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom the Father was well pleased, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, of whose fullness we have all received, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, desire of the everlasting hills, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, patient and most merciful, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, enriching all who invoke you, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, fountain of life and holiness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, propitiation for our sins, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, loaded down with opprobrium, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, bruised for our offences, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, obedient unto death, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of all consolation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, our life and resurrection, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, our peace and reconciliation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, victim for sin, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, salvation of those who trust in you, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, hope of those who die in you, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, delight of all the saints, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, spare us, O
Lord.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, graciously hear
us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on
us, O Lord.
V. Jesus, who is meek and humble of Heart.

R. Make our hearts like yours.
LET US PRAY. Almighty and eternal God, look on the Heart of your
dearly beloved Son, and on the praise and satisfaction he offers you in
the name of sinners and for those who seek your mercy. Be appeased
and grant us pardon in the name of the same Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
forever and ever. Amen.
For private devotion only.


Christ, hear us.
Jesus, whose merciful Heart is substantially united to your divinity,
have mercy on us.
Jesus, whose pure Heart is the Temple of the Blessed Trinity, have
mercy on us.
Jesus, whose Heart is the principle and centre of all perfect
affections, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is so great that no man can
comprehend it, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is so great that neither the
angels nor saints will ever understand it, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart is so great for us that your Blessed
Mother, the Virgin Mary, will never comprehend it, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart extends itself even to the greatest
sinners, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart rejoices all the Church triumphant,
have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart consoles and sustains all the Church
militant, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart comforts and delivers the Church
suffering, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us comprises all possible love,
have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is that of a true friend, have
mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is that of the most generous
benefactor, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is that of a brother and sister,
have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is that of a true spouse, have
mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is that of the fondest of
parents, have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us is that of Creator and Saviour,
have mercy on us.
Jesus, the love of your Heart for us infinitely surpasses all created
love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, plunged in mortal sorrow in the Garden of Olives at
the consideration of our ingratitude, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, pierced on the cross by a cruel lance, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, from which issued the holy Church your spouse as
Eve was taken from the side of the sleeping Adam, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, adored from the first by your sorrowful Mother, we
adore you.
Heart of Jesus, adored by Magdalen, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, adored by those who laid you in the sepulchre, we
adore you.
Heart of Jesus, adored by a multitude of heavenly spirits, we adore
you.
Heart of Jesus, adored by all your apostles and disciples, we adore
you.
Heart of Jesus, triumphant and glorious at the right hand of your
eternal Father, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, adored by all the heavenly court, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, living and glorious, though concealed in the Divine
Eucharist, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, adored on our altars by all the true friends of God,
we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, despised and unworthily profaned in the Holy
Eucharist, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, cruelly outraged by unbelievers and bad Christians,
we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, ocean of goodness and abyss of mercy, we adore
you.
Heart of Jesus, impregnable fortress for all those who seek refuge
in you, we adore you.
Heart of Jesus, inexhaustible source of all graces and blessings, we
adore you.
Heart of Jesus, more brilliant than the sun, more beautiful and
perfect than all creatures, we adore you.
Jesus, by the sorrows of your Adorable Heart, grant us the perfect
contrition of our sins, graciously hear us.
Jesus, by the wound and blood of your Divine Heart, grant us grace
to begin a holy life, graciously hear us.
Jesus, by the ineffable joys of your tender Heart, comfort us in our
trials, graciously hear us.
Jesus, by the infinite love which inflamed your Heart, grant us an
increasing love until death, graciously hear us.
Jesus, grant that we may always dwell in your infinitely loving
Heart, graciously hear us.
Jesus, unite our hearts to yours during life and in eternity,
graciously hear us.
Jesus, so strengthen the union of our hearts with yours that we
may be always ready to lose and suffer all things rather than offend
you, graciously hear us.
Jesus, inflame us with a holy zeal for your glory, the triumph of
your Church and the salvation of souls, graciously hear us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, pardon us, O
Jesus.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, hear us, O
Jesus.
us, O Jesus.
Jesus, hear us.

Jesus, graciously hear us.
Litanies for every day of the week
The following litanies for every day of the week are approved for
private devotion only.
Monday - of the Sacred Heart of the Child Jesus

Christ, hear us.
Heart of the Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, reposing on the bosom of Mary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, nourished with the milk of Mary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom your Father was alone pleased, have
mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, hypostatically united to the Son of God, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, wonderful work of the Holy Spirit, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, tabernacle of the Blessed Trinity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, furnace of love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, throne of love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, dwelling of love and justice, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of sweetness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, powerful in weakness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, miracle of obedience, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abyss of humility, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, ocean of goodness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sweet centre of my heart, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, my sovereign felicity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, which love has disarmed, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, treasure opened to us, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of benedictions, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, principle of sanctity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, glorified by the angels, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, who summoned the wise men from afar, have
mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, the delight of heaven, have mercy on us.
Lord.
us, O Lord.
us, O Lord.
V. Create a clean heart in me, O God.

R. And renew a right spirit within me.
LET US PRAY. Almighty God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit
formed the holy and Immaculate Heart of Jesus, who was borne in the
womb of the Blessed Virgin, withdraw from our hearts all worldly
inclinations and make them clean in your sight so that, serving you on
earth in purity of heart, we may deserve the beauty of your presence
for all eternity. Amen.
Tuesday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Conversing Among Men

Christ, hear us.
Heart of Jesus, conversing among men, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, submissive to Mary and Joseph, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sent by the Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, led by the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of wisdom, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of grace and truth, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, invincible fortress, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, mighty in word and in works, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, inflamed with zeal for the glory of God, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, severely rebuking the deceitful, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, working miracles everywhere, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, infinite patience, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, refuge of the afflicted, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, always solicitous for sinners, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, comforter of the afflicted, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, immense charity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of forbearance for your enemies, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, most faithful to your friends, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, conversing with the pure of heart, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, model of meekness and humility, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, example of all virtues, have mercy on us.
Lord.
us, O Lord.
us, O Lord.
V. Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

R. And you will find rest to your souls.
LET US PRAY. Adorable Jesus who dwelling on earth conversed

with men, with a meekness and humility capable of engaging the
hearts of all, we beseech you to increase in us those two sweet virtues
which you hold so dear, in order that, following your example,
conversing among our brethren with this humility, we may find the rest
which you promise to the meek and humble of heart. Amen.
Wednesday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Living in Solitude

Christ, hear us.
Heart of Jesus, solitary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, enclosed in the womb of Mary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, reposing in the bosom of the Father, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, lover of solitude, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, heaven of repose, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, always watching over your elect, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, detached from the world, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, passing whole nights in prayer, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, absorbed in contemplation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, adoring the Father in spirit and truth, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, raised above temptations, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, inflamed with love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, mystical cell, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, delight of those in solitude, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, speaking to the solitary heart, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, rendering fruitful the hearts of those who live in
retirement, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, revealing your secrets to those living apart from the
world, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, strength of the solitary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, secure refuge of the solitary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sweet refreshment of the solitary, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, uniting yourself to the solitary heart, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, peacefully reigning in the solitary heart, have mercy
on us.
Lord.
us, O Lord.
us, O Lord.
V. I will lead the soul into solitude.

R. And there I will speak to her heart.
LET US PRAY. Adorable Saviour who loved solitude, we beseech you to

inspire our hearts with the love of retirement so that, withdrawn from
the tumult of the world, we may hear the sweetness of your voice in
the silence of creatures and faithfully correspond with the whisperings
of Heart and inspirations of your love. Amen.
Thursday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament

Christ, hear us.
Heart of Jesus, annihilated in the Blessed Sacrament, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, inseparably united to that of Mary, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, resplendent Sun of the Church, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abyss of all virtues, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, good Pastor, lavish of yourself, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, offered up again in sacrifice, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sacred Host, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, consumed for us, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, bond of charity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, divine seal of our hearts, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, altar of love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, refreshment of holy souls, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, adorable feast, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, admirable drink, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, desirable feast, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, delectable feast, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, spiritual sweetness tasted in its proper source, have
mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, hidden manna, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, fountain of living water, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abridgement of the wonders of God, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, consuming fire, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of light, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of joy, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of all grace, have mercy on us.
Lord.
us, O Lord.
us, O Lord.
V. The Heart of Jesus finds its delight.

R. Among the children of men.
LET US PRAY. O Jesus, divine lover of mankind, who in order to

gain our hearts and transform them into yours, has given us by a
marvellous invention of your love, your own Heart to be our support,
we beseech you, through your excessive charity, to grant us the grace
to receive this sacred bread with such holy dispositions that we may
be so happy to return our hearts for yours, and love for love. Amen.
Friday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Suffering

Christ, hear us.
Heart of Jesus, suffering, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sensible to the sorrows of Mary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, the delight of the eternal Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, burning with love for the cross, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, overwhelmed with bitterness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of contrition, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, seized with fear in the Garden, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sad even until death, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, betrayed by Judas, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, afflicted by the cowardice of the apostles, have
mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, comforted by an angel, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, weakened even until agony, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, submissive to the will of your Father, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, bound by your love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, suffering every kind of injustice, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abandoned to the fury of man, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, torn by the scourges, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, pierced by thorns, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, pierced with nails, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, loaded with indignity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, comfort of the afflicted, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sweet charm of your servants, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, centre of every sorrow, have mercy on us.
Lord.
us, O Lord.
us, O Lord.
V. If we have borne a part in the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

R. We will have a share in his glory.
LET US PRAY. Adorable Saviour, whose Sacred Heart full of sorrow

and bitterness has many times bewailed the guilty pleasures of men,
we beseech you, through the infinite merits of your holy Passion, that,
making our hearts conformable to yours, we may despise the
allurements of the world and the flesh in order to suffer with you and
deserve through those sufferings to share in your glory forever and
ever. Amen.
Saturday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Dying

Christ, hear us.
Heart of Jesus, suffering, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, dying, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, afflicted by the sadness of your Mother, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, perfect image of the Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, obedient even until death on the cross, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, victim of expiation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, freely sacrificed for us, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, breaking on the cross for us, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, wounded on the altar of the cross, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, speaking through a thousand wounds, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, crying by the voice of your Blood, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, disarming divine justice, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, praying for your enemies, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, thirsting for our salvation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, exhausted of blood, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sighing for love of us, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, dying with love of us, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, finishing the work of our redemption, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, reconciling heaven with earth, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, paradise of crucified souls, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, hope of the dying, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, throne of mercy, have mercy on us.
Lord.
us, O Lord.
us, O Lord.
V. May my heart expire for love of you.

R. Since your Heart died for love of me.
LET US PRAY. O Sovereign Redeemer of mankind whose Heart,

raised on the altar of the cross burned with the sacred fire of charity,
vouchsafed to die for us, we beseech you to inflame our hearts with
the fire of the same charity so that we may have the happiness to
aspire only after you during life and breathe our last sighs for you at
the hour of death. Amen.
Sunday - of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Risen from the Dead


Christ, hear us.
Heart of Jesus, risen from the dead, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, the honour and glory of Mary, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, splendour of the Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, glorious and triumphant, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, exalted above all hearts, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, the glory of the Blessed Trinity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, placed at the right hand of your Father, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of goodness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, eternal light, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, friend chosen among thousands, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, calling back your wandering sheep, have mercy on
us.
Heart of Jesus, caressing your apostles, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, wounding the souls of the pure with love, have
mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, visiting your lovers, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, revealing your secrets to the pure of heart, have
mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, purifying the angels, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, sanctifying the archangels, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, confirming the thrones, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, governing the dominations, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, reigning over the principalities, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, commanding the powers, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, the strength of the virtues, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, enlightening the cherubim, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, inflaming the seraphim, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, the crown of all saints, have mercy on us.
Lord.
us, O Lord.
us, O Lord.
V. You are the God of my heart.

R. And my portion for all eternity.
LET US PRAY. O glorious Redeemer who are the glory and happy
centre of all hearts, who has yourself said, that when you should be
raised you would draw all things to yourself, we beseech you,
vouchsafe to purify our hearts by the fire of your divine love, drawing
them to you by the bonds of your charity, so that they may be
transformed into you and repose with you for all eternity.
MEDITATIONS ON THE SACRED HEART
The “Meditations on the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ” were written by

the Italian Jesuit priest, Father Carlo Borgo (1731-1794).
The work was first published in Ferrara in 1778. Its full Italian title is
Novena in Preparazione alla la Festa del Sacro Cuore di Gesù Cristo ad uso
delle Persone Religiose (“Novena in Preparation for the Feast of the Sacred
Heart for use of Religious Persons”). The title was later altered to add “e
Seculari” (and Secular).
Father Borgo's “Novena” is a set of 12 meditations comprising doctrine
and spiritual unction, inspired by Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque's devout
exercise, “The Life of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.” The number
of meditations corresponds to the number of first Fridays in the year.
Italian editions included a lengthy introduction by Father Borgo
addressed to nuns and male societies of apostolic life for which the work
was expressly and primarily intended as an “excellent means” for their
sanctification.
The author counselled them to practise their novenas in a way that is
conducive to their spiritual betterment, and to avoid overloading
themselves with exterior practices of devotion which will have to be done
hastily, and thus weary and dissipate the spirit. “Above all,” he wrote, “flee
from exterior practices that may impede or make difficult the observance of
the Rule or the Community in which you live.”
“Animate all the exterior devout exercises that you choose with the
internal spirit, the spirit of interior compunction, the spirit of charity,
the spirit of humility, the spirit of love, etc, that animate all your
external acts of penance, of submission, of divine worship etc. The
most beautiful exterior acts without this internal spirit are to the eyes
of God like things done in jest.”
Father Borgo acknowledged that lay persons might also make use of
this work. “Because I see the novena sought and appreciated even by lay
people, and because they too can profit by it if they are souls eager for
perfection,” he warned “that that the maxims and principles are not the
same in every state” and that they would have to be adapted to the
“duties and dangers” of the lay person's state of life.
In 1809 Pope Pius VI, “in his desire to increase the devotion of the
faithful to the Sacred Heart of Jesus” granted the following Indulgences:
1. An Indulgence of 300 days (for every day of the Novena) to all

who, with contrite hearts, make Father Borgo's Novena before the
Feast of the Sacred Heart.
2. A Plenary Indulgence, to be gained either on the Feast of the

Sacred Heart or on some day during the Octave of the Feast to all who
who, after confession and communion and having made Father Borgo's
Novena, pray for the Pope's intentions.
The Novena could also be used once at any other time of the year to
gain these Indulgences on the same conditions as specified above.
In the 1857 edition of The Raccolta, the Collection of Indulgenced
Prayers, it is stated that
“Any of the faithful who are not in possession of Father Alphonsus

Rodriguez's book on Perfection, which F. Borgo's Novena assigns as
spiritual reading during the Novena, may, by the permission of the
same Pope Pius VII, use any other book of devotion or spiritual
reading they like.”
The Book by Father Alphonsus (Alonso) Rodriguez (1526-1616) referred

to is the Exercicio de perfección y virtudes cristianas (“The Practice of
Christian and Religious Perfection”) published in Seville in 1609.
Meditation 1 – On the ends of the institution of the Most
Holy Sacrament
(For the day preceding the Novena)
Preparatory prayer — Faith in God's presence.
O my God, I firmly believe that you are here present, and perfectly see
me, and observe all my actions, all my thoughts and the most secret
motions of my heart. I acknowledge that I am not worthy to come into
your presence, nor to lift up my eyes to you, because I have often sinned
against you. But your goodness and mercy invite me to come to you. Assist
me therefore with your Holy Spirit and teach me to pray to you as I ought.
Offering of the meditation — Petition for attention, light and affection.
Eternal Father, restrain my many wandering thoughts and suppress the

temptations that violently assault me. Give me light in this meditation that
I may draw fruit from it. Join me to yourself by an inseparable bond of
love, for you alone can satisfy the lover and without you all other things
are frivolous.
First prelude — Imagine you behold Jesus Christ in the act of instituting
the divine Sacrament.
View him at table with his apostles, with that bread in his hand which
he blesses and substantially changes into his divine body. Observe how he
raises to heaven those divine eyes brightened with a light of more than
ordinary sweetness. See how that divine countenance is more than usually
inflamed. He appears truly in an ecstasy of love.
Second prelude — Beg him to give you an extraordinary light, that you
may understand well the ends of his love in this Sacrament, and grace to
be penetrated deeply with them, that you may also concur to the
accomplishment of these ends.
FIRST POINT: Jesus Christ instituted the divine Sacrament that he

might fully satisfy his desire of communicating to us all his riches. So many
other ways of communicating his divine gifts to men had not yet contented
him.
Ponder well, O religious soul, this insatiable desire of his most liberal
Heart.
This is not simply a new gift that he offers to the souls he loves. It is a
compendium of all his gifts. Every kind of grace is included in it. Whatever
wants a soul may have in this life, it can here find a means of supplying
and satisfying them all.
Tempted, afflicted, timid, weak, blind, poor, sick, dying souls, here, if
you know how to make use of them, you may find all the helps which are
found separated in so many other means. In friends, advisers, masters,
books, examples, considerations, in all the devotions of Christianity.
In each of these kinds of advantages bestowed by the Heart of Jesus
numberless souls have found means of sanctifying themselves. In other
means we may often want the opportunity, or that facility and frequency
we require.
But in this Sacrament Jesus Christ is always present and ready,
everywhere and for everyone. What a reproach this of your long tepidity in
the service of God! What a reprehension of your indolence and neglect of
so universal a remedy!
But this is not simply a compendium of the other divine gifts. It is also a
gift entirely new, and the greatest of all the gifts to which the infinite
charity of your Redeemer has given birth.
Here he gives you the plant itself, the parent of so many fruits, he gives
you himself. In himself he gives you everything, without reserving anything
to himself. He gives you his sacred humanity, with all the merits of his
mortal life. He gives you his divinity, with all the infinite treasures of his
wisdom, power and goodness. He puts no other limit to his desire of
enriching you than the limit which you put yourself, your disposition, and
your capacity.
Ponder well this excess of love, O soul that are so sensible to all human
courtesy.
The gifts of men appease you when irritated, rouse you when
indifferent, engage and conquer you. Only towards your God your
ungrateful heart changes its nature. Be confounded, repent, melt into
sorrow, and resolve once for all what you ought to think, to feel and to do
in order to give contentment to the divine Heart, insatiable in its desires of
imparting good.
SECOND POINT: Jesus Christ instituted the divine Sacrament to unite

himself to our souls. This is the object of his most liberal love.
Behold him here, that merchant in the Gospel, who sells all his property
to purchase a pearl he believes to be rare and precious. O Jesus, Son of
God, can then we and the possession of our hearts be so valuable in your
eyes? Vile and ungrateful soul, think of this mystery!
So ardently does the Only-begotten Son of the Father long to become
one thing with you by the most intimate union that can exist between the
eternal God and a mortal creature.
And by an effort of power and of wisdom he has found a means of
making himself as it were one with you, by becoming your food, so as to
be wholly and in truth the property of the creature, provided the creature
consents to be wholly his by a reciprocal and loving return. Reason would
shudder to think of it, if faith did not oblige us to believe it. Yes, my Jesus
and my God, I believe it.
But do I properly conceive as I ought how it is that I am so insensible to
such love?
O how late have I known you and myself! As I admire you, so am I
horrified at myself. How often have you thus lovingly united yourself to my
soul! But to what a monster have you found yourself united, O divine lover!
To what a monster of unworthiness, uncleanness, coldness, and
ingratitude! This my soul has so often found itself in the bosom of a
happiness it has not known. To enjoy which, even for once only, all my
blood would have been well shed!
O blind, foolish, unhappy and guilty soul of mine, what moments have
you lost! What delights you have not had the taste to relish! The Seraphim
themselves envied you, and I ... my vile senses, deceitful world!
treacherous passions! What have you given me in exchange?
Here pause a little, O religious soul, and compare this infinite and
loving possession of God with those occasions of our tepidity that deprive
you of the knowledge and relish of so great a good.
Make generous resolutions, beg great light and great graces, and
conclude with an entire renunciation of your self-love, and with an absolute
offering of your heart to the desires, designs, and burning affection of the
most amiable and loving heart of your divine Spouse.
Meditation 2 – In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life
of beatitude
(For Day 1 of the Novena)
This is a truth imperceptible to your self-love, which, in the most holy

Sacrament, sees the Heart of Jesus Christ in a total privation of all the
sensible blessings of earth.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Imagine you see Jesus Christ in the most holy
Sacrament, opening his divine breast, and showing you his Heart as on a
throne of sweetest light and of living fire.
Second prelude — Beg of him to give you a share of that sweet light
and of that divine fire, to undeceive and inflame your heart.
FIRST POINT: Seek in the Heart of Jesus Christ the idea you ought to
form of the greatness, beauty, and felicity of temporal blessings.
That divine Heart enjoys in that narrow ciborium an infinite happiness,
without however tasting any of that which the world esteems, and which
your self-love believes so necessary to your contentment.
Silence and solitude surround him, instead of earthly pleasures. His
lodging is often in poverty and filth, instead of gems and gold. For the few
moments that he is not left alone. He generally has before him rude people
and persons of low esteem.
How often does he find himself in the midst of those who offend him,
and of his enemies! How often does it happen that he is insulted, derided,
profaned!
What a wretched situation is his in the eyes of your self-love! If you had
to remain in that tabernacle as he remains, were it only for a week, you
would die of melancholy. That divine Heart, however, in such solitude, in
such company, in the midst of such contempt, loses nothing of its
happiness, which is always infinite.
And how often do you lose your tranquillity! And for what a trifle do you
lose it!
O blind and feeble heart! By your attachment to sensible things you
have made your happiness depend on them, because in these things it is
that you have hitherto sought happiness.
Your heart is of the same nature as that of Jesus Christ. Like his divine
Heart, your heart was never made for these pleasures that thus allure the
senses. Be confounded at your past folly.
O Heart infinitely blessed, make me know the deceitfulness of the
pleasures which my self-love suggests and requires. Give me an utter
contempt for all that the world esteems and loves. Examine what desire of
self. Direct your love allures you most, and against this particularly your
resolutions and prayers.
SECOND POINT: Study in the Heart of Jesus Christ the idea you ought
to form of the greatness, beauty, and happiness, of spiritual blessings.
The love and possession of God constitute the happiness of the divine
Heart of Jesus Christ.
As that Heart is personally united to the Divinity, its happiness is
infinite, because its love and union with the Divinity are infinite. Behold the
reason why its happiness is not at all disturbed by the absence of these
temporal blessings, which to you appear so great.
As far as regards its happiness, that poor ciborium is equal to the
throne of glory which it enjoys in heaven. After having fixed your eyes on
the sun for a short time, you no longer see anything else. In everything you
continue to see the sun, because the intense impression of that great light
makes your eyes insensible to the weaker light of other objects.
O happy insensibility to all the goods of this life! How necessary is this
insensibility for you to make your heart happy, even in this life! Say once
more to yourself, “My heart is of the same nature as is the Heart of Jesus
Christ: that only which makes him happy can make me happy also.”
Call to mind those days, or at least those hours of your life, when your
heart was most inflamed with love of your God, sweet and yet bitter
recollection! What was then wanting to your happiness? Compare the
tranquillity of your heart then with that which it enjoys at present.
Compassionate yourself, envy yourself, be indignant with yourself.
O infinitely content and happy Heart of my Lord, when will you have
pity on me? Foolish soul, and why do you not take pity on yourself? Thus
does that Heart answer you from that tabernacle. What reply will you
make?
Ask pardon for having allowed that holy love for his Heart, the
sweetness and peace of which he has formerly made you taste, to be
extinguished by your dissipation. Make great, but practical and particular,
resolutions to disengage yourself from that which is the special impediment
to the increase of divine love in you, and consequently the impediment
also to the acquisition and increase of the happiness of your heart even in
this life.
Spiritual lesson — Rodriguez Part 1. Treatise 1. Chapters 14 and 15.

of grace
He who lives in a foreign country to trade or to learn some science, is

said to be leading there a life of traffic or of study.
Jesus Christ wished to remain on this earth, although it no longer suited
his state of glory, in order that he might promote the interests of divine
grace.
Thus the life that he leads here amid us in the Sacrament, may be
called a life of grace. We will meditate the sentiment of his Divine Heart on
this subject, and the sentiments he requires from our hearts on it.
O my God! I firmly believe that you are here present, and perfectly see

are frivolous.
First prelude — Imagine you behold Jesus Christ in the most holy
Sacrament, who with his breast open, shows you his divine Heart, from
which bursts a torrent of most clear water, signifying the graces he desires
to shower on all who present themselves.
Second prelude — Present yourself before him as a poor unclean leper,

and languishing with thirst, and beg of him to cure, cleanse, and restore
you by his grace.
FIRST POINT: Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament lives a life of
grace. What are the sentiments with which this life inspires his Heart?
What were his sentiments during his mortal life when he healed the
sick, and for this purpose sought them out himself. When he gave sight to
the blind, raised the dead to life, and conferred his numerous miraculous
favours?
All these sentiments of pity, tenderness, mercy, and liberality. he now
feels at the same moment in this state, which is a compendium of all his
wonders. With what sentiments did he encounter so much fatigue, want,
and torment! All this charity and infinite love he now feels in this state in
which he continues to renew every day the work of our redemption.
A great flame confined in a narrow furnace, how does it gain strength
and rage!
You may imagine the same of this divine Heart. Think, to speak after
our way of understanding things, that this infinitely loving Heart is in a kind
of inexpressible suffering through the excessive fullness of the graces it
contains, and to which it cannot give vent through want of persons to
receive them.
One day Jesus said to a beloved soul as he showed her his Heart, as in
an abyss of fire — “My Heart, my daughter, can no longer support its desire
to communicate itself to souls. Do you assist me, my daughter, to lessen
this fire. Publish and cause it to be published over all the world, that I will
set no limits to my graces, for those souls that come to seek them in this
my Heart.”
Now you are one of these cold souls, so reserved with the Heart of this
loving God. Have you ever well pondered and understood these sentiments
of his Heart? What do you think of him, now that you know them? What
do you think of yourself?
Heart of infinite liberality and charity, why have I not known you
before? Why have I been until now so destitute of grace, so diffident with
you, so timid in praying to you, so reserved in my requests? Admiration,
thanksgiving, confidence, resolutions.
SECOND POINT: What sentiments does the Heart of Jesus Christ require
from you by this life of grace, in which he remains for you in this
Sacrament?
Firstly, you ought practically to make this divine Heart your only place
of refuge in all the wants of your heart.
You have not done so until now, since this loving Heart has been the
last to which you have had recourse. Had you practically believed that in
this Divine Heart there was a true remedy for all your temptations, fits of
melancholy, doubts and weaknesses, you would not have sought it from
creatures, from your senses, and even from your passions.
Examine yourself with sincerity on the wrongs you have done in this to
the most tender and powerful of all hearts, and begin immediately to
repair them.
Secondly, you ought to have recourse to this divine Heart with a sincere
and strong desire of the graces of which you stand in need.
That divine Heart is perfectly acquainted with your most secret
sentiments, and sees how weak is your desire to love him, even in the very
act of begging the grace of his love, that you fear to have the grace
effectually to break that attachment to creatures, that while you beg the
grace with your lips, you have a secret horror of self-hatred, of love of
contempt, of an entire renunciation of the indulgence of your senses.
Your best means of deserving the graces of Jesus Christ is by the
sincerity and greatness of your desires. Compare your desires with those
which you have meditated in the Heart of Jesus Christ. Blush, seek pardon,
and begin by asking as a first grace such a desire of being cured by his
graces, as may be worthy of the desire he has to communicate them to
you.
Thirdly, you ought to have recourse to the Heart of Jesus Christ with a
humble, but loving confidence. That is, with a kind of affectionate
familiarity which, in this Sacrament, God allows and wishes you to have
with him.
O soul! unmindful of your happy lot! I might almost call this
forgetfulness a greater wonder than the love of this Heart for man, for this
is the God of majesty and glory, before whom the Seraphim tremble in
heaven, who here on earth wishes to converse confidently with us.
You give the closest confidence of your heart to creatures sometimes
more vile than yourself, and who perhaps, dishonour and betray you, and
are reserved and close of heart with God, who condescends to abase
himself so much for you.
It is not humility that influences you. It is the little love you entertain
for him, and the superficial nature of the persuasion which you have of his
excessive love for you. O divine Heart, infinitely amiable and loving, it will
be so no more!
Open your whole heart to the heart of Jesus, relate to it your pains,
your wounds, your wants. He knows not how to resist a heart that is
wretched, be it but anxious and confiding.

of sacrifice
The sacrifice of the cross lasted a few hours. Jesus Christ renews it
every moment in the Eucharist, since the holy Mass is celebrated every
moment in some part or other of the world.
Thus the life of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament may be called a continual
life of sacrifice, in which he himself is both priest and victim.
We will then meditate:
(1) Firstly, what share the heart of Jesus has in this Sacrifice of itself.
(2) Secondly, what a strong invitation this is to our heart to sacrifice
itself for Jesus.

are frivolous.
First prelude — View Jesus Christ in the Sacrament as a lamb placed on

the altar to be sacrificed, and flames issuing from his Heart, with which,
like a victim, it is consumed.
Second prelude — Beg of him to make you understand well the value of
his Sacrifice, and to give you courage to imitate him by the sacrifice of your
whole self to his love.
FIRST POINT: The love of Jesus Christ for his divine Father, and for us
was the principal cause of the Sacrifice of the cross, but the envy and
hatred of his enemies and executioners had also a share in it.
But here it is love alone that does everything. This new sacrifice is,
then, entirely the invention and work of his loving Heart alone. The
essential interest of the divine glory and of man's redemption, was already
infinitely satisfied by the sacrifice of the cross.
Why then is it thus continually and for so long a time renewed?
What sufficed to satisfy the infinite justice of the Father, was not,
however, sufficient to satisfy the infinite love of the loving Heart of the
Son. In order to be sacrificed on the cross, it was sufficient that he left his
enemies in ignorance of his Majesty, for had they known him to be the God
of glory, they would never have crucified him, but in order to sacrifice
himself again in the Blessed Sacrament, it is necessary for him to conceal
his humanity itself from his dearest friends.
And then why not content himself with this renewal of his Sacrifice once
in the year, as he is satisfied that the memory of his other mysteries
should be renewed in the Church once a year?
Or why not at least provide in this his new sacrifice for his own divine
honour? Why accomplish it with a concealment that exposes him to many
irreverences and sacrileges?
And then, why? — How infinite are the difficulties that his greatness
and our unworthiness opposed to this Sacrifice. Nothing could overcome
them but the excessive love of a heart insatiable in loving us.
Do you understand now, my cold, blind, ungrateful soul, the share the
Heart of Jesus Christ has in his continual sacrifice of himself for us in the
Blessed Sacrament? Admiration, thanksgiving, and desire of
correspondence.
SECOND POINT: The life of sacrifice that the Heart of Jesus Christ lives
for you in the Blessed Sacrament, is an invitation that urges you to enter
on a similar life of sacrifice for him.
If you desire to answer the call, you have nothing to do but to imitate
him. It is his love for you that every day sacrifices him. Love him, and you
too will easily sacrifice yourselves for Jesus.
Consider attentively that these repugnances to trifling sacrifices are a
sign of your little love for him. What other reason is there why retirement,
poverty, and obedience, are disagreeable to you? What other reason is
there why it costs you so much to subdue a resentment, an affection, a
dislike? During so many years of religious life, you have never, alas, tasted
a drop of that ineffable joy which souls that love Jesus Christ experience in
suffering. Unhappy soul do this at least. Begin to sacrifice yourself, in order
to learn how to love him.
Every little sacrifice produces a new degree of love in us, which moves
us and strengthens us for a more noble sacrifice.
Provided only the soul perseveres with some constancy in her little
efforts, the loving heart of Jesus Christ loses patience in thus inflaming her
heart by slow degrees. A day suddenly comes when he purposely puts her
in the occasion of making an heroic sacrifice to him, and provided only she
has resolution to attempt it. He kindles in her heart one of those flames of
his love, which animates her to some great action that becomes the
beginning of her sanctity.
This is the ordinary way of the sanctification of souls. Consider it well,
as it is less difficult than it appears.
Compare the sacrifices of Jesus Christ with those you have an
opportunity of making at present.
If yours are at present small, what a shame to refuse to make them! If
they are great, happy soul, this is the day on which Jesus Christ wishes to
begin your sanctification, and consequently this is a happy day for you.
Fix your eyes on that tabernacle where dwells your only good, your
Spouse, your God sacrificed for you, and speak to that Adorable Heart with
that confidence and familiarity you have learnt from yesterday's
meditation, and resolve.

Meditation 5 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of
humiliation
“Learn of me, who am meek and humble of heart,” are the words of
Jesus Christ, and he repeats them by his actions in the life of humiliation
which he has embraced in the Blessed Sacrament.
In this Blessed Sacrament we will meditate his entire humility, and its
most remarkable circumstances.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Observe with a little attention the total absence of

majesty Jesus Christ shows in that tabernacle, and conceiving as well as
you can the majesty which surrounds him in heaven, conclude what an
infinite difference there must be.
Second prelude — Beg of him to let you fully comprehend the secret
intentions of his Heart in a state so unworthy of his greatness, and the
grace of an effectual love of him by imitation.
FIRST POINT: Self-abasement and the love of everything that can

contribute to it, form the character of humility. Observe the abasement of
Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. He totally conceals everything that gives
honour.
What mark do you see of his divinity? Splendour, majesty, the attending
bands of angels and throne of glory — where are they?
What appearance betrays itself of that power which supports the whole
world? Of that wisdom that governs it? Of that sovereignty which reigns in
heaven and on earth?
Could he hide himself more, if he feared to be honoured in this
Sacrament as the God that he is?
Could he even debase himself more, if he really desired to be
disregarded and despised?
His abode is nothing but a narrow lodging of wood, or at most of stone,
and although a few altars are kept becomingly, numberless others, on
which he remains, are so destitute, wretched and dirty, that the dwelling of
an artisan is neater.
He could have made it a precept in Christianity that the gold and finest
jewels of the cities should be devoted to his tabernacles as formerly in the
ancient Temple built by Solomon.
But though he knew what would happen to him, he has abandoned
himself in this respect to the indolence, the avarice, and the irreligion of
ungrateful men.
What a complete example of the sincerest humility of heart! It is not
necessity, it is his Heart that generously chooses such humiliations and
such a contemptible appearance and state. Here then is a Heart that loves
humility with a sincerity beyond suspicion.
And this is the humility he wishes you to imitate.
Examine your words and the acts of humility which you also sometimes
perform. Are they thus voluntary and loving? Are you as indifferent as the
Heart of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament whether you are treated
with honour or contempt? Do you resign your honour as he does, into the
hands of others?
What a model! What a school! What a difference between the two
Spouses you and your Lord, and yet the one but a slave, the other a king!
Resolve and pray.
SECOND POINT: Consider two striking circumstances of the humility of

the Heart of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Firstly, a heart less fond of humility than that of Jesus Christ might have
believed that, for the greater glory of God, he should have set bounds to
his debasement in this Adorable Sacrament. This God present in the
Blessed Sacrament would have been more easily known and respected
there, if he had at least from time to time, let some sensible sign of his
hidden majesty betray itself.
But not so, thought the Heart of Jesus Christ. He wished that the
example of his humility in the Blessed Sacrament should be perfect to the
last degree.
Reflect O religious soul, that it is sometimes your secret vanity that thus
deceives you. If I remain silent, if I yield, honour, innocence and justice are
lost. Do you not know that the highest honour of innocence is, to be
innocently undervalued, and that the greatest glory of justice, is to be
unjustly oppressed?
This is the beloved maxim of the humble Heart of Jesus Christ, and to
many souls, even in Religious houses, and even in objects in themselves
small, this maxim frequently gives opportunities of great and heroic acts.
Secondly, a heart less fond of humility than the Heart of Jesus Christ,
might have believed that to let itself be sensibly known by men, a little at
least, was likely to produce more fruit in souls.
O loving incarnate love! What heart among us could have resisted even
a fleeting glimpse only seen by us once in life in a sensible manner, of the
sweet and heavenly beauty, were it only of your adorable humanity. But
not so thought the Heart of Jesus Christ he, the infinite wisdom, thought it
most for our good to give us in the Blessed Sacrament the greatest
example of his humility.
Then, pride, vain esteem of yourself, your natural haughtiness has been
considered, O religious soul, by Jesus Christ as his and your greatest
enemy.
Jesus Christ, to undeceive us by his own example in a thing of so much
consequence, has even renounced the more easy acquisition of our tender
love.
But, O Heart wonderfully humble! O my sovereign, infinitely adorable,
and infinitely humbled! more dear are you to me precisely as you are more
humbled for my instruction. “Quanto pro me vilior, tanto mihi carior.” —
Examine your particular circumstances, make particular resolutions, and
beg with a great heart for great helps.

Meditation 6 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its life of
love
Since this life of love of Jesus Christ ought to be in a particular manner

the especial subject of meditation for the day of the Feast of the Sacred
Heart, we will take for today one small specimen of it from the single
circumstance of Jesus Christ having wished to remain always with us in the
Blessed Sacrament.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Fixing a loving and attentive eye on the holy tabernacle,
try to make the most lively act of faith of the real presence of Jesus Christ,
and imagine you hear him address to you the sweet promise he formerly
made to his apostles — “Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad
consummationem saeculi.” — Behold I am, and establish myself among
you to the end of the world.
Second prelude — Beg of him to make you feel all the tenderness of his
loving Heart in this his continual presence in the Sacrament, and all the
gratitude you owe him for this his loving invention.
FIRST POINT: Jesus Christ could work our sanctification by

communicating himself to us figuratively, not really.
But great love is not satisfied with giving assistance only at a distance,
it loves personal presence.
But why could not Jesus Christ content himself with being really present
in the Blessed Sacrament only during the holy Sacrifice of the Mass? By this
alone he would have made many personal visits every day to his beloved
souls. No! This did not seem enough to his Heart. He would always remain
under the Sacramental species, that is, he would become absolutely and
perpetually our fellow citizen and familiar companion. Then he might have
contented himself with remaining in one city of every province, or at the
most in only one temple of each city. No! he would be in every street.
In the wide expanse of heaven, his humanity is only found in one place,
on earth the same humanity assumes a kind of immensity, and wherever is
to be found some small number of Christians, there it also is found. Oh!
How very true is the saying of some saints, that the Heart of Jesus Christ is
enamoured of men.
But reflect, moreover, that this his remaining always and ever among
men costs him one of the greatest miracles of Omnipotence, for such is the
renewal of his sacred humanity in so many places — and still more, that it
costs him an infinite number of insults, because it has been the very
occasion of his receiving them.
How little, perhaps, your desire of being with him corresponds with the
desire of his loving Heart to be with you.
Examine yourself. Does he require anything difficult or inconvenient
from his friends to visit him? What expense, considerations, and trouble, to
pay court to the kings of the earth! How many ceremonies, purifications,
and observances were formerly necessary for approaching the tabernacle
of the ancient Ark!
But neither poverty, nor deformity, nor meanness of state, of person, or
of dress, hinders our approaching this loving God. It is sufficient to love
him, to have a right to be received by him with boundless affability, and to
treat him as an equal, a friend, a confidant.
O incomprehensible love! What condescension! What tenderness! But,
oh! what secret remorse for you, O religious soul, who have been so easily
deterred from visiting him by every slight reason.
SECOND POINT: Consider other circumstances of his love in remaining

with us.
He delights in it so much, that if we cannot go to him, he causes
himself to be carried to us, and in this the proofs of his tender love are
excessive. And where does he often let himself be carried? Where you
would dread and shudder to enter. Into the vilest and poorest cottages,
into the most loathsome abodes, and most horrid prisons.
Neglect not to reflect, also, by what hands he sometimes lets himself
be carried. Dreadful unworthiness, even among his ministers! But the
tender Heart of this loving God seems not to perceive it.
In the ancient times of Christianity, the Christians were allowed to take
the Blessed Sacrament from the sacred table, and carry it with them, and
they brought it to their homes, and bore it with them where they pleased
in their journeys.
And if the Church, indignant at the irreverences that languid faith and
cold charity began in process of time to commit, had not forbidden it, Jesus
Christ would allow himself to be thus treated even at present.
What say you, O religious soul, to these reflections? Have you even yet
well comprehended all the love this divine heart displays in continually
remaining with us?
But observe a more astonishing condescension. However strongly he
desires always to be with you, he does not, however, hinder your human
duties and interests.
Yes, go to your labours, duties and business. Jesus Christ is content to
remain alone, waiting your moments of liberty which may restore you to
him. He does not even wish to disturb your suitable recreations. Yes,
willingly he lets you go at your ease to meals, to recreation, and to lawful
diversions. He is quite a wonderful lover! He seems to be careful in
contenting himself, not to burden or distress you in anything.
Besides so many hours of the day, he remains solitary in his ciborium
the live-long night, and while you sleep. His heart watches for you to guard
you — watches and prays to his divine Father for you — watches and
defends your person from so many dangers — watches and faithfully
guards your houses.
Oh! if you are not touched with a love so tender, so discreet, so
dissembling, so constant, so condescending, so beneficent, confess either
that you have no faith, or that you have a heart unworthy to live.
Reprove yourself, then, severely, bewail your forgetfulness, and
determine what you ought to do in future, that you may correspond to such
loving kindness in Jesus Christ, as has made him sacrifice himself to remain
always with you.

Meditation 7 - In honour of the the Sacred Heart for its
active life
If you really love Jesus Christ, it is impossible that your heart should not
feel concerned in the interests of his. Now that loving Heart is never idle in
the Blessed Sacrament, it exerts itself there with an activity equal to its
love.
Consider therefore today:
(1) Firstly, the employments of the active life of Jesus Christ in the
Blessed Sacrament, and why you ought therefore to act with him.
(2) Secondly, his way of acting, and in this the model you may imitate
in your actions.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Imagine you behold Jesus Christ in the Blessed

Sacrament in the figure of the Good Shepherd, carrying in his breast a
mangled and dying sheep, and healing and reviving it by pressing it close
to his open Heart.
Second prelude — Beg of him to inspire you with an ardent zeal to

concur as far as you can in making him known and loved.
FIRST POINT: The glory of his divine Father and the good of souls are
the motives that detain Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. These are
the interests of that loving Heart, which consequently remains there in
continual movement to promote those interests.
From those silent tabernacles Jesus Christ rules and directs his Church.
At that divine table, as a shepherd, he nourishes and gives life to his
sheep, that is, to good souls, and makes himself at that same table their
master, their physician and their protector.
There, like an attentive and loving guide and tutor, he instructs and
comforts weak and tender souls. There, he reproves with more force as he
does it with more pity, and calls to his love, not only the sick, but souls
that are dying, and even dead, while both by paternal threats and the
sweetest promises, he revives, cures and renovates them.
In a word, all the good we receive comes to us from this source. His
Heart is the immense ocean of light, affection, health and spiritual riches,
which pours itself through the whole mystical body of the Church.
Now, O religious soul, if you wish to belong to this adorable and
amiable Heart, you should clothe yourself with its spirit, concern yourself in
its concerns, interest yourself in its interests.
You are the slave of Jesus Christ, purchased by him, and at how great a
price! You are under obligation to bear as far as you can the burden which
he carries.
You are his daughter. You ought to take to heart as much as possible
the affairs of your great Father.
You are his spouse What a disgrace if, content with enjoying the quiet
repose of his love, you do not use all your efforts to concur to his glory!
Nothing then can exempt you from procuring, as far as you can, the
glory of God and the good of souls. You will afterwards see how you can
really do this.
Meanwhile, be convinced that it is your duty. Review now the thoughts,
the words, and the actions of your life, and observe, if you direct some of
them at least to the great end, that your patron, your father, and your
spouse, may be glorified in the world.
Consider it is impossible truly to love Jesus Christ without doing
something for him, Make then your Resolution. Happy that religious
community, in which such a resolution is made at the same time by all.
SECOND POINT: The active life of the divine Heart in the Sacrament is
a model of the active life that you too should lead.
The great works which Jesus performs here for the divine glory, he
performs without the noise of that external ministry which he exercised in
his mortal life as a model for apostolic men.
Here he does all by peaceful interior graces, insinuating thoughts and
counsels, inspiring with most patient sweetness salutary emotions into our
hearts, and giving in secret the most opportune and copious aids to all who
approach him.
Behold, O spouse of Jesus Christ, the share in the apostolate which may
be yours.
Without assuming the tone of a preacher, a pious conversation, a
prudent counsel, a friendly entreaty, sometime an affectionate word, a
mild and compassionate look with your equals, may gain much for your
God.
Many know how to weave secret nets, and even from a distance, that
they may insinuate themselves into the confidence of others, and
sometimes for an evil end.
Why should not the love of Jesus Christ be equally ingenious in enabling
us to re-unite two souls that have been asunder, to prevent some one
neglect of rule, to deliver from danger some simple and unguarded soul?
The second means of which Jesus Christ makes use, in his active life in
the Blessed Sacrament is example.
The secret life of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is the
compendium of all the divine examples which he gave in his mortal life,
and many are the souls which are thus conducted, and in a most singular
manner, to the most sublime perfection.
But your good example has in some measure an advantage over that of
Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, because his example does not
engage all, because all do not consider it, whereas all your sisters must
see yours even against their will.
Be assured that the greatest difficulty to introduce an improvement in a
monastery, is to find one who will be the first to put it in practice. Aspire to
so noble a glory, when an occasion presents itself, and to so high a merit
with the Heart of your God.
Finally, the third means of which Jesus Christ makes use in his active
life in the Blessed Sacrament, is prayer.
In this Sacrament he is always present as an advocate and victim, that
he may offer for us to his Father both his mediation and himself. This most
sweet and efficacious device for glorifying God can never be wanting to us.
You should always join this to all your other means, and when they are
attended with any hindrance or difficulty, this will supply the deficiency.
If you knew what immense troops of souls there are in heaven gained
by the prayers of holy virgins! And do you unite your heart likewise to the
Heart of Jesus, making yourself a secret victim with him for the salvation of
souls.
Let all the good you do and all the evil you suffer, among your other
ends, be directed to this also.
Make, then, now for ever an offering of yourself to the active heart of
Jesus Christ, and you may promise yourself that you will certainly obtain by
this means the greatest favours of his love.

Meditation 8 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its
hidden life
The hidden life of Jesus Christ is one of the most sublime examples
given us by our God in the blessed Sacrament.
Enter on this meditation with a docile heart, desirous of the impressions
of grace. You will meditate:
(1) Firstly, what this hidden life is to which you are invited, by the
example of your Spouse, in the Blessed Sacrament.
(2) Secondly, the very great advantages you may safely promise
yourself from it.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Present yourself to Jesus Christ with all possible

recollection.
Separate yourself in thought from all the world. Imagine yourself alone
with your divine master, as in the desert to which he retired for forty days,
to receive from him lessons, not indeed common to all Christians, but
peculiarly belonging to your state.
Second prelude — Beg him, then, with great fervour, to conceal nothing
from you of the sublime perfection to which he has already called you, by
calling you to religion, and to join to great lights the strongest graces.
FIRST POINT: Who, seeing Jesus Christ in his present state, would say
that it is he who moves and governs the heavens, the stars, the angels,
mankind, and all creatures?
Of so extensive and noble an exercise of his providence, wisdom, and
power, here nothing appears. In fact, he is here for no other purpose but
for the secret interests of his Heart with souls. All is silence, solitude,
humility, patience, concealment, secret and interior life.
Taking your view from this range of admirable examples here before
you, consider what is that hidden life in which he so much desires you to
imitate him.
The foundation of this hidden life is the internal spirit which ought to
animate your every action which never acts by chance, nor for human
ends, but which in all things ever looks up to God, which does not estimate
things from appearances, but only from the substance, and for which
everything is vanity and without substance, which is not the will of God —
which never seeks to do much, but to do well, to which nothing appears
little that pleases God, and which consequently springs from the pure love
of God, and seeks the pure love of God as well for its guide, as for the only
reward of its actions.
It will be easy for you to consider and understand how necessary this
internal spirit is for your perfection.
Begin here your practical resolutions, because, if you do not begin with
the care of acquiring this internal spirit, you will never arrive at that hidden
life in Jesus Christ, of which the saints, after the example of Saint Paul, say
so many great things.
In this hidden life, then, the religious soul, having by help of the
internal spirit entirely banished the world from her heart, loves to hide
from it as much as she can all her actions as well as herself.
She is not at all so deluded as to retire by a false spirit from her proper
duties and observances, but if the common duties of the rules and of
charity do not interfere, she has a special love for solitude, silence, and
recollection.
She fears to see and to be seen by the world, in order that human
respects may not in any chance secretly insinuate themselves into her
actions, or the circumstances of her actions.
She desires and seeks no other witnesses of her virtue and her
sufferings but God, and therefore she renounces all vain consolations from
the world, and exerts her utmost to conceal from it all sign of her interior
joys, as well as of her secret sufferings.
She has an infinite dread of singularity, the ordinary consequence of
delusions. In virtue itself, although she loves and aims at greater
perfection, she avoids as far as possible all unnecessary display.
She would not wish that any one should think of her.
She never interferes in anything that does not concern her, and if she
can, she always chooses in all things whatever is most obscure and
disregarded by others.
Obedience alone holds the key of her spirit, and as long as this virtue
does not oblige her, she knows how to live in a Religious house for whole
years, without giving occasion to others to speak of her.
Compare the picture of this life with that of Jesus Christ in the Blessed
Sacrament. It is exactly the same. Compare it with your daily life, and see
what is wanting.
And even if you find everything wanting, take the greatest care not to
lose courage. Beg of the divinely hidden Heart of your Spouse to inflame
yours with a desire full of courage and of confidence.
SECOND POINT: The fruits of this hidden life are as precious as the life
is excellent.
Firstly, it is a sure and compendious means of arriving at a great purity
of conscience, and a great disengagement from the world and from
ourselves.
Consider the origin of your defects. For the most part they arise from
the occasions that exterior objects present to your senses, and to your past
bad habits.
Thus it is with your faults of impatience, curiosity, vanity, etc. The
pursuit of this hidden life making you fond of retirement, of attending to
yourself, and of not interfering in things that do not concern you, at least
preserves you from very many occasions.
Moreover, the study of this life insensibly accustoms us often to reflect
on ourselves, our intentions, and the motions of our hearts, and by this
reflection are prevented those frequent defects which you only perceive, I
may say, after you have fallen.
Hence, by little and little, our attachment to the world and to ourselves
becomes weakened, because the habit of thinking of, and so also the habit
of taking pleasure in the objects of our former attachment, natural
inclinations, and disordered customs gradually diminishes.
Secondly, the serene peace and quiet of the superior part of the soul at
least, are certain fruits of this hidden life.
Think of all the things mentioned above, and you have immediately as
many causes of this interior quiet. “Whence come,” said St. James the
Apostle, “the many storms of your poor heart? Do they not arise from your
passions?” (Saint James iv.)
Whatever food, then, you take from your passions by the study of this
hidden life, so many steps do you make towards that constant quiet of
spirit which you are seeking.
Thirdly, this life is most necessary for the acquisition of the spirit of
prayer.
This spirit of prayer cannot be attained by a soul full of self, occupied
with countless frivolities, and dissipated during the rest of the day. Here,
then, is a sure method of ending once for all your complaints about prayer.
Prayer follows in conformity with the rest of your day. How often have you
not experienced the truth of this!
Fourthly, interior sweetnesses and the most choice favours of heaven in
the ordinary providence of God, are annexed to this hidden life.
One who does not practise it, believes it to be a melancholy life. One
who practises it, finds it (and will not be long before he begins to find it),
to have joys infinitely superior to those which the world can give. Recall
what you have heard and read, of so many holy souls.
And now what say you to advantages so great as these? Inflame your
desire, and with it overcome the repugnance of your blind self-love. Make a
purpose to think often of this, by reviewing every day your resolutions.
Offer them to the divine Heart, beg his grace, and resolve to make every
day some brief examen, on the purposes formed during this meditation.

Meditation 9 - In honour of the Sacred Heart for its
glorious life
The Glories of the Life of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ in the Blessed
Sacrament are many.
But today you will honour that particular glory of the Sacred Heart, for
which it dwells so wonderfully in the Blessed Sacrament. This glory of the
Sacred Heart which is quite its own, manifests itself in this Sacrament:
(1) Firstly, by reducing souls through the force of love alone, to a total
annihilation of self.
(2) Secondly, by raising them through the strength of the same love to
an elevation in itself, which is wholly divine.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Imagine that you see in the open breast of Jesus Christ,
his divine Heart full of such a fire of love, that it seems like a burning
furnace, in which the hearts of his elect souls melt and dissolve more
quickly than wax, and are purified and refined like gold.
Second prelude — Offer with great courage your heart likewise to these
divine flames, giving yourself freely to your divine Saviour, for all that he
would wish to do with you.
FIRST POINT: The glory of the divine Heart manifests itself in that great
power of love with which it inspires souls in the Blessed Sacrament, and
with which it triumphs in such feeble creatures, and annihilates so many
and such strong enemies.
Call to mind for a while the many great victories of which you have read
in so many admirable young virgins, weak in nature like you, having to
contend, like you, with dangers, engagements, repugnances and instability.
It was, above all, in this Sacrament of love, that those most stupendous
changes were wrought in them. Think how often you have shrunk at
reading of those so heroic acts of patience, of charity, of obedience, of
mortification, and hatred of themselves. How have you not been
astonished at those examples of silent, meek, and joyful constancy in the
midst of long and most undeserved persecutions, of lingering and painful
maladies, of most terrible and obstinate temptations!
And how did such feeble creatures ever attain to such complete loss of
all pity for themselves, of all feeling of repugnance to acts most difficult to
perform, of every sense of sympathy with the most innocent and sweet
calls of humanity
From this Sacrament they drew such strength, and this strength was the
strength of love.
Behold, then, that glory of the divine Heart which is all its own, and by
which it made itself loved by these souls in so high a degree.
If you love Jesus Christ, you now know how to glorify him.
What are the thoughts which rise within you, when you feel the
greatest desire to correspond with his love? Count all as illusion that does
not aid you to despise yourself, to contradict your own will, and submit
blindly and lovingly to the divine will.
Die wholly to your own self-love. This is the final triumph to which the
divine Heart aspires in all the graces, which it offers to you in this
Sacrament of love.
Resolve, then, to bring to Jesus Christ in every visit to the Blessed
Sacrament, and much more at every communion, some victory gained over
yourself. This is the most solid way of corresponding with his grace, for this
is the peculiar interest of the Sacred Heart in the Blessed Sacrament.
SECOND POINT: That glory of the Sacred Heart in the Blessed

Sacrament, which is all its own, manifests itself also in raising south by the
strength of love to an elevation in itself which is wholly divine.
The marvellous victory that love gains in the soul, and which you have
considered in the first point, works in them a change, or rather a
transformation, into something quite different from what they were.
They live no more except in Jesus Christ, or rather it is Jesus Christ that
lives in them, as Saint Paul declared of himself, and therefore, even before
putting off the infirmities of this mortal life, they live a life which is entirely
super-human and divine.
Observe how it appears in them externally. What angelic modesty!
What unalterable gentleness! What amiable meekness! What exactness,
prudence and sanctity breathe in their every action!
Could you enter into their minds, you would seem to be entering a
kingdom of light — that unspeakable light which shines in paradise.
The justness of their ideas, and the sublime intelligence which they
have of God and his mysteries, is inexplicable.
Could you enter into their hearts, how great would be your
astonishment to observe the purity and strength, the peace and sanctity of
their affections.
Their soul is made the throne of grace and divine love, and these reign
paramount. A Gertrude, a Catherine of Siena, a Teresa, and so many souls,
which, like theirs, were enriched with the interior treasures of Jesus Christ,
will make you understand how great is the glory of this our God, the lover
of souls, in raising them from such a low abasement to so high a state.
Feed yourself for a while on these wonderful objects of admiration as a
holy recreation of spirit.
But in order that you may not lose courage for yourself, recollect, that
in the house of God our Father there are many mansions, which means
that although you cannot for humility aspire to such high gifts, yet by the
obligation of your state, you must aim at a certain measure proper even for
you.
Renounce readily all that is extraordinary in these gifts, but aspire to
the gift of great self-denial, of a great contempt of the world, of great
patience, great recollection, etc.
To these gifts you have a right, and if you desire them truly, this divine
Heart cannot refuse them to you, and they will work in you a change,
which will elevate you high above your present misery, and thus will glorify
exceedingly in your exaltation, the strength of the love of Jesus Christ.
How long will you then remain so lukewarm? How long will your mind
and heart continue to be fixed on this vile, miserable, dull earth? In how
many poor servants of his — souls who are dwelling in the world, Jesus
Christ by his love, works out his glory, and in you, his spouse, will he find
nothing but dishonour?
Rouse yourself, resolve, and prepare yourself in such a manner that the
coming feast of this divine Heart, and the communion you will make on
that day, may be the beginning of a new happiness to you and of glory to
Jesus Christ.

of consummated sacrifice
In the most noble kind of sacrifice, that is in the Holocaust the victim
was to be entirely consumed. Such was the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the
cross, of which Sacrifice the Sacrament of the Altar is the renewal and
memorial.
And therefore the life of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament may be called a
life of consummated sacrifice.
In order to inflame you to imitate in this Sacrifice your divine Saviour,
you will meditate:
(1) Firstly, what sort of consummation of your sacrifice he desires.
(2) Secondly, the constancy and continuance which are necessary to
your sacrifice when consummated.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Look on Jesus Christ in the Sacrament, laid on the altar
as a lamb for sacrifice, and with flames issuing from his Heart, by which he
is consumed as a victim.
Second prelude — Beg him to make you understand the value of his
sacrifice, and to give you courage to imitate him with the entire sacrifice of
yourself to his love.
FIRST POINT: Consider that Jesus Christ was not content to sacrifice
himself for you in an ordinary manner, but he sacrificed himself in all that
he could sacrifice for you!
What more remained for him on the cross to give, either in his goods,
his honour, or his life?
Conclude the devout review of what he has given for you with this
reflection. After death, his Heart alone remained untouched by that cruel
treatment which had carried its rage to his very vitals, which were in many
places laid open and wounded. But his Heart, too, would have part in that
sacrifice, or rather we may say that it was in that divine Heart that the last
consummation of the sacrifice was to be fulfilled. Accordingly it also was to
be laid open and pierced.
Now such ought to be your sacrifice to his love.
Count over the sacrifices you have ever made for him. How many have
you only begun? Infinite in number are those which you have offered him
with a mere inefficacious desire.
You, however, are none the more his after all this, for in this matter, so
far as the object is concerned at which we must aim, he does nothing who
does not all.
Consider well the reason of this. He gives nothing of any worth to God,
who does not give him his heart, for this God values more than all the rest
together, and he does not give his heart truly who does not give it all
without reserve.
So then, the consummation which Jesus Christ desires in your sacrifice,
consists in a sincere and total abandonment of yourself to him, with a
determined resolution to leave yourself to be guided at his pleasure. In this
state of complete sacrifice, you ought not to consider yourself any more as
your own in anything but to gives you either what is bitter or what is
sweet.
Here renew again the consideration of the infinite generosity with which
Jesus Christ has given himself for you, and given himself entirely.
What need had he to be wholly yours in order to be happy? Whereas it
is impossible for you to be happy, even here, without being wholly his.
Make a serious examen of conscience, but let it be a brief one
nevertheless, for your conscience will quickly tell you the truth as to what
has been that one thing which has been principally wanting in the sacrifices
our Lord has required of you.
Most ordinarily it is some one thing only which makes our sacrifice
imperfect, and this our self-love always reserves. To this one point apply
the lights, the affections which our Lord gives you. O divine Heart, divinely
prodigal of yourself, help me to accomplish by your grace that to which
your example invites me.
SECOND POINT: Jesus Christ has never retracted in the least part the
entire gift he has made of himself — nay, rather, every time that he
renews his sacrifice in the holy mass, he renews the complete surrender he
has made of himself.
What constancy! What continuance of most noble love!
Now turn again your thoughts to the sacrifices you have so often made
to Jesus Christ. Alas! Of the greatest part of them, there does not, perhaps,
remain a vestige in your heart.
Do you recollect those burning resolves of a recollected, observant,
patient life? — those sacrifices of your affections, of your dislikes, of your
regards, your human respects — those good beginnings of study, of
diligence, of exactness in prayer and spiritual things — where are they
now? Who has snatched them from you?
Faithless and inconstant heart, be witness against yourself in the
bitterness of your confusion and your sorrow. But this confusion and this
sorrow, will they be once more useless?
Reflect how infinite would have been the loss for mankind if Jesus
Christ, as his foolish and impious enemies instigated him to do, had come
down from the cross! If that loving Heart had closed that sacred wound,
which is so precious a fountain of sweetness, of courage, and of love for
souls, what a beloved object and incitement would have been taken away
from the hopes of weak and timid souls!
Draw near, then, to this adorable fountain of life in a transport of
extreme, but holy, despair.
If you do not help me, omnipotent Heart of my Jesus, so often deluded
by me, I have no other resource in my misery.
Here excite your grief as much as is in your power, and at the same
time, as if you would fan the flame, rouse and provoke your desire to be
now and henceforth true and faithful, and cry aloud from the bottom of
your desolate heart, that this time you must not he refused the grace of
persevering constancy in your good purposes. Know that nothing can give
greater pleasure to this divine Heart than the sight of your longing desire.
Let this reflection revive your confidence. If you know how to desire
earnestly enough, you will certainly obtain your wish. Call to the aid of your
prayers the most sweet Mother of this most sweet Heart, and conclude the
meditation with an offering which may embrace and renew all those which
you have until now made.
Since the end for which Jesus Christ himself taught this devotion to his
Sacred Heart, was to inflame the hearts of all the faithful with love for him,
and to engage all who love him to repair by the most perfect love they are
capable of, and by their tender and reverent worship, the wrongs which he
so especially receives in his most holy Sacrament, from the coldness and
faults of those souls which persevere in ingratitude towards him — in
accordance with this end the same intention must animate all you do in
honour of the Sacred Heart on this feast.
On the evening of the Vigil, if you are able and can obtain permission,
spend some reasonable time — half-an-hour, perhaps — certainly not
more, that it may not interfere with public duties, and with the morning
rising — before Jesus in the Sacrament. In this visit dispose your heart to
the sentiments which ought to animate your devotion on the feast with the
following meditation.

Meditation 11 - The priceless value of the most Sacred
Heart of Jesus
(For the vigil of the Feast)
In order that you may attain to the best knowledge you can of this most
holy Heart, consider in it:
(1) The divinity to which it is united.
(2) The love of which it has been, and is, the seat.
(3) The grief of which it was once the centre.

are frivolous.
First prelude — Imagine that you see in the blessed Sacrament Jesus
Christ as he revealed himself to the Venerable Mother, Margaret Mary
Alacoque, showing her his divine Heart, wounded and wholly surrounded
with flames, encircled by a crown of thorns, and with a cross planted on it.
Second prelude — Beg of your Sovereign and your divine Spouse to give
you a special light to know the incomprehensible value of this his Heart,
and to dispose you to honour it with the sentiments of veneration and of
love which he expects from you.
FIRST POINT: The divinity to which the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ is
united.
In the Incarnation the divine nature united itself personally, not only to
the soul, but also to the adorable body of Jesus Christ, so that in this
personal union his Heart also became one with the divinity of the Eternal
Word of the Father, and was therefore, and will be eternally, a divine
Heart, and the Heart of God.
God, therefore, is the principle of the subsistence of this Heart, and the
life which this Heart lives is not merely human, but also divine. To the
divinity, therefore, as to the final term, are referred all the supreme
honours which we pay to it, and which all the faithful ought to pay it.
Observe the religious worship and solemn adorations even, which the
Church pays and commands to be paid to the adorable body of the Man-
God. The same exactly his Adorable Heart merits, and for the same reason.
When, therefore, you prostrate yourself, O religious soul, before a holy
picture of this Heart of your spouse, understand to how exalted an object
you offer your homage, and take care to animate it with feelings of that
most profound veneration which is due to the divinity of so noble a spouse.
But oh! from this intimate union with the divine nature, how many, how
great treasures enrich the Heart of the Man-God! These treasures of grace,
and of sanctity cannot be greater, because they are divine.
O Heart pure with the very purity of God, Heart holy with the very
holiness of God, Heart charitable with the very charity of God, Heart strong
with the very strength of God!
O Heart, sweet, liberal, faithful, generous with the very sweetness,
liberality, fidelity and generosity of God!
O Heart Adorable, then, and amiable, as God himself is adorable and
amiable!
Today, perhaps for the first time, I begin to conceive what you are! My
Sovereign and my spouse, make my heart a worthy offering to yours! Yes,
O religious soul, this is what God himself expects. The Heart of your
Spouse is made so noble, so pure, so holy, so faithful, so courageous, in
order that it may be a perfect model for your wretched heart.
Compare, then, attentively, the Heart of Jesus Christ with your own in
these divine gifts.
O God! what an infinite difference! Observe where this difference is
greatest, and what the cause may be. Every human heart has its
weakness, and it is in this precisely that you must especially propose to
yourself, the example of this most holy Heart.
What is there wanting in you, O divine Heart, of the qualities of which I
stand most in need? Living Temple of the divinity, my heart is in darkness,
and in you the fullness of wisdom inhabits corporally. My heart is weak,
yours is the throne of omnipotence. My heart is fearful and afflicted,
oppressed, and craving after happiness, but despairing to find it. In you
alone, and in imitating you is my true happiness to be sought, and in you
for the future I will seek it.
SECOND POINT: The love of which the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ has
been, and is, the seat.
The heart which is so active a member in us, is still more so in Jesus
Christ. For in him that Heart was, and is, the seat of his love, not only for
his divine Father, but oh, how much more wonderful, for us also!
Enter, O cold religious soul, on this consideration with an ardent desire
of understanding well the secret history of love in this divine Heart. For
love and life had there the same beginning, and for you that divine Heart
learnt at once those emotions which form the occupation and the labour of
a heart that loves.
Go in thought to the crib, and there enter the Heart of that infant God,
that little Heart whose new-born love is already so great, that truly it may
be said of the divine infant, “He exulted as a giant in the beginning of his
course,” and his course is the course of love.
And oh! in all his life, what resistless, what laborious, yet unwearied
strides!
Mark the emotions, the pains of the heart of one of us, when a prey to
the violence of love.
Remove from this most lively passion that which partakes of moral
imperfection in us, and all that remains, the Heart of your divine spouse
has really and sensibly experienced for you.
We call love a fire, because it kindles in the heart a flame that can be
felt, a flame so devouring, where love is great, that Saints have needed
cold winds and freezing water to temper its heat. And in such a state the
Heart of Jesus lived for you during so many years.
Oh, how quick is the heart's correspondence with the emotions of a soul
that loves! What throbbings and impetuous sallies does a great desire not
cause in the heart! Distance dries up the very life of the heart in which it
burns. Ingratitude pierces and wounds it as would a sword. Compassion
wrings and straightens it. Loss will make it languish and die.
And you — ever present to the mind of your most loving Redeemer,
with all the various and melancholy vicissitudes of your life foreseen — you
have made this incredibly loving Heart of his pass in its affection for you
through all these anxieties.
Oh may you one day at least be as holy as he desires!
Oh that I could show you the pain, not grievous, indeed, but sweet,
which its love for you gave to that most amiable heart — how it swelled,
and throbbed, and burnt with sweet yet ardent transports of joy in its
affections for you!
It is true that Heart, in the midst of this sensibility, is infinitely,
imperturbably happy, but for the pure, the faithful, the affectionate soul,
that sensibility is glorified, not lost.
You may yet be an object of those divine emotions of pleasure, of that
divine fire, which even in its glory still inflames the Heart of Jesus. And now
what think you of this idea, though so feeble, of the effects of the love
which glows for you in that divine Heart? And does not this give the exact
history of the merits of this Heart towards you, and yet unacknowledged by
you? And what does so pleasing and so amiable a devotion require at your
hands?
Draw from these considerations sentiments of admiration, praise, and
thanksgiving, but above all inflame your desires, and resolve that from now
on the love of this Heart will be the continual business of your heart.
THIRD POINT: The grief which once centred in the holy Heart of Jesus
Christ.
“No,” said the devout Thomas à Kempis, “there is no life of love without
pain.” and thus the life of Jesus' Heart especially was nothing but cross and
martyrdom.
Consider only its share in the Passion. Recall, O religious soul, the
horror and the pity which you have sometimes felt when meditating on the
impious and cruel outrages offered to the adorable body of Jesus Christ,
and know that all these together were the least of his pains.
The most terrible was the unseen martyrdom of the Heart. It first was
assailed in the garden, it was at last broken and crushed, when he
breathed forth his soul on the cross. In us, too, the heart is the seat, not of
love alone, but of grief, so that no evil really pains us, but when and
inasmuch as the heart admits it, but oh! never hope to understand the
share which the Heart of Jesus bore in his Passion.
You have heard of its fear, its weariness, its sadness, at the
apprehension of the tortures it was to suffer, at its abandonment and loss
of every comfort, and from its hatred of sin and the ingratitude of man.
Reflect that all these woes exteriorly come in succession one after
another, but the Heart felt them all at once.
Reflect that if the physical nature of the body of Christ was exquisitely
sensible, much more sensible was the moral organisation of his Heart, and
thus that every torment touched the affections of his Heart more than it
did any part of his body, that, in fine, the eagerness of his executioners to
strike, was but the eagerness of human malice, but that in the Passion of
his Heart a far more eager executioner — his own chosen and most
barbarous executioner — was his own unchanging love.
Who, then, can imagine the languor, the heaviness, the fainting, the
heart-rendings, the anguish, the spasms, the burning fever, the death-like
chill.
Where are there words to express even what we comprehend, and how
very little do we comprehend in comparison of that which we believe!
Jesus Christ himself would give us a visible proof of the invisible
martyrdom of his Heart, but nothing less sufficed than the portentous
miracle of a bloody sweat.
Loving Heart, O suffering Heart of my Jesus, what do I owe you? If I
owe love for love, truly I owe you pain for pain. But how can I, so weak, so
tender towards myself, offer you such a return, unless you give me a share
of your courage?
Give me, O Jesus, give me love, a great love, for love will teach me to
suffer, will help me to suffer, will make it dear to me to suffer in union with
your most Holy Heart.
As this is the Feast of the Heart of Jesus Christ, it is also the Feast of
his love, and the end for which he wished it should be instituted, was, that
he might draw from our cold hearts a return and compensation for his
love. And that he may obtain this end more easily, he presents his Sacred
Heart to us as the object of our feast, as it is really in itself, and as it is the
symbol of his divine charity.
To the worship, then, and adoration of this Heart, infinitely worthy of
our adoration and our homage, you should especially consecrate this day in
the spirit of this devotion, and that spirit is to excite your love to a
correspondence with the love of the Son of God for you, and for all men,
and to make some reparation and amends to a God so loving and so little
loved, for your ingratitude and that of all mankind.
Hasten, then, to consecrate the first moment of your day by an offering
of your heart, and of all the good you may do, to the most amiable Heart
of your divine Spouse for the end already spoken of, and continually renew
this oblation throughout the day.
All the day should be a perpetual act of love, of sympathy, and honour
to Jesus Christ.
Be as silent and as recollected as you can, and animate even your
external actions with the same intentions. Entertain yourself with Jesus
Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, as assiduously as your duties and your
strength will permit.
Offer your Holy Communion in reparation for the coldness, the
unworthiness of your former communions, and of those of all Christians,
and make your preparation the most diligent, and your thanksgiving the
most affectionate that you ever offered.
But, for the love of Jesus Christ, do not run today into the too common
error of so many souls, which grow weary of making acts of virtue, because
they do not experience sensible peace and devotion. If you take too much
notice of this, you will perhaps do nothing today.
Labour therefore with an open heart, and a good will, and omit nothing
which you would do if you were in a state of devotion.
Meditation 12 - The love of the Sacred Heart and our
ingratitude
(For the Feast of the Sacred Heart)

are frivolous.
First prelude — Imagine that you see Jesus Christ in the Blessed
Sacrament, as the Venerable Mother Margaret Mary Alacoque saw him,
showing her his Heart, wounded, surrounded by flames, encircled with
thorns, and surmounted by a cross, and explaining the mystical meaning of
these symbols, which signify his love and his sufferings for ungrateful man.
Second prelude — Beseech him to make you know and feel, how
equally incomprehensible are these two excesses of so great a love in
himself, and such great ingratitude in us, that thus you may resolve to
make satisfaction to the best of your power to this Heart so loving and so
little loved.
FIRST POINT: What are the continual sentiments of the divine Heart
towards man in this Sacrament? They are sentiments of the most lively and
sincere love.
What the midday is to the sun, such is the Blessed Sacrament to the
love of Jesus Christ for us — the culminating point of its light and heat.
What is Jesus Christ doing in the Blessed Sacrament?
He is loving us. Behold an answer which says everything, and satisfies
all that can be asked about him!
Why does he come to you? Because he loves us. How does he remain
with you? As a God who loves. What does he desire for you? That which
love desires.
Why does he so multiply himself? Why is he so enduring with you? Why
does he thus hide himself? Because he loves, because he loves. On the
cross love shared its empire with, or rather was subservient to, justice.
Here love reigns alone, and all is subservient to it. Wisdom, power,
providence, immensity, employ themselves to this end, that love may have
its final satisfaction. Blind man, see what the Heart of your God is for you.
And do you not experience this every day? Sinful souls, how does he
receive you here? His complaints, his lamentations, his reproaches. His
very terrors, are but emotions of love. Tepid and imperfect souls, has he
ever driven you from him? Does he not, on the contrary, offer you light and
medicine, and comfort and encouragement?
But you, O pure and fervent souls, it is yours to testify to the world
what this divine Heart is in the Blessed Sacrament! What condescension!
What forgetfulness of its own greatness! What artifices! What interior
speeches! What caresses! What torrents of flights!
Linger here, O religious soul, and apply all these reflections to yourself.
Take up the place which once perhaps belonged to you, and then that
which now belongs to you, whether among sinners, or the imperfect, or the
fervent.
The affections which you should call forth are those especially of
admiration, praise, and thanksgiving. Perhaps in all your life you have
never returned express thanks to this divine Heart, for this excess of love.
SECOND POINT: What are the feelings of most men towards Jesus
Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar?
See how many do not even know that there is a God who has reduced
himself to this state for love of them, and Jesus Christ meanwhile is
actually employed in loving all in his Sacrament. And of these blind ones
some wilfully close their eyes, though invited to become acquainted with
their Lord, and to consider him.
And is not this, O Jesus, the most monstrous contempt of all your love?
No — this is not the worst of the cruel treatments which the greater
part of Christians offer to the loving Heart of their God in this Sacrament.
Full well do they know, ungrateful creatures, and profess to believe his
immense love in the blessed Sacrament. But how do they correspond?
O religious soul, now review in thought the infidelities, the irreverences,
the dishonour, the sacrileges, the insults which Jesus Christ suffers from
Christians in this Sacrament.
Consider the circumstances of time, manner, number, persons, which
aggravate these wrongs. Excite yourself to a great, a holy indignation, at
the sight of such outrages, and then reflect on your own behaviour. What,
have you, too, ill-treated your divine Lover! Run over your past life.
Good God! And perhaps your ingratitude has gone on increasing with
your years! O terrible thought, if the purity, the devotion, the fervour of
your first communions have been continually relaxing! At such a sight,
throw yourself in spirit at the foot of this throne of love, burying yourself in
confusion. Beg light to recognise and detest yourself, and plenteous grace
to form suitable resolutions.
THIRD POINT: What are the feelings of this divine Heart with regard to
the unworthy return, made to it by him?
That we may come to understand them, let us first consider what they
justly might be.
How did this same God treat the Hebrew nation, when ungrateful for
the favour of his abode with them in the ancient Temple? He repudiated
the Temple, razed it to its very foundations, and protested that he
departed from their nation for ever.
Surely the Christian, so much more highly favoured, would deserve no
less, but God's love is far greater than our offences. What patience, what
charity, what invincible sweetness! Here Jesus is still the meek Lamb,
dumb beneath the knife that slays it.
True, he has sometimes given vent to his feelings in secret with souls
which he loved, but his complaints are but stronger proofs of his love. Hear
how he spoke to the Venerable Mother Margaret Mary Alacoque, of the
forgetfulness of men:
“This is a greater torment to me than any which I suffered in my

Passion. If men did but render me love for love, I should count as
nothing all that I have yet done for them, and would willingly do even
more if it were possible, but the desire I have to benefit them meets
with no return but coldness and repulse!”
What feeling do these tender complaints of the Son of God excite in

you? “But that which most afflicts me,” He said to her on another occasion,
“is, that I should be so treated by hearts consecrated to me.”
Here Jesus Christ speaks of you, O religious soul, cold, unfaithful,
insensible to the outrages offered to him.
To preserve always in yourself a tender gratitude for such great love, a
lively sorrow for such ingratitude, an efficacious desire to make reparation
by service and hope on your part — these are the affections which you
should excite. These three affections form the distinguishing character of a
heart devoted to the Adorable Heart of Jesus.
Resolve, offer, beg grace, and thus dispose yourself to make a gift, an
entire sacrifice of yourself.
The thanksgiving after your Holy Communion should be finished with
the act of consecration, or an offering of your heart to the love of Jesus
Christ in which, remember, you are to have no intention of a vow, and then
let the act of atonement or reparation follow, for your own ingratitude, as
well as that of all mankind.
Act of consecration
Adorable Heart of my most amiable Jesus, seat of all virtues,

inexhaustible source of all graces, what fitness can you ever have found in
me, to win you to such an extent, that you should love me with this excess
of love, while my heart, defiled as it is with countless faults, has reserved
nothing for you but indifference and hardness?
The most generous remonstrances made to me by your love, then,
even while I loved you not, make me hope that you will graciously accept
this offer of my love.
Vouchsafe, then, most amiable Saviour, to accept the desire which I
have of consecrating myself entirely to the honour and glory of your most
Sacred Heart, accept the donation which I make of all that I am.
To you I consecrate my person, my life, my actions, pains and
sufferings.
My wish is to be in future a victim consecrated to your glory, soon to be
set on fire by your love, and one day, according to your good pleasure, to
be entirely consumed by its holy flames.
I offer you, then, my Lord and my God, my heart, with all the
sentiments it can ever have, since I purpose that, throughout my whole
life, the sentiments of my heart will be perfectly uniform with the
sentiments of your most Sacred Heart.
Behold me, therefore, O Lord, wholly devoted to your Heart, behold me
wholly yours.
My good God, how great are your mercies towards me! My God, God of
Majesty, and who am I that you should deign to accept the sacrifice of my
heart? It will be wholly yours in future, this heart of mine, and creatures
will have no part in it, since they deserve none.
Be you, for the future, amiable Jesus, my Father, my Patron, my All,
since I wish to live no longer but for you.
Accept, O adorable Saviour of mankind, the sacrifice which the most
ungrateful of men makes to your heart, to repair the wrongs which he has
not ceased until now to offer to it, by corresponding so ill with its love. I
acknowledge that I give little, but I give at least all that I can to your
Sacred Heart, and I know that it is my heart which it desires, and when I
consecrate to it this heart of mine, I give it never more to take it back.
Teach me, most amiable Saviour, a perfect forgetfulness of myself, this
being the only road which can give me the entrance which I so earnestly
desire, into your Adorable Heart, and as from now on I will do all for you,
make what I will do worthy of you.
Teach me what I ought to do, to arrive at the purity of your love, or
rather give me this love, yes, give it to me most ardent and most
generous.
Give me that profound humility without which no one can be pleasing to
you and accomplish in me all your holy wishes as well in time as for all
eternity. Amen.
Act of reparation
My most amiable and most adorable Jesus, ever full of love for us, ever
moved by our miseries, ever most desirous to share your treasures with us
and to give yourself wholly to us.
Jesus, my Saviour and my God, who by an excess of the most ardent
and wonderful love that ever was, would make yourself a victim in the
Adorable Eucharist, in which a million times a day you offer yourself in
sacrifice for us, what must be your sentiments in this state, when in return
for all this you find in the hearts of the greater part of men, nothing but
hardness, forgetfulness, ingratitude and contempt.
Was it not enough, my Saviour, to have trod for our salvation that path
so full of suffering for yourself, when you might have given us proof of your
excessive love at so much less a cost?
Was it not enough to have once abandoned yourself to that cruel agony
and deadly weight of sorrow, occasioned by the horrid picture of our sins
which you took on you?
Why expose yourself every day to all the indignities of which the
blackest malice of men and fiends is capable?
My God and most amiable Redeemer, what were the sentiments of your
most holy Heart at the sight of such ingratitude, and of all our sins? What,
alas, was the bitterness in which your heart was plunged at such outrages
and such sacrileges?
Moved, therefore, to bitter sorrow for all these indignities, behold me
prostrate and annihilated in your presence, humbly offering you this
reparation of honour before the face of heaven and earth, for the
irreverences and outrages suffered by you on our altars since the first
institution of this Adorable Sacrament.
With a heart humbled and pierced with grief, I ask pardon of you a
thousand, thousand times, for all these base wrongs.
My God, why can I not wash with my tears, or even with my blood,
those places where your Sacred Heart has been so fearfully despised,
where the most precious pledges of your divine love have been received
with such strange contempt?
Why is it not allowed me to repair such sacrileges and such
profanations by some new homage, humiliation and self-annihilation?
Why might I not be for one moment only master of the hearts of all
men, to recompense in some manner with the sacrifice I would make to
you, the forgetfulness and insensibility of all those who would not know
you, or knowing you, have loved you so little?
But, adorable Saviour, that which covers me with confusion, and which
ought to make me lament most, is, that I have been myself one of these
ungrateful creatures.
You, O my God, who behold the very depths of this heart of mine,
behold also the grief which I feel for my ingratitude, and at seeing you
treated with such indignity! Behold the disposition in which I am to do and
suffer all to repair it!
See me, then, Lord, with my heart broken with grief, humbled, beaten
to the ground, and ready to receive at your hands all that you will be
pleased to exact in reparation for such outrages.
Strike, Lord, strike, I will bless, I will kiss a hundred times the hand
which inflicts so just a chastisement.
Why am I not worthy to be the victim to repair such wrongs? Why can I
not bathe with my blood those places where your most sacred body has
been dragged along and trampled under foot?
O how happy should I be if, by all imaginable torments, I could make
reparation for such outrages, such contempt, such impieties! I do not merit
so great a grace, but accept at least my desire.
Accept, eternal Father, this reparation of honour in union with that
which the most Sacred Heart made to you on Calvary, and that which the
Virgin Mother made at the foot of the cross of her Son.
And in conformity with the prayer which that Divine Heart offered to
you, pardon me these wrongs and irreverences which I have committed,
and by your grace give effect to my will, and to the resolution which I
make to love you with all fervour, and to honour you in all possible ways,
my Sovereign, my Saviour, and my Judge, since I believe that you are
really present in the Adorable Eucharist, and for the future I will show,
also, by the respect with which I will stand before it, and by the frequency
of my visits to adore it, that I believe you to be really present.
And as I make profession of giving especial honour to your Sacred
Heart, I will choose it as my sojourn during the rest of my life. Grant me
the grace which I ask of you, that at the moment of my death I may
breathe forth my last sigh in this same most Sacred Heart. Amen.
NOVENAS
The novena is a devotion which consists of a series of prayers said on nine successive days,
or one prayer repeated on nine successive days, for the obtaining of special graces. The word
novena comes from the Latin word for nine.
According to tradition, Christ's Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary prayed in the Upper
Room (where the last supper was held) for the nine days between Christ's Ascension into heaven
and the descent of the Holy Spirit (celebrated in the Feast of Pentecost).
The two novenas for the feast of the Sacred Heart begin 9 days before the Feast of the Sacred
Heart which is observed in June on the Friday after the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Divine Jesus, who has said, “Ask, and you will receive. Seek, and you
will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you,” behold me prostrate at your
feet, animated with a lively faith and confidence in these promises,
dictated by your Sacred Heart and pronounced by your adorable lips.
I come to ask (mention the grace you seek). To whom can I address
myself if not to you, whose Heart is an inexhaustible source of all graces
and merits?
Where should I seek for graces if not in the treasure which contains all
the riches of your clemency and bounty?
Where must I knock if it be not at the door through which God
communicates himself to us and through which we go to God?
To you, then, O Heart of Jesus, I have recourse. In you I find
consolation when afflicted, protection when persecuted, strength when
overwhelmed with trials, and light in doubt and darkness.
You can bestow on me the grace which I implore. You have only to will
it and my prayer is granted.
I acknowledge that I am most unworthy of your favours, O Jesus!
But you are the God of mercy, and you will not refuse a contrite heart.
Cast on me a look of mercy, I conjure you, and your compassionate Heart
will find in my miseries and weakness a pressing motive for granting my
petition.
O Sacred Heart, whatever may be your decision with regard to my
request, I will never cease to adore, love, praise and serve you.
Deign, my Jesus, to accept this, my act of perfect submission to the
decrees of your Adorable Heart, which I sincerely desire may be fulfilled in
and by me and all your creatures forever and ever. Amen.
O adorable Jesus, who has discovered to us your most Sacred Heart,

that we may form some idea of the extent of your love, grant that we may
value as we ought so precious a favour.
We adore you, O infinitely amiable Heart, and beseech you to receive
our adorations, in unison with those you yourself rendered to the Divinity
on our altars - in unison with the perfect homage of all your saints, and in
particular in unison with the unceasing adorations of the heavenly spirits,
who crowd your sanctuary during this glorious solemnity.
We humbly represent all our necessities to you, O Adorable Heart, the
fountain of all graces, the ocean of mercy and inexhaustible source of
consolation and strength!
We most fervently entreat of you to infuse into our hearts the
dispositions you require, and then, for your own sake, to grant the earnest
petitions of this Novena.
You are, O Furnace of Love, a public victim, your mercies and graces
are now offered to all, who will only ask, that they may receive, but your
tenderest compassion seems peculiarly directed to all unhappy sinners.
For them you were overwhelmed with sorrow in the Garden of Olives,
and wounded on the cross - for them we most particularly pray and most
earnestly entreat the grace of conversion.
Assist us all to learn of you who are meek and humble of heart, that
thereby we may find rest to our souls in this life, and everlasting repose in
a happy eternity. Amen.
Novena for the first Friday of the month
This novena is said on the 9 days ending on the eve of the first Friday of the month. Make
a spiritual communion if unable to make a sacramental communion. Kneeling before the Blessed
Sacrament or an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, make the sign of the cross and begin the
novena by reciting the following prayer.
Opening prayer
O Sacred Heart of my dear Redeemer, I adore you with all the powers
of my soul.
I consecrate them forever to you, with each of my thoughts, words,
actions and whole being.
I offer to you, O Divine Heart, all those acts of adoration, love and glory
which you rendered to your eternal Father while in this mortal life.
Be the repairer of my deficiencies, the protector of my life, and my
refuge and security at the hour of my death.
Grant me, through the merits of that anguish and bitterness which for
me you suffered through the whole course of your mortal life, a perfect
contrition for my sins.
Grant me a constant disgust of all worldly allurements, an ardent desire
of eternal glory and a lively hope of partaking of your infinite merits.
O most loving Heart of Jesus, I present to you these my humble
supplications, not for myself only, but for all those who I earnestly
recommend to you in this Novena.
It is my ardent wish, O my dearest Lord, that all may join with me in
spirit to serve and obey you.
Accept these my humble petitions and graciously grant my request

through your infinite mercy.
Impress us, O Lord, with due sentiments of gratitude for the beneficent
tenderness of your Divine Heart to us forlorn sinners.
Receive us in the yet gaping wound of that loving Heart, that in it we
may admire your divine attributes, practise your heavenly virtues, find the
effect of your sacred Passion, and our poor, afflicted souls be thereby
encouraged to shelter themselves within your sacred wounds.
Act of reparation of honour
O Heart of Jesus, infinitely merciful, ever desirous to communicate your

divine love to our cold hearts, your delight is to remain forever with the
children of men.
For this reason, O amiable Redeemer, you instituted a peculiar
Sacrament of love, in which we might find the treasure and source of all
heavenly blessings, through which we might enter into the sanctuary of
your inflamed heart and there meet with secure repose in life and sweet
comfort in death.
With these most bountiful dispositions, you vouchsafed to reside on our
altars, to be our constant sacrifice, in order to avert the anger of the
eternal Father excited by our repeated sins.
There you continually invite us to come and partake of this heavenly
food, which none but an infinite love could have prepared. What is there
you could have done to gain the hearts of your people and have not done?
But how insensible, O bountiful Redeemer, have we been of those great
blessings and favours! We have shown irreverence, disrespect and even
contempt before your divine Majesty in whose presence the saints and
angels bend with awe and the heavens themselves tremble.
While offered on our altars, the same offences, the same indignity and
ingratitude are committed by those very people who have often been fed
at your sacred table, nourished with your own substance and on whom you
have placed the love of your Heart.
O Amiable Heart of my dearest Saviour, who can express your affliction
at the sight of such ingratitude? But how long, sweet Jesus, will your
Adorable Heart be thus despised and disregarded by wicked man?
How long will you permit yourself to be betrayed into the hands of your
mortal enemies? How long will you suffer their scorn and contempt of your
Majesty in the Adorable Sacrament of the altar?
Sorely afflicted at the thought of these injustices and sacrileges, I cast
myself with all humility at the throne of your mercy.
Graciously hear, sweet Jesus, your servant who, on behalf of the whole
Church, here presents to you your own Adorable Heart, inflamed with love
for these your persecutors, and praying for your enemies, “Father, forgive
me, for they know not what they do.”
Most merciful Heart of Jesus, propitiously hear the uninterrupted
supplications of your saints and angels, of your holy martyrs and
confessors, in atonement for these repeated insults and injuries, while, in
satisfaction for the same, I offer the following tribute of reparation on my
own and their part.
Acts of adoration
Recite any five of the 24 Acts of Adoration set out in this book.
Act of oblation
Recite the Act of Oblation set out in this book.
Concluding prayer
Most Amiable Heart of Jesus, beloved object of our most tender

affections, may all honour, glory, love and benediction be ever given to
you. Be our comfort in adversity, our guide in prosperity, our safety in
dangers and protection against all our enemies, visible and invisible. Amen.
Novena for a special intention
Adorable Heart of Jesus! Furnace of love! Ocean of boundless mercy!

Consolation of the afflicted! Refuge of sinners, and hope of the whole
world!
I kneel before you in humble and fervent adoration, while I unite my
supplications to the perpetual homage you yourself render to the divinity
on our altars.
Most amiable Heart, having loved us with an eternal love, supply
yourself for my insensibility, and receive my desire at least of loving you
with all the ardour and sincerity you so justly merit.
But remember, O Adorable Heart, that you have disclosed yourself to us
not only as an object of our adoration. You desire much more to engage
our love and become the ground and motive of our tender confidence.
For this end you were pierced through with a lance on the cross, and for
this same purpose you remain a daily victim of your own love on our altars.
O infinitely compassionate Heart of Jesus which was overwhelmed with
sorrow in the Garden of Olives at the view of our spiritual and corporal
miseries, I come to you now with all the confidence you desire I should
repose in the extent of your power and the riches of your mercy.
O my God, convinced that those things which are impossible to human
means are infinitely easy to you, and relying with a humble, steadfast
faith on the sacred words of truth itself, that whatever we ask the Father in
the name of Jesus should be granted, I now most humbly implore in that
Adorable Name, in virtue of that promise, and through the abundant
mercies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the particular favour I petition for in
this Novena (mention the favour you seek).
O Saint Margaret Mary, Saint Gertrude and all you glorious servants of
Christ, who while on earth were particularly devoted to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus, join your prayers with mine and obtain from the divine object of
all your devotion the concession of the favour which I now request.
Beg likewise of this Adorable Heart, which has dominion over all hearts,
and could in a moment change the most obdurate, to have compassion on
those who are in the dreadful state of mortal sin, and to open to us all the
treasures of its mercy at the hour of our death. Amen.
(The Ursuline Manual (1857) 342)
ROSARY OF THE SACRED HEART
This Rosary consists of five decades in honour of the five wounds of Our Lord. There are
various forms, composed of different sets of indulgenced prayers. Special beads are
unnecessary. By repeating certain indulgenced ejaculations, according to one's choice, with the
ordinary Rosary, a perfect treasury of indulgences is obtained. As a private form of
devotion, it can be adapted to one's inclination.
On the cross
On the cross say either of the following prayers:
Soul of Christ, sanctify me!

Body of Christ, save me!
Blood of Christ, inebriate me!
Water from the side of Christ, wash me!
Passion of Christ, strengthen me!
O good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds, hide me.
Permit me not to be separated from you.
From the malignant enemy, defend me.
In the hour of death,
call me and bid me come to you,
that with your saints, I may praise you,
forever and ever. Amen.
or
Eternal Father! I offer you the Precious Blood of Jesus in

satisfaction for my sins, and for the wants of holy Church.
On the large beads after each decade
On the large beads after each decade say one of the following
ejaculatory prayers:
O sweetest Heart of Jesus, I implore that I may ever love you more
and more.
or
Jesus, meek and humble of Heart, make my heart like yours.
or
Heart of Jesus, burning with love of us, inflame our hearts with love
of you.
On the small beads
On the small beads say the following invocations:
Sweet Heart of Jesus, be my love.

Sweet heart of Mary, be my salvation.
At the conclusion
At the conclusion, say one of the following prayers:
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul in peace with
you.
or
May the Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament be praised,

adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the
tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time. Amen.
or
Blessed be the holy and Immaculate Conception of the Most

Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
or
O Mary, who came into this world free from stain, obtain of God for
me that I may leave it without sin.
or
Saint Joseph, model and patron of those who love the Sacred Heart
of Jesus, pray for us.
Prayer
O God who, out of your immense love, has given to the faithful the Most
Sacred Heart of your Son, Our Lord, as the object of your tender affection,
grant, we beseech you, that we may so love and honour this pledge of your
love on earth, as by it to merit the love both of you and your gift, and be
eternally loved by you and this Most Blessed Heart in heaven. We ask this
through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII (1899)
ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR MOST HOLY LORD LEO XIII ON THE

CONSECRATION OF MANKIND TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS
Venerable Brethren
Health and Apostolic Benediction
But a short time ago, as you well know, We, by letters apostolic, and
following the custom and ordinances of Our predecessors, commanded the
celebration in this city, at no distant date, of a Holy Year. And now today,
in the hope and with the object that this religious celebration will be more
devoutly performed, We have traced and recommend a striking design
from which, if all will follow it out with hearty goodwill, We not
unreasonably expect extraordinary and lasting benefits for Christendom in
the first place and also for the whole human race.
Already more than once We have endeavoured, after the example of
Our predecessors, Innocent XII, Benedict XIII, Clement XIII, Pius VI, Pius
VII, and Pius IX, devoutly to foster and bring out into fuller light that most
excellent form of devotion which has for its object the veneration of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus: this We did especially by the Decree given on June
28, 1889, by which We raised the Feast under that name to the dignity of
the first class.
But now We have in mind a more singular form of devotion which will
be in a manner the crowning perfection of all the honours that people have
been accustomed to pay to the Sacred Heart, and which We confidently
trust will be most pleasing to Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer. This is not the
first time, however, that the design of which We speak has been mooted.
Twenty-five years ago, on the approach of the solemnities of the second
centenary of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque's reception of the divine
command to propagate the worship of the Sacred Heart, many letters from
all parts, not merely from private persons but from Bishops also, were sent
to Pius IX begging that he would consent to consecrate the whole human
race to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was thought best at the time to
postpone the matter in order that a well-considered decision might be
arrived at: meanwhile permission was granted to individual cities which
desired it thus to consecrate themselves, and a form of consecration was
drawn up. Now, for certain new and additional reasons, We consider that
the plan is ripe for fulfilment.
This world-wide and solemn testimony of allegiance and piety is
especially appropriate to Jesus Christ, who is the Head and Supreme Lord
of the whole human race. His empire extends not only over Catholic
nations and those who, having been duly washed in the waters of holy
Baptism, belong of right to the Church, although erroneous opinions keep
them astray, or dissent from her teachings cuts them off from her care; it
comprises also all those who are deprived of the Christian faith, so that the
whole human race is truly under the power of Jesus Christ.
For He who is the only-begotten Son of God the Father, having the
same substance with Him and being the brightness of His glory and the
figure of His substance (Hebrews 1: 3), necessarily has everything in
common with the Father, and therefore sovereign power over all things.
This is why the Son of God thus speaks of Himself, through the Prophet:
But I am appointed King by him over Sion, his holy mountain ... The Lord
said to me: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you. Ask of me and I
will give you the Gentiles for your inheritance and the utmost parts of the
earth for your possession (Psalm 2). By these words He declares that He
has power from God over the whole Church, which is signified by Mount
Sion, and also over the rest of the world to its uttermost ends. On what
foundation this sovereign power rests is made sufficiently plain by the
words, You are my Son. For by the very fact that He is the Son of the King
of all, He is also the heir of all His Father's power: hence the words – I will
give you the Gentiles for your inheritance, which are similar to those used
by Paul the Apostle, Whom he has appointed heir to all things (John 18:
37).
But we should now give most especial consideration to the declarations
made by Jesus Christ, not through the Apostles or the Prophets, but by His
own words. To the Roman Governor who asked Him: Are you a king then?
He answered unhesitatingly: You say that I am a king. And the greatness
of this power and the boundlessness of His kingdom is still more clearly
declared by these words to the Apostles: All power is given to me in
heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18).
If then all power has been given to Christ it follows of necessity that His
empire must be supreme, absolute and independent of the will of any
other, so that none is either equal or like it: and since it has been given in
heaven and on earth it ought to have heaven and earth obedient to it.
And verily He has acted on this extraordinary and peculiar right when
He commanded His Apostles to preach His doctrine over the earth, to
gather all men together into the body of the Church by the baptism of
salvation, and to bind them by laws which no one could reject without
risking his eternal salvation.
But this is not all. Christ reigns not only by natural right as the Son of
God, but also by a right that He has acquired. He it was who snatched us
from the powers of darkness (Colossians 1: 3) and gave Himself for the
redemption of all (1 Timothy 2: 6). Therefore, not only Catholics, and those
who have duly received Christian Baptism, but also all men, individually
and collectively, have become to Him a purchased people (1 Peter 2: 9).
St. Augustine's words are therefore to the point when he says: You ask
what price He paid? See what He gave and you will understand how much
He paid. The price was the blood of Christ. What could cost so much but
the whole world, and all its people? The great price He paid was paid for
all (Tract. 120 in Joan).
How it comes about that infidels themselves are subject to the power
and dominion of Jesus Christ is clearly shown by St. Thomas, who gives us
the reason and its explanation. For having put the question whether His
judicial power extends to all men, and having stated that judicial authority
flows naturally from royal authority, he concludes decisively as follows: All
things are subject to Christ as far as His power is concerned, although they
are not all subject to Him in the exercise of that power (3a P., Q. 59, Art.
4.) This sovereign power of Christ over men is exercised by truth, justice,
and, above all, by charity.
To this twofold ground of His power and domination He graciously
allows us, if we think fit, to add voluntary consecration. Jesus Christ, Our
God and Our Redeemer, is rich in the fullest and perfect possession of all
things: we, on the other hand, are so poor and needy that we have nothing
of our own to offer Him as a gift. But yet, in His infinite goodness and love,
He in no way objects to our giving and consecrating to Him what is already
His, as if it were really our own; nay, far from refusing such an offering, He
positively desires it and asks it: My Son, give me your heart. We are,
therefore, able to be pleasing to Him by the goodwill and the affection of
our soul. For by consecrating ourselves to Him we not only declare our
open and free acknowledgement and acceptance of His authority over us,
but we also testify that if what we offer as a gift were really our own, we
would still offer it with our whole heart. We also beg of Him that He would
vouchsafe to receive it from us, though clearly His own. Such is the efficacy
of the act of which We speak, such is the meaning underlying Our words.
And since there is in the Sacred Heart a symbol and a sensible image of
the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love one another,
therefore it is fit and proper that we should consecrate ourselves to His
most Sacred Heart an act which is nothing else than an offering and a
binding oneself to Jesus Christ, seeing that whatever honour, veneration,
and love is given to this Divine Heart is really and truly given to Christ
Himself.
For these reasons, We urge and exhort all who know and love this
Divine Heart willingly to under take this act of piety; and it is Our earnest
desire that all should make it on the same day, so that the aspirations of
so many thousands who are performing this act of consecration may be
borne to the temple of heaven on the same day.
But will We allow to slip from Our remembrance those innumerable
others upon whom the light of Christian truth has not yet shined? We hold
the place of Him who came to save that which was lost, and who shed His
blood for the whole human race. And so We greatly desire to bring to the
true life those who sit in the shadow of death. As We have already sent
messengers of Christ over the earth to instruct them, so now, in pity for
their lot, with all Our soul We commend them, and as far as in us lies We
consecrate them to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In this way this act of
devotion, which We recommend, will be a blessing to all. For having
performed it, those in whose hearts are the knowledge and love of Jesus
Christ will feel that faith and love increased. Those who knowing Christ, yet
neglect His law and its precepts, may still gain from His Sacred Heart the
flame of charity. And lastly, for those still more unfortunate, who are
struggling in the darkness of superstition, we will all with one mind implore
the assistance of Heaven that Jesus Christ, to whose power they are
subject, may also one day render them submissive to its exercise: and that
not only in the life to come when He will fulfil His will upon all men, by
saving some and punishing others, but also in this mortal life by giving
them faith and holiness. May they by these virtues strive to honour God as
they ought, and to win everlasting happiness in heaven.
Such an act of consecration, since it can establish and draw tighter the
bonds which naturally connect public affairs with God, gives to States a
hope of better things. In these latter times especially, a policy has been
followed which has resulted in a sort of wall being raised between the
Church and civil society. In the constitution and administration of States
the authority of sacred and divine law is utterly disregarded, with a view to
the exclusion of religion having any constant part in public life. This policy
almost tends to the removal of the Christian faith from our midst, and, if
that were possible, of the banishment of God Himself from the earth. When
men's minds are raised to such a height of insolent pride, what wonder is it
that the greater part of the human race should have fallen into such
disquiet of mind and be buffeted by waves so rough that no one is suffered
to be free from anxiety and peril? When religion is once discarded it follows
of necessity that the surest foundations of the public welfare must give
way, whilst God, to inflict on His enemies the punishment they so richly
deserve, has left them the prey of their own evil desires, so that they give
themselves up to their passions and finally wear themselves out by excess
of liberty.
Hence that abundance of evils which have now for a long time settled
upon the world, and which pressingly call upon us to seek for help from
Him by whose strength alone they can be driven away. Who can He be but
Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of God? For there is no other name
under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved? (Acts 4: 12) We
must have recourse to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life . We
have gone astray and we must return to the right path: darkness has
overshadowed our minds, and the gloom must be dispelled by the light of
truth: death has seized upon us, and we must lay hold of life. It will at
length be possible that our many wounds be healed and all justice spring
forth again with the hope of restored authority; that the splendours of
peace be renewed and swords and arms drop from the hand when all men
will acknowledge the empire of Christ and willingly obey His word, and
every tongue will confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God
the Father (Phil. 2: 11).
When the Church, in the days immediately succeeding her institution,
was oppressed beneath the yoke of the Caesars, a young emperor saw in
the heavens a cross, which became at once the happy omen and cause of
the glorious victory that soon followed. And now, today, behold another
blessed and heavenly token is offered to our sight the most Sacred Heart
of Jesus, with a cross rising from it and shining forth with dazzling
splendour amid flames of love. In that Sacred Heart all our hopes should
be placed, and from it the salvation of men is to be confidently besought.
Finally, there is one motive which We are unwilling to pass over in
silence, personal to Ourselves it is true, but still good and weighty, which
moves Us to undertake this celebration. God, the Author of every good, not
long ago preserved Our life by curing Us from a dangerous disease. We
now wish, by this increase of the honour paid to the Sacred Heart, that the
memory of this great mercy should be brought prominently forward, and
Our gratitude be publicly acknowledged.
For these reasons, We ordain that on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh
days of the coming month of June, in the principal church of every town
and village, certain appointed prayers be said, and on each of these days
there be added to the other prayers the Litany of the Sacred Heart
approved by Our authority. On the last day the form of consecration will be
recited, which, Venerable Brethren, We send to you with these letters.
As a pledge of divine benefits, and in token of Our paternal
benevolence, to you, and to the clergy and people committed to your care,
We lovingly grant in the Lord the Apostolic Benediction.
Given in Rome at St. Peter's, on the 25th day of May, 1899, the twenty-
second year of Our Pontificate.
LEO PP. XIII
USEFUL LINKS
Confraternity of the Sacred Heart

http://sacredheartconfraternity.org/
Manhattan, New York City, USA.
Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary

http://www.sscc.org/
Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA.
Sacred Heart Apostolate

http://www.sacredheartapostolate.com/
Solvay, New York, USA.
Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary

http://www.piercedhearts.org/
Miami, Florida, USA.
SOURCES
Galliffet, Rev. Joseph de. The Adorable Heart of Jesus (Philadelphia,

1890, Messenger of the Sacred Heart)
The Catholic's Companion (Baltimore, 1882, John B. Piet & Co)
Croiset, Rev. John. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (London,

1863, Burns and Lambert)
Noldin, Rev. H. The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (New

York, 1905, Benzinger Brothers)
Dean, Rev. Joseph Joy. Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

(Philadelphia, 1845, M. Fithian)
The Dominican Manual (Dublin, 1913, Browne and Nolan Ltd)
Formulary of Prayers for the Use of the Sisters of Saint Joseph

(New York, 1900, O'Shea & Co)
St. Leonard of Port Maurice. The Hidden Treasure (Dublin, 1895,

James Duffy and Co Ltd)
Barry, Rev. Albert. Life of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque of the

Sacred Heart (London, 1889, Burns & Oates)
A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity (New York,
1898, The Catholic Publication Society Co)
The Manual of the Sacred Heart (London, 1866, Burns, Lambert

and Oates)
Borgo, Rev. Carlo. Meditations on the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

(London, 1852, Richardson and Son) Novena in Preparazione alla Festa
del Sacro Cuore di Gesù Cristo (Verona, 1851, Tipografia Frizierio)
Newman, Blessed Cardinal John Henry. The Meditations and

Devotions of the Late Cardinal Newman (London, 1912, Longmans,
Green and Co)
Berlioux, Abbé. Month of the Sacred Heart (Dublin, 1885, M.H. Gill
and Son)
Lasance, Rev. Francis X. Prayer-Book for Religious (New York,

1914, Benzinger Brothers)
St John, Rev. Ambrose. The Raccolta (London, 1857, Burns and

Lambert) The New Raccolta (Philadelphia, 1903, Peter F. Cunningham
& Son) The Raccolta (London, 1910, Burns & Oates)
Keller, Rev. Dr. Joseph. The Sacred Heart (New York, 1899,
Benzinger Brothers)
Fitton, Rev. James. St. Joseph's Manual (Boston, 1877, Thomas B.

Noonan and Company)
Power, Rev. John. The Ursuline Manual (New York, 1857, Edward
Dunnigan and Brother)
Desjardins, Rev. E. The Week Sanctified by the Devotion to the

Sacred Heart of Jesus (Quebec, 1874, Leger Drousseau's Steam
Printing Establishment)

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Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the oldest forms of

Pope Pius VI extended this privilege to many dioceses and religious

In 1875 Pope Pius IX consecrated the Catholic Church to the Sacred

Margaret Mary Alacoque, who Pope Pius XI described as “the most

“I know of no exercise of piety in the spiritual life, better calculated

“the Heart of Jesus is the heart of a divine Person, the Word

His Holiness went on to say that

“Christians in paying homage to the Sacred Heart of the Redeemer

On the 150th anniversary of the extension of the Feast of the Sacred

“it is still a fitting task for Christians to continue to deepen their

The month of June, following immediately after the month dedicated to

Prayers in this book are referenced to their source.

“I would recommend you to put in such places as you frequently

It is a most useful and pious practice to honour, with particular

“I think that the Lord showed me the names of several persons,

We adore you, O eternal Wisdom.

We adore you, O most meek and merciful God.

We adore you, O Sacrament of Love.

We adore you, O source and origin of all sanctity and innocence.

We adore you, the delight of heaven and earth.

We adore you, never-failing Bounty and Goodness, and to repair man's

We adore you, most tender and most amiable of all fathers.

We adore you, most loving Shepherd, pattern of true charity.

We adore you, inexhaustible fund of treasures.

We adore you, O most watchful Advocate.

We adore you, O God of infinite Majesty, who we can never sufficiently

We adore you, O hidden God.

We adore you, eternal Priest, whose delight is to offer sacrifice.

We adore you, true Bread of angels.

We adore you, O God of all purity.

We adore you, amiable Spouse of our souls.

We adore you, Son of the ever-glorious Virgin.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, humbly prostrate before you, we come to

V. The more your mysteries are blasphemed.

V. The more impiety endeavours to extinguish our hopes of

V. The more hearts resist your divine attractions.

V. The more your divinity is attacked.

V. The more your holy laws are forgotten and transgressed.

V. The more your sacraments are despised and abandoned.

V. The more your adorable virtues are forgotten.

V. The more the devil labours to destroy souls.

V. The more pride and sensuality tend to destroy abnegation and

Good Jesus, who alone orders all things well,

O Adorable Heart of my Saviour and my God, penetrated with a lively

O Divine Heart of Jesus, your wisdom is infinite, your power is

O most Sacred and Divine Heart of Jesus, from the abyss of my

Sacred Heart of Jesus who manifested to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

O Most Sacred and Adorable Heart of Jesus, we consecrate to you this

Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down on us

O my amiable Redeemer, I give and consecrate myself to your Sacred

The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us.

V. Heart of Jesus, burning with love of us.

O most amiable Heart of Jesus, which unites to the divine perfections

O good and merciful Saviour, it is the desire of my heart to return you

O most loving Heart of my only beloved, being unable to love and

Permit me to turn to you, O Divine and Adorable Heart of Jesus my

I have nothing, O my loving Saviour and my God. I have nothing that

Adorable Heart of Jesus, hypostatically united to the eternal Word, and

O most amiable and adorable Heart of Jesus, centre of all hearts,

Divine Jesus! Ever present on our altars, we cast ourselves at your

O Adorable Heart of my divine Redeemer, which infinite love has

O Jesus, only Son of the Living God, who by an incomprehensible effect