with all sweetness, we recommend to thee ourselves and all our concerns, our friends, benefactors, parents, and relations, our superiors, and enemies: take under thy protection this house, city, and country: extend thy care to all such as lie under any affliction, and to those who labour in the agony and pangs of death; cast an eye of compassion on the obstinate sinner, and more particularly on the poor suffering souls in purgatory; as also on those who are engaged and united with us in the holy confederacy of honouring and worshipping thee. Bless these in particular, O divine Jesus! and bless them according to the extent of thy infinite goodness, mercy, and charity. Amen. A Reparation of Honour to the Sacred Heart, to be made on the Feast itself, or at any other time, in presence of the Blessed Sacrament. O MOST amiable and adorable Heart of Jesus! centre of all hearts, glowing with charity, and inflamed with zeal for the interest of thy Father and the salvation of mankind! O heart, ever sensible of our misery, and ever in motion 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! since the generality of Christians make no other return for these thy mercies, than contempt of thy favours, forgetfulness of their obligations, and ingratitude to the best of benefactors, is it not just, that we thy servants, penetrated with a deep sense of such indignities, should, as far as is in our power, enter on a due and satisfactory reparation of honour to thy most sacred Majesty? Humbled, therefore, in mind before heaven and earth, we solemnly declare our sincere detestation and abhorrence of such conduct. Inexpressible, we know, was the bitterness with which the multitude of our sins overwhelmed thy tenuer heart; insufferable the weight of our iniquities, which pressed thy face to the earth in the garden of Olives, and insurmountable thy anguish, when expiring with love, grief, and agony, on Mount Calvary, in thy last breath thou wouldst reclaim sinners to their duty and repentance. This we know, O dear Redeemer! and would most willingly redress these thy sufferings by our own, or share with thee in thine. O merciful Jesus, ever present on our altars, and with a heart open to receive all who labour and are burdened! O`adorable Heart of Jesus! source of true contrition! impart to our hearts the true spirit of penance, and to our eyes a fountain of tears, that we may bewail our sins, and those of the world. Pardon, divine Jesus! all the injuries, reproaches, and outrages offered to thee through the course of thy holy life and bitter passion. Pardon all the impieties, irreverences, and sacrileges which have been committed against thee in the sacrament of the Eucharist from its first institution. Graciously receive the small tribute of our sincere repentance as an agreeaole offering in thy sight, in requital for the benefits we daily receive from the altar, where thou art a living and continual sacrifice, and in union with that bloody holocaust thou didst present to thy eternal Father on Mount Calvary. Divine Jesus! give thy blessing to the ardent desire we now entertain, and the holy resolution we have taken of ever loving and adoring thee in thy sacrament of love the Eucharist, thus to repair, by a true conversion of heart, and zeal for thy glory, our past negligences and infidelity. Be thou, O adorable Heart! who knowest the clay of which we are formed, be thou our mediator with thy heavenly Father whom we have so grievously offended; strengthen our weakness, confirm our resolution, and with thy charity, humility, meekness, and patience, cover the multitude of our iniquities; be thou our support, our refuge, and our strength, that nothing henceforward in life or death may separate us from thee. Amen. DEVOTIONS to the HEART of MARY. O MOST amiable Heart of Mary! which of all hearts most perfectly resembles the Heart of Jesus, and is thereby worthy of the love and respect of all creatures, to thee I fervently consecrate my heart, and I choose thee, after the heart of Jesus, for the object of my imitation and confidence. I beseech thee, O sacred Virgin! by all the graces which were bestowed on thee by thy divine Son, to give me a passage through thy blessed heart to the Heart of Jesus. Lead me thyself into that adorable sanctuary, that I may learn to practise the virtues which rendered thee so faithful a copy of Him who was meek and humble of heart. Thou knowest that I wish most sincerely to venerate, to love, and to imitate that divine heart, which was the source of all thy merit and happiness, as well as the only object of thy love; but as I feel my own weakness, I have recourse to thee, beseeching thee to present my heart to Jesus in union with thine; that in consideration of thy perfections and merits, my miseries and sins may be overlooked, and my heart for ever consecrated, through thee, to the perfect love of my Creator. I choose thee now, O holy Heart of Mary, for my advocate and model, that thy prayers may assist me to imitate thee, and thereby conform my heart to that of my divine Saviour. Thou wert, O most pure Heart! happily inaccessible to the monster sin! yet thou art penetrated with humiliation and sorrow for the sins of the world: obtain that my heart may be truly contrite for my own sins, and may love God sufficiently to feel and deplore the sins of others. Thou wert replenished with the meekness and mercy of the Heart of Jesus, and consumed with his most ardent love; therefore through thee I most firmly hope to receive a share in those virtues; and above all, the grace to detest the vice of pride, which would render me so hateful to the adorable Heart of Jesus, and to practise that sincere humility which can best liken me to my Saviour and to thee. In thee, O blessed Heart of Mary! I will confide during my life, and in thee also I confidently hope to find a secure refuge and powerful advocate at the hour of my death Litany of the Heart of Mary. LORD have mercy on us, &c. Heart of Mary, Heart of Mary, according to the Heart of Jesus, Heart of Mary, tabernacle of the Word incarnate, Heart of Mary, glorious holocaust of divine love, Heart of Mary, refuge of sinners, Heart of Mary, hope of the agonizing, Heart of Mary, seat of mercy, Lamb of God, &c. V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God. Pray for us. R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Let us pray. O DIVINE JESU! who tenderly lovest the mos. Moly of virgins, and art reciprocally loved by her, grant, we beseech thee, through the intercession of thy blessed Mother, and by the resemblance her sacred Heart bore to thine, that we may ever return due love and affection for her care and tenderness in our regard, who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest, world with out end. Amen. The Seven DOLOURS, or chief Sufferings of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. I. O MOST afflicted Virgin, permit me to commemorate the sorrow which filled thy heart, when on presenting thy divine Son in the temple, holy Simeon foretold that a sword should pierce thy soul, thereby announcing the share thou shouldst have in the sufferings of thy dear Son. I most devoutly compassionate thy grief on this occasion, and beseech thee, O glorious Queen of Martyrs! to obtain for me, through the sufferings of Jesus Christ, which were the great cause of thy dolours, a sincere and lively horror of sin, an ardent love of God, a tender practical devotion towards thee, and a happy death under thy special protection. II. O MOST holy and afflicted Virgin! permit me to commiserate the sorrow which filled thy maternal Heart, when thou didst see thy divine Infant persecuted by his own creatures, and wert obliged to flee into Egypt, to save him from the fury of Herod. I most devoutly compassionate thy grief on that occasion, and beseech thee, O glorious Queen of Martyrs! to obtain for me, through the sufferings of Jesus Christ, which were the great cause of thine, a sincere and lively horror of sin, an ardent love of God, a tender and practical devotion towards thee, and a happy death under hy special protection. |