The
Generous Heart of Jesus
It
is the characteristic of good-hearted people to desire to make everybody happy,
and especially those most distressed and afflicted. But who can ever find one
who has a better heart than Jesus Christ? He is infinite goodness, and has
therefore a sovereign desire to communicate to us His riches: With Me are
riches, that I may enrich them that love Me.
He
for this purpose made Himself poor, as the Apostle says, that He might make us
rich: He became poor for your sakes, that through His poverty you might be
rich. For this purpose also He chose to remain with us in the most Holy
Sacrament, where He remains constantly with His hands full of graces, as was
seen by Father Balthazar Alvarez, to dispense them to those who come to visit
Him. For this reason also He gives Himself wholly to us in Holy Communion,
giving us to understand from this that He cannot refuse us any good gifts,
since He even gives Himself entirely to us: How hath He not also, with Him,
given us all things?
For
in the heart of Jesus we receive every good, every grace that we desire: In all
things you are made rich in Christ, so that nothing is wanting to you in any
grace. And we must understand that we are debtors to the heart of Jesus for all
the graces we have received graces of redemption, of vocation, of light, of
pardon, the grace to resist temptations, and to bear patiently with
contradictions; for without His assistance we could not do anything good:
Without Me you can do nothing. And if hitherto, says our Savior, you have not
received more graces, do not complain of Me, but blame yourself, who has
neglected to seek them of Me: Hitherto you have not asked anything; ask, and
you shall receive. Oh, how rich and liberal is the heart of Jesus towards
everyone that has recourse to Him! Rich unto all that call upon Him. Oh, what
great mercies do those souls receive who are earnest in asking help of Jesus
Christ. David said, For Thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild, and plenteous to all
who call upon Thee. Let us therefore always go to this heart, and ask with
confidence, and we shall obtain all we want.
Affections
and Prayers
Ah,
my Jesus, Thou hast not refused to give me Thy Blood and Thy life, and shall I
refuse to give Thee my miserable heart? No, my dearest Redeemer, I offer it
entirely to Thee. I give Thee all my will; do Thou accept it, and dispose of it
at Thy pleasure. I can do nothing, and have nothing; but I have this heart
which Thou hast given me, and of which no one can deprive me. I may be deprived
of my goods, my blood, my life, but not of my heart. With this heart I can love
Thee; I with this heart I will love Thee. I beseech Thee, O my God, teach me a
perfect forgetfulness of myself; teach me what I must do to arrive at Thy pure
love, of which Thou in Thy goodness hast inspired me with the desire. I feel in
myself a determination to please Thee; but in order to put my resolve into
execution, I expect and implore help from Thee. It depends on Thee. O loving
heart of Jesus, to make entirely Thine my poor heart, which hitherto has been
so ungrateful, and through my own fault deprived of Thy love. Oh, grant that my
heart may be all on fire with the love of Thee, even as Thine is on fire with
the love of me. Grant that my will may be entirely united to Thine, so that I
may will nothing but what Thou wiliest, and that from this day forth Thy holy
will may be the rule of all my actions, of all my thoughts, and of all my
desires. I trust, O my Savior, that Thou wilt not refuse me Thy grace to
fulfill this resolution which I now make prostrate at Thy feet, to receive with
submission whatever Thou mayest ordain for me and my affairs, as well in life
as in death. Blessed art thou, O Immaculate Mary, who hadst thy heart always
and entirely united to the heart of Jesus; obtain for me, O my Mother, that in
future I may wish and desire that which Jesus wills and thou willest.
Act
of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
O
adorable heart of my Savior Jesus, loving heart of my good master, how great is
thy tenderness to have remained for me in the divine Eucharist! Alas, thy
creatures forget thy love, despise thy complaints, and withdraw themselves from
thee; forgetting that, in thy agony in the garden, thou didst endure all the
bitterness of our sins. We now again by our iniquities renew thy sorrows. Thou
languishest here with love and sadness, and how few think of thee, care for
thee, or are touched by thy loneliness. Let me at least, sensible to thy
sorrows, listen to thy tender complaint, for I desire to repair the outrages
which are unceasingly directed against thee. Prostrate, annihilated in spirit
before the holy tabernacle in which thou dost display thy love, I beseech thee
to pardon my sins, and those of the whole world, for their contempt and
indifference, their insults and their sacrilege. If I cannot wash away with my
blood my own faults, and those of all thy guilty children, may I at least
silently weep over the outrages of which thou art the victim. Oh that I could
dispose of the hearts of all mankind, and fill them with regret and gratitude,
in order to offer them to thy love as the only homage which it desires to
receive. Lord Jesus, I offer myself as a holocaust. Behold my heart, purify it,
consume it with love, sacrifice it to thy will, that henceforth I may love thee
only, and Guard thou my heart, lest I should reclaim it, hide it in thy wounds
as in a safe asylum, so that there I may live and die in order to be united to
thee for ever. Amen.
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