Act of Love

Reveal Thy Sacred Heart to me, O Jesus, and show me Its attractions. Unite me to It for ever. Grant that all my aspirations and all the beats of my heart, which cease not even while I sleep, may be a testimonial to Thee of my love for Thee and may say to Thee: Yes, Lord, I am all Thine; pledge of my allegiance to Thee rests ever in my heart will never cease to be there. Do Thou accept the slight amount of good that I do and be graciously pleased to repair all my wrong-doing; so that I may be able to bless Thee in time and in eternity. Amen. 


-- Writte by Cardinal Merry del Val

An Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart for the first Friday of the month

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 Thee to express the sorrow that fills our hearts for the coldness and indifference with which we have so long requited the numberless benefits that Thou hast conferred upon us. With a deep sense of the outrages that have been heaped upon Thee by our sins and the sins of others, we come to make a solemn reparation of honor to thy most sacred majesty. It was our sins that overwhelmed Thy Heart with bitterness; it was the weight of our iniquities that pressed down Thy face to the earth in the Garden of Olives, and caused Thee to expire in anguish and agony on the cross. But now, repenting and sorrowful, we cast ourselves at Thy 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 Thy mercy, and pardon and convert to Thee all that have committed irreverences and sacrileges against Thee in the sacrament, of Thy love, and thus give another proof that Thy mercy is above all Thy works. Divine Jesus, with Thee there are 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 Thy grace, henceforth to be faithful to Thee. And in order to repair the sins of ingratitude by which we have grieved Thy most tender and loving Heart, we are resolved in the future ever to love and honor Thee in the most adorable Sacrament of the Altar, where Thou art ever present to hear and grant our petitions, and to be the food and life of our souls. Be Thou, O compassionate Jesus! our Mediator with Thy heavenly Father, Whom we have so grievously offended, strengthen our weakness, confirm these our resolutions of amendment, and as Thy 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 Thee. Amen.

Consume my heart

Hail! O sacred Heart of Jesus, living and quickening source of eternal life, infinite treasure of the Divinity, and burning furnace of divine love. Thou art my refuge and my sanctuary, O my amiable Savior. Consume my heart with that burning fire with which Thine is ever inflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Thy love, and let my heart be so united with Thine, that our wills may be one, and mine in all things be conformed to Thine. May Thy divine will be equally the standard and rule of all my desires and of all my actions. Amen  
-- Prayer by Saint Gertrude

Eucharistic Miracle at Lanciano

"I thirst with an ardent desire to be loved by men in the Blessed Sacrament, and I find none who strives, in accordance with My wish, to quench this thirst, by making any return of love."

-- Our Lord to St Margaret Mary Alacoque

The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are two flames of love

"St John Eudes was perhaps the first to speak of the 'Sacred Hear of Mary.' He was born in France in 1601, forty six years before St Margaret Mary Alacoque. He had a major role in the unfolding of God's plan for consecration to the Two Hearts. He composed the Mass and office of the Immaculate Heart and the Mass and office of the Sacred Heart. And he joined the Two Hearts. He spoke of them as one.

Also in the beautiful prayer taught by God the Father to Mother Eugenia, we say: 'I come to You with Jesus and Mary to ask...' And then after making petitions, we say: 'In union with Their Hearts, I offer You sacrifices, etc.'

The words may give us pause. But the reality, when experienced, is transcendentally beautiful. It is the realization that the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are two flames which God has joined together into one great flame of love for Him and for men. And we, poor creatures, can plunge the little love we have into that great flame where it, too, becomes one with it.

When we grasp this, we no longer pause. We take the leap of love. We are no longer worried about speaking of the Sacred Hearts as one. We know this does not mean that the Two Hearts are equal. Indeed, one is human and the other Divine. It merely means that the flames of Their love are as one flame. And we, as humans, identifying ourselves with the human heart of Mary, enter into that Flame of Love to be truly one with the Heart of Our Savior.

The words of Our Lord to St John Eudes seem to say it all: 'I have give you this admirable Heart of My dear Mother to be one with yours, so that you might have a heart worthy of Mine.'

This is not a matter of our choice, but of God's choice. This is not a matter of our planning as the way to become intimate with our Father God, but of His.

We deserve chastisement. God's final effort to save us is through love."

-- God's final effort by John M Haffert

There is nothing that Love will not forgive

"St Margaret Mary says Jesus revealed His Heart that men 'might be enriched with the abundance and profusion of those Divine treasures of which this Heart is the source... He revealed to me the unspeakable marvels of His pure love, and the excess of love He had conceived for men... He assured me that the pleasure He takes in being loved, known, and honored by His creatures is so great the He promises that no one dedicated and consecrated to Him will ever perish.'

In another place, the Saint adds: 'His eager desire of imparting graces of sanctification and salvation to well-disposed hearts causes Him to wish to be known, adored, and glorified by His creatures.'

Father Verheylezoon remarks: 'In this desire of Our Lord, there is no shadow of egoism. He wishes to be loved to induce us to love GOD His Father and to pour upon the world the riches of His Love.'

God sent His only Son into the world to reveal that He is Love. He said the night before His Heart was pierced on a cross: 'When You see Me, you see the Father.' He shows us a Heart flaming with Love to remind us prodigal children that there is nothing that Love will not forgive, and that His Love longs to save us from degeneration, disaster, and the atomic war which will wipe out much of humanity."

-- God's final effort by John M Haffert

I carry the souls of all those who are to be saved in My Heart

"Whoever starts on a long and difficult course must gather his garments closely round him so as not to be retarded. In this way I united Myself closely with human nature and liability to pain, reducing the length of eternity to the shortness of man's life here below. I darted forward as a giant, in all his strength, having this difficult and painful course to run, wherein I should accomplish the redemption of mankind. Again, he who carries something precious and of great value girds himself carefully, for fear he should lose it, so I am carrying the precious treasure, man's soul, and have girded Myself with care, and I carry the souls of all those who are to be saved, with love and untold desires, in My Heart."

-- Words of Jesus to St Mechtilde

In Him was revealed the fountain of all the gifts of grace

"Then, once more, by the Incarnation God placed Himself in like manner within the range of our hearts. There is nothing in the whole history of the world more fearful than the corruption of the heart of man under false conceptions of God. Heathenism is man without God, and for that reason corrupted. There is not a passion or a vice of human nature which was not deified by the pagan world. The very adorations which they paid to the monstrous gods of their own conception were, like their idols, horrible and not to be described. Therefore God, for the purification and sanctification of the human heart, placed Himself within the sphere of our affections: He has made it easy to know Him, and therefore easy to love Him. He revealed Himself of old to Prophets, to Patriarchs, and to His own people.


The personal nature of God was known and understood by the line of the faithful at all times, and especially by the family of Israel, to whom God gave a large and abundant revelation of Himself in His divine personality by His incomprehensible Name, ' I am who am.' The power, the love, the mercy of God—all these great moral attributes were revealed to them. But that He might make them more intimate with the heart of God, He took for Himself a nature like our own; He came as a man into the midst of men; He came to gaze upon men with a human countenance, to speak to men with a human voice, to love men with a human heart, that men might see, united in His Person, the Creator and the creature, the Infinite and the finite, the Divine and the human, that is, in the hypostatic union of manhood with God. In Him was revealed the fountain of all the gifts of grace: the fountain of life which in eternity was in the bosom of God, on the eternal Hills. The River of life came down through the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and from Him has spread to all nations. 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us; and we saw His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' He revealed thereby the divine characteristics of love, pity, compassion, mercy, tenderness, long-suffering, and generosity. The Word made flesh bore upon Him the whole impress and delineation of God. The eternal character of God shone through the transparent perfections of His human character. It was the human interpretation of the divine nature. And what was the character so revealed? In one word, it was ' God is charity.' The essence of God is charity, and the essence of God is Himself. God is charity; and that Charity was incarnate, and that Charity came and was passible among men. He came to weep over the sins of men, to weep at the grave of the dead, to weep over the sins of Jerusalem, to suffer, to hunger, to thirst, to be in agony, and to be crucified. What, then, is our conception of the Divine Nature through the Incarnation? Love, sorrowing, suffering, and dying for us. It is not possible for the eternal perfections of the love of God to be more intelligible than God has made them by the Incarnation of His Son. ' No man hath seen God,' indeed, 'at any time; but the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,' and Who was made man for us, to suffer and to sorrow and to die, 'hath declared Him.'"

-- The Glories of the Sacred Heart by Henry Cardinal Edward

Glorify God the Father

"To glorify God the Father, in making Him known, loved and served, such was the object of all the affections of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the motive power of all Its actions, the end of all Its sufferings. Not only at His entrance into the world, but in the accomplishment of each mystery, in each step of His career, our divine Lord repeated constantly: 'Behold me, O my Father, behold me: what wouldst Thou that I should do to glorify Thee? I have engraven this law in the depths of my heart, it shall always be my rule.' He was not troubled about Himself, nor His concerns, nor His own personal glory. 'I seek not my own glory. My glory is nothing.' John, viii. 50-54. Oh! what admirable zeal and what purity of love! In truth, the Heart of Jesus seeks for Itself only contempt, humiliations and shame. He imposes silence on those who praise Him, hides Himself from those who seek to make Him king, whilst He hastens to meet the executioners who, on the day of His passion, bring Him chains and a cross. It was by accepting humiliations, a thorny crown, and an infamous gibbet that He honoured His Father, and that the bleeding royalty of Calvary, which He so ardently desired, will establish the glory of God throughout the world. Then will He exclaim on the last day: 'I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.' Opus consummavi.

Consider, Christians, that it is impossible to love God and not to feel an interest in His glory. Thousands of apostles, missionaries and heroic women, have made the sacrifice of their country, their families, their possessions, their lives even, in order that God should be known, loved and served in childhood, youth and all ages of life. It was because these noble souls knew how to love, because each day they said, with hearts filled with a holy jealousy for the honour and glory of God: 'Our Father, who art in heaven, may Thy name be hallowed, exalted and praised. May Thy kingdom come in all hearts and command all affections. May Thy will be everywhere venerated and loved over the whole earth, as it is in heaven.' Let us examine ourselves and see if these are also our sentiments; if we have not too often preferred our repose and our interests to the greater glory of God; if in our hearts we feel for the evils which oppress the Church and religion, so as to be able to say with the Psalmist: 'The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me.' Psal. lxviii. 10.

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Grant, O Lord! that Thy 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 Thy love. Amen."

-- Month of the Sacred Heart by Abbé Berlioux

Our wounds will be our glory

"The first stage in the consoling of wounded hearts by the Heart of Christ is the restoring of faith. 'Bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless but believe.' A wound is not a reason for loss of faith in man and God. The wound of Christ is a proof of His divinity. Christ has not promised that our hearts will not be wounded, but He has proved that our wounds will be our glory; He has proved that if we go down into the dark hollows on the sea of sorrow, we shall mount again to the heights of joy. The trough of the wave of Calvary rose to the white crest of Easter.

The Heart of Christ is the healing of wounded hearts, because He has traveled all the ways of loss and separation. We can enter upon no path of sorrow where His Cross has not cast its shadow, where His feet have not left footprints of blood. He entered, too, into the valley of death. His body was made, it could be said, for immediate immortality, unlike ours, which must pass through dust to immortality. So, besides the deaths which, throughout His life, wounded His Heart - the death of St Joseph and of Lazarus and of many others - His own death, the separation of His soul from His body, gave Him the sharpest of wounds, and it was especially hard for His Heart to die, because death was not its due.

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'So, you also who have a heart wounded by a humiliation, bring it here, and put it into my side,' Christ says to us all. 'I, who am true King and God of all, have been humbled to the dust. The hand behind the spearpoint was one to which I was reaching out my hand, that I might grasp it in love and lift a soul to Heaven. Many would have festering heart wounds if the one to whim they gave a cup of water would cast it in derision into their face. I gave of the brimming contents of my Heart, and mocking insulters have flung my unavailing blood back upon me.

'More than that, wounded heart, the very blow which festers within you fell upon my Heart. This is no exaggeration, no figure of speech. I died for all sins and for the selfsame sin that wounded your heart, and because I know God better and understand sin more fully, and because, too, I love you better than you do yourself, the wound that was dealt you was dealt to me and gave me more intense pain than it did or could possibly give to you. Bring here, then, your heart, whether wounded by loss or humiliation, and put it into my side, and you will find there a Heart more deeply wounded.'"

-- How to love as Jesus loves: unlocking the treasures of Christ's Sacred Heart by Francis P Donnelly, SJ

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

"Among the wonderful developments of sacred teaching and piety, by which the plans of the divine Wisdom are daily made clear to the Church, hardly any is more manifest than the triumphant progress made by the devotion of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Very often indeed, during the course of past ages, Fathers, Doctors, and Saints have celebrated our Redeemer's love: and they have said, that the wound opened in the side of Christ was the hidden fountain of all graces.  Moreover, from the Middle Ages onward, when the faithful began to shew a more tender piety towards the most sacred Humanity of the Saviour, contemplative souls became accustomed to penetrate through that wound almost to the very Heart itself, wounded for the love of men.  And from that time, this form of contemplation became so familiar to all persons of saintly life, that there was no country or religious order in which, during this period, witnesses to it were not to be found.  Finally, during recent centuries, and most especially at that period when heretics, in the name of a false piety, strove to discourage Christians from receiving the most Holy Eucharist, the veneration of the most Sacred Heart began to be openly practised, principally through the exertions of St. John Eudes, who is by no means unworthily called the founder of the liturgical worship of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

But in order to establish fully and entirely the worship of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to spread the same throughout the whole world, God himself chose as his instrument a most humble virgin from the order of the Visitation, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who even in her earliest years already had a burning love for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and to whom Christ the Lord had very many times appeared, and was pleased to make known the riches and the desires of his divine Heart.  The most famous of these apparitions was that in which Jesus revealed himself to her in prayer before the blessed Sacrament, shewed her his most Sacred Heart, and, complaining that in return for his unbounded love, he met with nothing but outrages and ingratitude from mankind, he ordered her to concern herself with the establishment of a new feast, on the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, on which his Heart should be venerated with due honour, and that the insults offered him by sinners in the Sacrament of love should be expiated by worthy satisfaction.  But there is no one who knoweth not how many and how great were the obstacles which the handmaid of God experienced, in carrying out the commands of Christ; but, endowed with strength by the Lord himself, and actively aided by her pious spiritual directors, who exerted themselves with an almost unbelievable zeal, up to the time of her death she never ceased faithfully to carry out the duty entrusted to her by heaven.

At length, in the year 1765, the Supreme Pontiff Clement XIII approved the Mass and Office in honour of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus; and Pius IX extended the feast to the universal Church.  From then on the worship of the most Sacred Heart, like an overflowing river, washing away all obstacles, hath poured itself forth over all the earth, and, at the dawn of the new century, Leo XIII, having proclaimed a jubilee, decided to dedicate the whole human race to the most Sacred Heart.  This consecration was actually carried out with solemn rites in all the churches of the Catholic world, and brought about a great increase of this devotion, leading not only nations but even private families to it, who in countless numbers dedicated themselves to the Divine Heart, and submitted themselves to its royal sway.  Lastly, the Sovereign Pontiff Pius XI, in order that, by its solemnity, the feast might answer more fully to the greatly widespread devotion of the Christian people, raised the feast of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus to the rite of a double of the first class, with an octave; and moreover, that the violated rights of Christ, the supreme King and most loving Lord, might be repaired, and that the sins of the nations might be bewailed, he ordered that annually, on that same feast-day, there should be recited an expiatory form of prayer in all the churches of the Christian world."

-- From the 1911 Breviary of St Pius X

The Heart of Christ heals the contrite of heart

"Consider the perfection of the contrition found in the Heart of Christ. He could not be touched with sin, but 'He was reputed with sinners, and upon Him was laid the iniquity of us all.' And for all of us He made reparation and He sorrowed, including in His sorrow every quality found in our far weaker contrition.

Contrition should be interior, in the heart. 'Rend your hearts, not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God.' The rending of the Heart of Christ is witnessed to by a thousand messengers who have hurried out by every way they could to tell us in a language that cannot lie - the language of blood - that the sorrow of sin is crushing His Heart. The rending of His Heart is eloquent in the words in which He voices His contrition: 'Not my will, but Thine be done.' From the will - that is, from the heart - came that act of contrition.

Contrition must be supernatural. God must enter into the sorrow for sin. The Heart of Christ expressly excluded all thought of self, all motives that led away from God. Even the passing of the chalice that God's justice held to His lips was not to be effected by His will. God's will might remove it; Christ's will would not. So then, the draining of the chalice must be accomplished with the purest unselfishness: 'Not my will, but Thine be done.'

Contrition should be sovereign. Never did a heart have to make more fearful reckoning between the worth of God and the price of sin than the Heart of Christ made, and never was the infinite value of God's law asserted more emphatically. On one hand was the whole Passion to come, with all its tortures of body and soul; on the other hand was God's justice. Christ accepted the sorrow, the suffering, the disgrace and death. He laid His Heart upon the altar of God's justice and was Himself the priest who completed the sovereign holocaust: 'Not my will, but Thine be done.'

Contrition must be universal. Was there a single sin exempted from God's will? Was there a single wish of God's will that was not embraced by the Heart of Christ? Was there a single pang of pain, a single twinge of sorrow, a single drop of His blood excluded from the generous offer of Christ? There can be only one answer to these questions. The 'my' of Christ included all that the 'Thy' of the will He addressed included: 'Not my will, but Thine be done.'

It is, then, that great act of contrition which sweetens the chalices of our penitence; it is the signature of Christ's blood which gives value to what would be worthless paper in our soul's sorrow; it is the Heart of Christ which heals the contrite of heart."

-- How to love as Jesus loves: unlocking the treasures of Christ's Sacred Heart by Francis P Donnelly, SJ

I am alone on the altar for your love

"One day I was alone in my room.  Because of my illness they spoiled me so that I could not remain alone.  That day Lucita was sick and Elisea-a servant who took care of my dear grandfather, went to be with her. I then became envious and troubled and began to cry.  My tearful eyes began to fix themselves on a picture of the Sacred Heart and I heard a very sweet voice telling me: 'What!  I, Juanita, am alone on the altar for your love, and you cannot even suffer for a moment?'   From that time, the dear Jesus spoke to me, and I spent entire hours conversing with Him.  That is the reason I enjoyed being alone. He went on teaching me how I should suffer and not complain, and about intimate union with Him. Then He told me that He wanted me for Himself, that He would like me to become a Carmelite.  Ah!   Mother, you cannot imagine what Jesus was doing in my soul.  At that time I did not live in myself, it was Jesus who was living in me"


-- From the Diary of St Teresa of the Andes, ocd

Memorial of St Gertrude the Great

"Gertrude of Helfta was a highly intelligent woman. She was born on 6 January 1256 in the little town of Eisleben in Thuringia. At age 5, Gertrude went to the Cistercian monastery school of Helfta in Saxony, and since then has always been known as "Gertrude of Helfta". She dedicated herself to study, and it was not long before she surpassed all her companions.

She also discovered Christ in the monastery, and the beauty of living for him and with him in the intimacy of love. But the divine Teacher remained in the background of her life for some time while she used all her faculties to improve her education, becoming proficient in literature, philosophy, song and the refined art of miniature painting.

After several years, Gertrude moved from the monastery school to the novitiate, taking the veil and becoming a nun. For her Jesus was "Someone", but her studies were still her all. But she was not on the wrong track, for knowledge, when it goes hand in hand with humility, does not distance people from God. And he was waiting on her path.

Experiencing a 'new birth'

In 1280, she was 24 years old and a half-hearted and distracted nun. Towards the end of the year, she went through an inner crisis that lasted several weeks. She felt lonely, lost and depressed. Her human plans disintegrated like shattered idols. This might have been the end of everything, but instead, it was a new beginning.

On 27 January 1281, Gertrude saw Jesus in person in the form of a marvellous adolescent who said to her, "I have come to comfort you and bring you salvation". Remembering that day, she was to write: "Jesus, my Redeemer, you have lowered my indomitable head to your gentle yoke, preparing for me the medicine suited to my weakness". From that moment, she was solely concerned with living in full union with Jesus.

In her writings, she established the date of her newfound unity with Christ as 23 June 1281: all her life she must have seen that day as the day of her new birth, the birth of the true Gertrude in the image of Christ.

She abandoned the study of profane subjects and dedicated herself entirely to the study of Scripture, writings of the Church Fathers and theological treatises. She found extraordinary delight in reading the letters of Augustine, Gregory the Great, Bernard and Hugh of Saint-Victor.

From a scholar specialized in the humanities, she became a "theologian" filled with God and his fragrance. Her life was truly filled with the Lord alone.

But Gertrude did not want to be the only one to enjoy this supreme "Pleasure"; so she began to write short treatises for the Sisters in the monastery and those who approached her in which she explained the most difficult passages of Scripture, true spiritual treasures written in a clear and lively style.

The monastery parlour was also often filled with people in search of her words, comfort and guidance. She exercised a great influence on souls.

A confidant of Jesus

Since her conversion, she had become the confidant of Jesus, who revealed to her the infinite Love of his divine Heart and charged her to spread it among human beings with love for the suffering and for sinners. Gertrude's ecstasies with Jesus prompted her to write those ardent pages that would bring souls to him.

Humble, always happy and smiling, with a loving heart for all, she sparkled with trust, joy and peace, and led everyone to the Lord. To her soul, Jesus was like a spring day, vibrant with life and scented with flowers: Love par excellence, the one overwhelming Love. This is why she is known on the one hand as the "Teresa of Germany" and on the other, the "theologian of the Sacred Heart".

One day, Jesus said to Gertrude: "It would be good to make known to men and women how they would benefit from remembering that I, the Son of God and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, always stand before God for the salvation of the human race, and that should they commit some sin through their weakness, I offer my unblemished Heart to the Father for them".

She truly became one with Jesus and transmitted him to her brethren in the many works she has bequeathed to us, some of which have been lost.

In 1298 her health deteriorated but she transformed her sufferings into love, an offering with Jesus to the Father and a gift for humankind.

During her long and painful illness, she decided to recount the "adventure" of her conversion and to tell of the wonderful revelations with which Jesus had favoured her: "Until the age of 25, I was a blind and insane woman . . . but you, Jesus, deigned to grant me the priceless familiarity of your friendship by opening to me in every way that most noble casket of your divinity, which is your divine Heart, and offering me in great abundance all your treasures contained in it".
On 17 November 1301, at age 45, she rejoined her Bridegroom for ever. Interestingly, she is the only woman among the saints to be called "the Great": St Gertrude the Great.

-- Gertrude: The Only Female Saint to Be Called 'The Great'  by Paolo Rossi
© L'Osservatore Romano

St Gertrude the Great, pray for us!

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Three lessons given by the Heart of Jesus to St Gertrude with regard to confiding abandonment

1. One time, when St. Gertrude was discouraged at prayer, Our Lord encouraged her to have great confidence in His Divine Heart, inviting her to present herself before Him, like Esther before Assuerus:

"What dost thou command, My sovereign?" The Saint answered: "I ask, O Lord, that Thy most amiable Will may be fully accomplished in me." Then Jesus, naming to her one after another the persons who had recommended themselves to her prayers, said: "What dost thou ask for this soul and for this, and for that other, who claim more especially thy prayers?" Gertrude answered: "I only ask, O Lord, that Thy Will may be perfectly accomplished in them. All my desire and my delight is to see Thee fully satisfied in me and in all Thy creatures." "My Heart," replied Jesus, "is so touched with that confiding abandonment of thy heart to My holy Will, that it will itself supply for whatever may have hitherto been wanting in thy life in this respect, and will henceforth love thee as if thy whole life had been perfectly conformed to My good Pleasure."

Let us follow her example and desire only the accomplishment of the Will of God in ourselves and in others; in our own affairs and in those of the Church; in our works of zeal and in all that we have at heart. Let us have this sweet and all-abiding confidence and in abandonment to Our Lord's Divine mercy as St. Gertrude received from the Heart of Jesus: that He Himself will supply all that has been wanting in us in this regard, "and accept all our past prayers as if they had been in perfect conformity with His holy Will; all our past actions as if they had been performed only to accomplish His desires; and all our past sufferings as if they had been accepted with perfect resignation."

 2. One night, St. Gertrude was suffering more than usual from a fever; she was anxious about the course of this malady. Jesus appeared to her, carrying health in His right hand and sickness in His left, offering her both that she might choose that which she preferred. Gertrude leaned towards His loving Heart, in which she knew the plenitude of every good resided, and answered: "Lord, I choose nothing, I desire only the good pleasure of Thy Heart." Then Jesus, causing a fountain, as it were, of grace to spring from His Heart, made it flow into that of Gertrude, saying: "Since thou renouncest thy own will to abandon it entirely unto Mine, I pour into thee all the sweetness and all the joy of My Divine Heart.

Like this great Saint, us choose nothing, ask nothing, having all confidence in the all-wise, all-loving will of Our Lord Jesus. For He will choose what is best for us, and fill us with the sweet joy of His Heart; for there can be no greater happiness for a creature "than to give pleasure to His Creator, to be guided by His most amiable Will; and to confide all to His watchful Providence."

3. One year, on the Feast of the Circumcision, when asked for spiritual New Year's gifts for her community, Our Lord told her: "If anyone will generously renounce his own will to seek only My good Pleasure, My Divine Heart will illuminate him with a vivid light to know My wishes. I will show him in what he has failed with regard to his Rule, which is the expression of My Will; and will atone with him for all his shortcomings. Like a good master instructing a dearly loved child, I will let him lean on My Heart, will gently point out to him his faults, will kindly correct what he has done amiss, and supply what he has neglected. And if, as a heedless child, he pays no attention to some points, I will attend to them for him, and make up what he has passed over. The New Year's gift most conducive to My glory that I can bestow on these souls is the desire to Please Me in all things, and confiding abandonment to My Divine Heart. I will grant them, with the atonement for all their failures of the past year, light and strength to conform themselves henceforward entirely to My holy Will."

-- Love, Peace and Joy by Fr André Prévot

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St Gertrude's prayer to her Guardian Angel

O most holy angel of God, appointed by God to be my guardian, I give you thanks for all the benefits which you have ever bestowed on me in body and in soul. I praise and glorify you that you condescended to assist me with such patient fidelity, and to defend me against all the assaults of my enemies. Blessed be the hour in which you were assigned me for my guardian, my defender and my patron. In acknowledgement and return for all your loving ministries to me, I offer you the infinitely precious and noble heart of Jesus, and firmly purpose to obey you henceforward, and most faithfully to serve my God. Amen.

Believe without reservation and trust in His mercy

You cannot make an act more pleasing to God than to absolutely believe, without reserve, in His kindness, in His love, that you trust in His mercy. That is what glorifies Him the most! Trust in His Court, in His good Heart.

Vous ne pouvez pas faire d'acte plus agréable à Dieu que de croire absolument, sans réserve, à sa bonté, à son amour, que de vous confier en sa miséricorde. C'est cela qui le glorifie le plus ! Confiez-vous à Son Cour, à Son bon Coeur.

-- Père Jacques of Jesus, ocd

N.B. Not on the Eucharist, but still a wonderful thought by Père Jacques that would make a nice holy card.

My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls

"My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls and especially for poor sinners.... I desire to bestow my graces upon souls [from the tabernacle] but they do not want to accept them. You, at least, come to Me as often as you can and take these graces they do not want to accept. In this way you will console my Heart." (Diary, 367)

"...[L]ook into my merciful Heart, and reflect its compassion in your own heart and in your deeds, so that you who proclaim My mercy to the world may yourself be aflame with it." (Diary 742)

"...[D]o not tire of proclaiming My mercy. In this way you will refresh this Heart of Mine, which burns with a flame of pity for sinners.... The loss of each soul plunges Me into mortal sadness. You always console Me when you pray for sinners." (Diary, 1521 and 1397)

--Divine Mercy in my Soul, Diary of St Faustina Kowalska

Act of consecration to the Sacred Heart

"I, ( state your name. . .), give myself and consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ my person and my life, my actions, pains, and sufferings, so that I may be unwilling to make use of any part of my being save to honor, love, and glorify the Sacred Heart.

This is my unchanging purpose, namely, to be all His, and to do all things for the love of Him, at the same time renouncing with all my heart whatever is displeasing to Him.

I therefore take Thee, O Sacred Heart, to be the only object of my love, the guardian of my life, my assurance of salvation, the remedy of my weakness and inconstancy, the atonement for all the faults of my life and my sure refuge at the hour of death.

Be then, O Heart of goodness, my justification before God Thy Father, and turn away from me the strokes of His righteous anger. O Heart of love, I put all my confidence in Thee, for I fear everything from my own wickedness and frailty; but I hope for all things from Thy goodness and bounty.

Do Thou consume in me all that can displease Thee or resist Thy holy will. Let Thy pure love imprint Thee so deeply upon my heart that I shall nevermore be able to forget Thee or to be separated from Thee. May I obtain from all Thy loving kindness the grace of having my name written in Thee, for in Thee I desire to place all my happiness and all my glory, living and dying in true bondage to Thee." -- Composed by St Margaret Mary Alacoque

Prayer to the Wounded Heart of Jesus

"O my Most Loving and Gentle Jesus, I desire with all the affections of my heart, that all beings should praise Thee, honor Thee and glorify Thee eternally for that sacred wound wherewith Thy divine side was rent. I deposit, enclose, conceal in that wound and in that opening in Thy Heart, my heart and all my feelings, thoughts, desires, intentions and all the faculties of my soul. I entreat Thee, by the precious Blood and Water that flowed from Thy Most Loving Heart, to take entire possession of me, that Thou may guide me in all things. Consume me in the burning fire of thy holy Love, so that I may be so absorbed and transformed into Thee that I may no longer be but one with Thee. Amen."

--John Justus of Landsberg (Lanspergius, the Carthusian)

Love Him who is loved so little

"If Jesus Christ has performed so many prodigies to induce us to love Him, what favors will He not confer on those whom He sees eager to testify to Him their gratitude and their ardent love? He has loved us tenderly, says St Bernard, and He has lavished His blessings on us when we did not love Him, even when we did not wish Him to love us. What gifts and graces will He not pour out on those who love Him and who are grieved at seeing Him so little loved?" -- The Devotion to the Sacred Heart by Fr John Croiset, SJ

Confiding Abandonment

"Let us also desire only the accomplishment of the Will of God in ourselves and in others; in our own affairs and in those of the Church; in our works of zeal and in all that we have at heart. Let us hope with confidence to obtain by our fidelity in abandonment a mercy like that which St Gertrude obtained from the Heart of Jesus - viz., that He Himself may deign to repair all that has been wanting in us in this respect, and accept all our past actions as if they had been performed only to accomplish His desires; and all our past sufferings as if they had been accepted with perfect resignation." From Love, Peace and Joy: Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus According to St Gertrude by Fr André Prévot