Sacred Heart of Jesus

Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

O most holy Heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing, I adore You, I love You, and with a lively sorrow for my sins, I offer You this poor heart of mine. Make me humble, patient, pure and wholly obedient to Your will. Grant, good Jesus, that I may live in You and for You. Protect me in the midst of danger; comfort me in my afflictions; give me health of body, assistance in my temporal needs, Your blessing on all that I do, and the grace of a holy death.

Let Us Pray

Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the Heart of Your well-beloved Son and upon the praise and satisfaction which He offers You in the name of sinners; and as they seek Your mercy, be pleased to grant them forgiveness in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You forever and ever. Amen.

Morning Offering

Lord Jesus Christ, in union with that divine intention wherewith on earth Thou didst offer to God Thy praises through Thy Most Sacred Heart, and dost now offer them in the Sacrament of the Eucharist everywhere on earth even to the end of time, I most gladly offer Thee throughout this entire day, all my thoughts and intentions, all my affections and desires, all my words and deeds, in imitation of the Immaculate Heart of the Most Blessed and ever Virgin Mary. Amen.

Morning Offering in Latin

Domine Iesu Christe, in unione illius divinae intentionis, quia in terris per sanctissimum Cor tuum laudes Deo persolvisti et nunc in Eucharistiae Sacramento ubique terrarum persolvis usque ad consummationem saeculi, ego per hanc diem integram, ad imitationem sanctissimi Cordis beatae Mariae semper Virginis immaculatae, tibi libentissime offero omnes meos intentiones et cogitationes, omnes meos affectus et desideria, omnia mea opera et verba. Amen.

Act of Consecration

to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Abyss of Mercy and Source of every grace and blessing, I consecrate and unite myself to You without exception or reserve - all that I am and all that I have, both temporal and spiritual, past, present and future, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Your Mother. I leave myself entirely at Your disposal with complete confidence in Your Mercy and Love and I beg You to look upon this offering of my nothingness before You and to use me for Your own glory, for the honour of Your Mother and for the salvation of souls. Help me to seek You alone in all things. Hide me in the shelter of Your Most Sacred Heart, especially at those times when I may fail in my faithfulness in Your service. Through this weak and miserable instrument, may Your Mercy, Love, glory and power shine forth. Amen.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me
- for I place all my trust in You!

Printable copy of the Litany to the Sacred Heart

Beads of the Sacred Heart
(recited on regular Rosary)

On the Cross of the Rosary say:

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to enlight and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

On the first large bead say:

O Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Blood, Passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the sorrows of Our Blessed Lady and St. Joseph in reparation for my sins, in suffrage for the souls in Purgatory, for the wants of our Holy Church and for the conversion of sinners.

On the three small beads say:

My God, I believe in Thee.
My God, I hope in Thee
My God, I love Thee with my whole heart, and for Thy sake
love my neighbor as myself.

On each of the large beads

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine. O, Mary, conceived without sin, pray for me.

On each of the small beads of the five decades say:

Sweetest Heart of Jesus, I implore, that I may love Thee more and more. Sweet Heart of Mary, be thou my salvation.

In conclusion say:

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I give Thee my heart and my soul.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, assist me now and in my last agony.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul in peace with Thee.

St. Therese of Lisieux to the Sacred Heart

O Heart of Jesus, treasure of tenderness, You Yourself are my happiness, my only hope. You know how to charm my tender youth, stay near me till the last light. Lord, to You alone I've given my life, and all my desires are well-known to You. It's in Your ever-infinite goodness that I want to lose myself, O Heart of Jesus.

from Divine Intimacy, Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

Presence of God:
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, teach me how to know You and to love You.

Meditation:

The object of devotion to the Sacred Heart is, properly speaking, the physical Heart of Jesus which is worthy of adoration, because it is part of His sacred humanity, hypostatically united to the Word. However, the ultimate object of this devotion is the love of Jesus, the symbol of which is His Heart. In other words, "beneath the symbolic image of the Heart, we contemplate and venerate our divine Redeemer's immense charity and generous love" (Pius VI). This is the real meaning of the devotion to the Sacred Heart by which the Church asks us to honor the Heart of Jesus as the visible representation of His invisible love. "Your charity has allowed You to be wounded by the visible blow of the lance," the liturgy of the feast sings, "so that we may venerate the wounds of Your invisible love' (RB). Therefore, the principle object of this devotion is the love of Jesus, an uncreated love with which He, as the Word, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, loved us from all eternity, and from all eternity willed to become incarnate for our salvation. It is also the created love of charity with which, as Man, He loved us even to the death of the Cross, meriting for us by His love that same charity by which we are enabled to love Him in return. Here we find the most profound significance of devotion to the Sacred Heart. St. Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart of Jesus had such a thorough understanding of this meaning that she made this devotion the center of her life. The process for her canonization says that the Saint "saw the Heart of Jesus as the center, the source of the love with which the divine Word, in the bosom of the Father, loved us from all eternity, and merited for us in time the power to love Him in return, on earth and in heaven, by our sharing in this love."

2. Other devotions to Our Lord have for their object the mysteries or special aspects of His life, as for example, the Incarnation, the hidden life, the Passion. Devotion to the Sacred Heart, on the contrary, has a more general object, the love of Jesus, which constitutes the profound, essential reason for all His mysteries, the love that is first and only cause of al He has done for us. In this sense, devotion to the Sacred Heart touches, as it were, the mainspring of all the mysteries of the Redeemer, the essential raison d'etre of His life, His Person. It is the love which explains the Incarnation of the Word, the life of the Man-God, His Passion, His Eucharist. We cannot possibly understand the mystery by which the Son of God became Man, died on the Cross to save mankind, and then became their Food, if we do not admit this infinite love which compelled God the Creator, the Most High, to find a way to give Himself entirely for the salvation of His creatures. The Church gives expression to this interpretation in the hymn at Matins: "Amor coegit te tuus mortale corpus sumere." "Thy love has impelled Thee"--or rather, has constrained Thee, if we accept the Latin word in its full sense--"to assume a mortal body, so that as the new Adam, Thou wouldst restore what the old Adam had lost." The hymn continues, now praising the eternal love of the Word, now the human love of Jesus, two loves which, in fact, cannot be separated, just as the sacred humanity of Jesus cannot be disassociated from the Word which assumed it. Jesus is both God and man, hence His love is both divine and human. He loved us and continues to love us as God and Man. His human, created love is made sublime by the eternal love of the Word, or rather, it becomes the very love of the Word who makes it His own, just as all the sentiments and the acts of Christ as Man are raised to a supreme dignity. Thus, His divine love becomes sensible, comprehensible, and tangible to us by means of the manifestations of His human love. It is always the humanity of Jesus which reveals His divinity to us, and just as we know the Son of God through His sacred humanity, so do we know His divine love through the human love of Jesus.

Colloquy

"For this, O Jesus, was Your sacred side pierced, that it might give us an easy entrance. Your Heart was opened that we might dwell there, safe from exterior disturbances. In addition to this, You were pierced by a spear, so that through the visible wound, we could see the invisible one which love inflicted on You, for he who burns with love, is wounded by love. What better evidence of Your ardent love could You have given us than by permitting the lance to pierce, not only Your Body, but even Your Heart? The wound in Your flesh then shows forth the wound in Your spirit.
"Who will not love that Heart so deeply wounded? Who will not return love to One who so loved us? Who will not embrace a Spouse so chaste? Certainly the soul loves You in return, O Lord, who, knowing itself to be wounded by Your love, cries to You: Your charity has wounded me! We too, pilgrims in the flesh, love as much as we can, and embrace the One who was wounded for us, whose hands, feet, side, and Heart were pierced. Let us love and pray: 'O Jesus, deign to bind our hearts, still so hard and unrepentant, with the chain of Your love and wound them with its dart.' " (St. Bonaventure)

"O Jesus, a soldier opened Your side with his lance, so that, through the gaping wound, we might know the charity of Your Heart, which loved us unto death, and that we might enter into Your unutterable love through the same channel by which it came to us. Approach, the, O my soul, the Heart of Christ, that magnanimous Heart, that hidden Heart, that Heart which think of all things and knows all things; that loving Heart, al on fire with love. Make me understand, O Lord, that the door of Your Heart was forced open by the vehemence of Your love. Allow me t enter into the secret of that love which was hidden from all eternity,, but is now revealed by the wound in Your Heart" (St. Bernardine of Siena).