BEFORE THE CONSECRATION

After 33 days of preparation, we are ready to make, or renew, our consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the hearts of Joseph and Mary. There are various ways to prepare ourselves for this on the day of consecration. Some fasting or repeating some of the prayers from the preparation can also be fruitful exercises. It is also worthwhile to revisit any journaling that might have highlighted some graces received along the path of preparation. It helps us consecrate ourselves more thoughtfully and intentionally when we remember what stood out to us when we reflected on some of the qualities of our own hearts, the particular qualities of the hearts of Joseph and Mary and above all the final days’ readings on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The most important immediate preparation for the Day of Consecration is receiving the Sacraments: there is no better preparation than a humble and sincere Sacramental Confession and a devout participation in the Holy Eucharist including Sacramental Communion. If it is not possible, for some reason, to receive the Sacraments, at least make a sincere act of contrition and a spiritual Communion.

It is beneficial to write out the Consecration for the sake of investing more love and attention in the words and solemnizing this important moment of prayer. Typesetting with a word processor and printing out a copy that you can sign is also appropriate.

The Consecration brings together into a single prayer some dimensions of the heart that we focused on throughout the preparation. The symbol of the heart indicates the deepest core of our identity. Our affectivity, our intellect (particularly our intuitive intellect) and our will can be said to reside in the heart. Also, the Catechism locates our conscience in the heart. Returning to the heart involves drawing away from the frenetic pace and superficial pre-occupations of the modern world. Emptying the heart means to clear out the clutter of displaced priorities and address the disordered attachments that have a way of congesting our hearts. Our thoughts, will and affections can be purified as they are plunged into the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

We also learn from the chaste heart of St. Joseph how to love Mary’s Immaculate Heart. We learn from him how to be pure, strong, constant, humble and chaste, and how to protect her and love her as she deserves.

We learn from Mary’s Immaculate heart how to love the Heart of Jesus. We can develop her tender affection, imitate her littleness, cultivate her humility and follow her example of compassion. Most importantly we can let ourselves be conformed to the Word of God and learn from her how to give God our Yes with a joyous desire, to speak our own genoïto.

Then in union with the hearts of Joseph and Mary we are ready to become one with the Heart of Jesus. We console His Heart by receiving His love and mercy. We repair the wounds inflicted on the Sacred Heart by extending that love and mercy to others. In this way we allow our hearts to be perfected in love and we allow our lives to magnify the eternal hymn of love and praise that the Son sings to the Father. Each of our lives is made to express part of that eternal love story between the Father and the Son and our Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus will bring that to fruition. Finally, referencing St. Therese’s Act of Oblation to merciful love, we look forward to an eternal face to Face with our heavenly Father, when “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2).

Consecration Prayer to the Three Hearts

Heavenly Father, immerse my heart in the Sacred Heart of your Son, which always lived in loving communion with the hearts of Joseph and Mary. In the communion of these three hearts, refashion my heart to be a heart of perfect love. Illuminate my thoughts with your divine light. Order my affections according to your divine will.

You know the places of darkness and disorder in my heart, where I do not know how loved I am, and then sometimes, in weakness or sinfulness, grasp after self-affirmation and self-sufficiency.

In communion with the heart of Joseph, help me cultivate silence, and enter into your hidden presence, O Father, as I open up with childlike faith, and find protection in my vulnerability and comfort in my affliction.

In communion with the heart of Mary, fill me with tender affection, make me humble, poor and little, expand my openness to your will, increase my magnanimity, fill me with praise of the divine perfections, and help me to believe that with you all things are possible as I give you my genoïto, my yes with joyous desire.

In so doing make my heart one with the Heart of Jesus, burning with divine love, ready to suffer to save sinners, totally fixed on your fatherly gaze and docile to every movement of the Holy Spirit. In this way I shall become for you an eternal hymn of praise and my life shall be totally in your service, that I may play my unique role in your divine love story and my heart shall constantly radiate my share of your divine Word until I come before you in an eternal face to face.

After the Consecration

What now? What does it mean to live out our Consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus?

The grace of this particular Consecration is in the way we are immersed in the love relationships of the Three Hearts. God redeemed humanity through a family. He created three hearts that were able to love each other perfectly. Each heart brings something unique and together they provide all that we need to love the Sacred Heart of Jesus perfectly and to love our neighbors perfectly with the love of the Sacred Heart in our own hearts.

Living out this Consecration consists primarily in giving ourselves over to the dynamic of consoling the Heart of Jesus by letting ourselves be loved and doing reparation for the Heart of Jesus by extending His love to others. At the same time, Joseph’s constancy and Mary’s tenderness will help us. They add a certain beautiful quality to our love even as they teach us to love Jesus more.

It will help us to live out the Consecration if we pray the Consecration prayer every day. This should not be considered in a scrupulous or superstitious way. Rather, we can remember daily the way we are loved by these three hearts and we can fashion our love after their love. We can ask daily for our hearts to be transformed—emptied and purified—so that they will resemble more and more the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

It would also be beneficial to renew the Consecration at least annually. The richness of the readings and the beauty of the prayers can become a regular part of our spiritual lives as our hearts are regularly transformed by being immersed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Finally, it is important to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Most Chaste Heart of St. Joseph. We must not only keep this treasure for ourselves but spread it broadly. Sharing the Consecration booklets, and even organizing 33-day preparation groups, can transform the world.

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
Lamentations 3:21-26

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

READING 2
From the encyclical Dilexit Nos x 197-199 by Pope Francis

While nothing need be added to the one redemptive sacrifice of Christ, it remains true that our free refusal can prevent the heart of Christ from spreading the “waves of his infinite tenderness” in this world. Again, this is because the Lord wishes to respect our freedom. More than divine justice, it was the fact that Christ’s love might be refused that troubled the heart of Saint Thérèse, because for her, God’s justice is understood only in the light of his love. As we have seen, she contemplated all God’s perfections through his mercy, and thus saw them transfigured and resplendent with love. In her words, “even his justice (and perhaps this even more so than the others) seems to me clothed in love.”¹

This was the origin of her Act of Oblation, not to God’s justice but to his merciful love. “I offer myself as a victim of holocaust to your merciful love, asking you to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within you to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of your love.”² It is important to realize that, for Thérèse, this was not only about allowing the heart of Christ to fill her heart, through her complete trust, with the beauty of his love, but also about letting that love, through her life, spread to others and thus transform the world. Again, in her words, “In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be love… and thus my dream will be realized.”³ The two aspects were inseparably united.

The Lord accepted her oblation. We see that shortly thereafter she stated that she felt an intense love for others and maintained that it came from the heart of Christ, prolonged through her. So she told her sister Léonie: “I love you a thousand times more tenderly than ordinary sisters love each other, for I can love you with the heart of our celestial spouse.”⁴ Later, to Maurice Bellière she wrote, “How I would like to make you understand the tenderness of the heart of Jesus, what he expects from you!”⁵

REFLECTION

Mercy (misercordia in Latin) is the Lord’s heart (cor) for our misery (miseria). To receive the Lord’s pent up mercy—mercy that others were not receiving into their misery—St. Thérèse had to enter into their misery. Her willingness to receive His mercy was a willingness to share in the misery of others. For St. Thérèse that came particularly through sharing in the wound of abandonment, the wound of distrust and disbelief particularly suffered by atheists.

It was a wound familiar to her in her own way, because of the repeated experience of abandonment in her childhood—first from her mother’s breast cancer, then from the removal of her wet nurse, then from the loss of her mother through death, then from the departure of her replacement mother, Pauline, who entered Carmel. St. Thérèse knew repeated loss from her earliest years, even while she experienced tremendous love from her Papa.

God used that wound to bring her mystically into the misery of atheists that she could receive the mercy of God for atheists and in some way help to redeem atheists. Her Oblation led her into a supernatural suffering and a supernatural love as she shared the agony and the mercy of the Heart of Jesus.

How is the Lord inviting you to share the miseries of the world so as to receive more mercy from the Heart of Jesus? How is Jesus inviting you to open your heart to receive more of His Love for His little ones and even for the lost ones?

PRAYERS

Newman’s Prayer to the Sacred Heart (longer or shorter form)
One of the prayers from the Roman Missal
Act of Oblation to Merciful Love

1. Ms A, 83v.; cf. Letter 226 to Father Roulland, 9 May 1897. ↩︎
2. Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, 9 June 1895, 2r-2v. ↩︎
3. Ms B, 3v. ↩︎
4. Letter 186 to Léonie, 11 April 1896. ↩︎
5. Letter 258 to l’Abbé Bellière, 18 July 1897. ↩︎

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
Song of Songs 1:2-4

O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out; therefore the maidens love you. Draw me after you, let us make haste. The king has brought me into his chambers. We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.

READING 2
From The Memorial of the Abundance of Divine Sweetness by St. Gertrude of Helfta

Not long after, toward the middle of Lent, I lay once more very sick in bed. One morning all were about their various occupations, and I was left lying there alone. The Lord, who abandons no one who is deprived of human comfort, was at my side, fulfilling the prophetic words of the Psalmist: “I am with him in tribulation” (Ps. 90:15). He showed me, issuing from his left side as though from the innermost depths of his blessed heart, a stream of flowing water as pure as crystal and as solid (cf. Rev. 22:1). It proceeded to cover his adorable breast like a jewel. I saw that it was transparent, colored in hues of gold and rose, alternating in various ways.

With this, the Lord gave me to understand these words: “The sickness from which you are now suffering has so sanctified your soul that whenever for my sake you condescend to others in thought, word, or deed, you will never be far from me, as is shown you in this stream. And just as the gold and rose colors gleam through the purity of the crystal and are enhanced by it, so will your intentions be pleasing, seen through the cooperation of the gold of my divinity and the perfecting power of the patience of the rose of my humanity.”

[…] O gift of gifts! (Phil. 2:9). To be satiated so fully in that storeroom of divine spices! To be inebriated with the overflowing wine of charity in that wine cellar of pleasures (Song 1:3, 2:4, 5:1, et al.), to be so overcome, rather, as not to be able to stir a step from these confines outside which this precious liquid (it is to be surmised) would lose its fragrant warmth and potency! Furthermore, when charity induces one to go out, to carry with one, as it were, the scent of wine on one’s breath, so as to be able to share with others the rich sweetness of divine wealth.

I am entirely confident, Lord God, that you can do everything, and that you can bestow this gift on all your elect. I do not doubt for a moment that you wanted to give it to me in your loving kindness. How, in your inscrutable wisdom, you were able to bestow it on my unworthy self, I am unable to discover.

Gertrude of Helfta, The Herald of Divine Love, ed. Margaret Winkworth and Bernard McGinn, trans. Margaret Winkworth, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), 107-109.

REFLECTION

St. Gertrude shares from her personal experience the way that the suffering of sickness led her to deeper union with the pierced Heart of Jesus. She describes her experience of intimacy with Him in her suffering as being like an inebriation from drinking in the rich stream of divine and human love flowing from His Heart. She further described this intimacy as a way of entering into the wine cellar of contemplation, similar to what is described in the Song of Songs. Inebriation of love describes the way that she is brought out of herself, out of control, totally given over to God’s will. Furthermore, she describes how that does not lock one into oneself, but remains with one who is called out to loving service of the lost and the least “with the scent of wine on one’s breath” meaning that one’s acts of service are infused with the sweetness of contemplation and the scent of divine love. Furthermore, she saw that this progression of grace is meant for everyone, not just for her.

In other words, she describes a path from sickness and suffering to intimacy, union, and contemplation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, even as He calls us into service for the last and the least. This invites us to ponder, “How do you handle sickness and suffering? Are you able to enter into communion with the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Have you experienced the sweetness of intimacy in your suffering as you draw love from the pierced Heart of Christ? Have you set out for loving service with the scent of divine love still on your breath? None of these things are skills to achieve or benchmarks to accomplish, but we can ask for the Lord to provide these special graces for us.

PRAYERS

Newman’s Prayer to the Sacred Heart (longer or shorter form)
One of the prayers from the Roman Missal
The Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
John 19:28-37

After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the Scripture), “I thirst.” A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Since it was the day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth—that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “Not a bone of him shall be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.”

READING 2
From The Tree of Life by St. Bonaventure

Take thought now, redeemed man, and consider how great and worthy is he who hangs on the cross for you. His death brings the dead to life, but at his passing heaven and earth are plunged into mourning and hard rocks are split asunder.

Sacred Heart, Pierced by a Lance. It was a divine decree that permitted one of the soldiers to open his sacred side with a lance [Jn. 19:34]. This was done so that the Church might be formed from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death on the cross, and so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: They shall look on him whom they pierced [Zech. 12:10].

Blood & Water from His Side, a Saving Stream. The blood and water which poured out at that moment were the price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret abyss of our Lord’s heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of grace, while for those already living in Christ it became a spring of living water welling up to life everlasting.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, Spring of Living Water. Arise, then, beloved of Christ! Imitate the dove that nests in a hole in the cliff [Cant. 2:14], keeping watch at the entrance like the sparrow that finds a home. There like the turtledove hide your little ones, the fruit of your chaste love. Press your lips to the fountain, draw water from the wells of your Savior [Is. 12:3]; for this is the spring flowing out of the middle of paradise, dividing into four rivers, [Gen. 2:10] inundating devout hearts, watering the whole earth and making it fertile.

Source of Light & Life. Run with eager desire to this source of life and light, all you who are vowed to God’s service. Come, whoever you may be, and cry out to him with all the strength of your heart. O indescribable beauty of the most high God and purest radiance of eternal light! Life that gives all life, light that is the source of every other light, preserving in everlasting splendor the myriad flames that have shone before the throne of your divinity from the dawn of time!

Eternal Fountain Eternal and inaccessible fountain, clear and sweet stream flowing from a hidden spring, unseen by mortal eye! None can fathom your depths nor survey your boundaries, none can measure your breadth, nothing can sully your purity. From you flows the river which gladdens the city of God [Ps. 46:4] and makes us cry out with joy and thanksgiving in hymns of praise to you, for we know by our own experience that with you is the source of life, and in your light we see light [Ps. 36:9].

Opusculum 3, Lignum vitae, 29-30. 47: Opera omnia 8, 79 — from the Office of Readings for the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

REFLECTION

St. Bonaventure entices us to focus all our attention on the Heart of Jesus. He describes the beauty of that Heart as a superabundant source of love. There is no stinginess, no rationing, no reservation in the amount and quality of love poured forth from that Heart. It comes out in Baptism. Do you realize the incredible, free gift of Baptism that you have received without payment, without cost? That love comes out as the Eucharist. Christ gives us nothing less than His own flesh and blood as our daily food. This incredible miracle is so easy to take for granted because it is so readily available, but when we look again at the source, the pierced Heart of Christ, we can remember the cost for Him. Behold the Heart that loved the world so much!

As we draw close to the Heart of Christ, we draw close to the Sacramental life of the Church. As we draw close to the Sacramental life of the Church, let us renew the fleshy, intimate, personal, tender quality of the Sacraments. These are not merely social rituals, but personal expressions of the most vulnerable and generous love from the Heart of God Himself.

Can you take a few moments to think of the last time you received the Eucharist and picture yourself drawing life sweetly from the Heart of Jesus? Can you think back on your baptism, imagining water pouring from the Heart of Jesus over you to make you a new creation?

PRAYERS

Newman’s Prayer to the Sacred Heart (longer or shorter form)
One of the prayers from the Roman Missal
The Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
John 15: 8-15

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

READING 2
From the encyclical Dilexit Nos x 158-161 by Pope Francis

The natural desire to console Christ, which begins with our sorrow in contemplating what he endured for us, grows with the honest acknowledgment of our bad habits, compulsions, attachments, weak faith, vain goals and, together with our actual sins, the failure of our hearts to respond to the Lord’s love and his plan for our lives. This experience proves purifying, for love needs the purification of tears that, in the end, leave us more desirous of God and less obsessed with ourselves.

In this way, we see that the deeper our desire to console the Lord, the deeper will be our sincere sense of “compunction.” Compunction is “not a feeling of guilt that makes us discouraged or obsessed with our unworthiness, but a beneficial ‘piercing’ that purifies and heals the heart. Once we acknowledge our sin, our hearts can be opened to the working of the Holy Spirit, the source of living water that wells up within us and brings tears to our eyes… This does not mean weeping in self-pity, as we are so often tempted to do… To shed tears of compunction means seriously to repent of grieving God by our sins; recognizing that we always remain in God’s debt… Just as drops of water can wear down a stone, so tears can slowly soften hardened hearts. Here we see the miracle of sorrow, that ‘salutary sorrow’ which brings great peace… Compunction, then, is not our work but a grace and, as such, it must be sought in prayer.”¹ It means, “asking for sorrow in company with Christ in his sorrow, for anguish with Christ in his anguish, for tears and a deep sense of pain at the great pains that Christ endured for my sake.”²

I ask, then, that no one make light of the fervent devotion of the holy faithful people of God, which in its popular piety seeks to console Christ. I also encourage everyone to consider whether there might be greater reasonableness, truth and wisdom in certain demonstrations of love that seek to console the Lord than in the cold, distant, calculated and nominal acts of love that are at times practised by those who claim to possess a more reflective, sophisticated and mature faith.

Consoled ourselves in order to console others. In contemplating the heart of Christ and his self-surrender even to death, we ourselves find great consolation. The grief that we feel in our hearts gives way to complete trust and, in the end, what endures is gratitude, tenderness, peace; what endures is Christ’s love reigning in our lives. Compunction, then, “is not a source of anxiety but of healing for the soul, since it acts as a balm on the wounds of sin, preparing us to receive the caress of the Lord.”³ Our sufferings are joined to the suffering of Christ on the cross. If we believe that grace can bridge every distance, this means that Christ by his sufferings united himself to the sufferings of his disciples in every time and place. In this way, whenever we endure suffering, we can also experience the interior consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with us. In seeking to console him, we will find ourselves consoled.

REFLECTION

Running contrary to human logic, the great consolation for the Heart of Jesus is that we receive His love. Let yourself be loved! When we are hurting, due to our sin or the sin of others, there is tender mercy that wells up in the Heart of Jesus. If we do not let Him love us, that pent up mercy causes Him a certain kind of agony. When we let Him love us, especially in those places in our hearts where there is a deep need for love, we console His Heart. To recognize our need for love is a kind of repentance or compunction, it is a turning of our hearts to Him, an opening of our hearts to Him. In our pain, we tend to understandably limit our trust and rely on our own defenses. The act of trust that lets down those defenses and opens up tender and painful places to Him is a great gift. Is there an area of your life where you are relying on self-protection? Is there an area of your heart that you could open up to the Lord today?

PRAYERS

Newman’s Prayer to the Sacred Heart (longer or shorter form)
One of the prayers from the Roman Missal
The Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

1. Pope Francis, Homily at the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2024. ↩︎
2. Saint Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises 203. ↩︎
3. Pope Francis, Homily at the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2024. ↩︎

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
Psalm 116:7-17

Turn back, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has been good to you; he has kept my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. I trusted, even when I said, “I am sorely afflicted,” and when I said in my alarm, “These people are all liars.” How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me? The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the name of the Lord. My vows to the Lord I will fulfill before all his people. How precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful. Your servant, Lord, your servant am I, the son of your handmaid; you have loosened my bonds. I will offer you a thanksgiving sacrifice; I will call on the name of the Lord.

READING 2
From a meditation entitled “The Sacred Heart of Jesus as a Furnace of Love for Us”’ by St. John Eudes

Our divine Saviour has done more for us. Not only has He delivered us from eternal death and all the tortures accompanying it, but He has also heaped upon us a superabundance of unspeakable blessings. Indeed, He has given us all His blessings without reserve.

What shall we give Him in return? “How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me” (Ps. 116:12)? If we had the hearts of as many Seraphim as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, blades of grass on the earth, grains of sand and drops of water in the sea, and if we devoted them solely to love and glorify Him, it would be as nothing compared with the love He has for us and the obligations we have of consecrating our hearts to Him. …

[L]et us love Him who so loves us. If a man of no account, the weakest and lowest of all men, should manifest some kindliness towards us, we could not help loving him. Nay, if even a dumb animal, a mongrel, for instance, attaches itself to us and does us some slight service, we love it. Why then should we not love God who is our creator, our preserver, our ruler, our king, our most faithful friend, our most loving father, our treasure, our glory, our supreme good, our life, our heart, our all? He is all heart and soul and love for us. …

“O my Saviour, I know not if I have yet begun to love Thee as I ought. Now I will begin.” I now mean to love Thee with all my heart with all my soul, and with all my strength. I renounce forever all that is contrary to Thy holy love. Let me die a thousand deaths rather than ever offend Thee. I give Thee my heart; take full and absolute possession of it; destroy in it everything not pleasing to Thee, and rather destroy it itself than to allow it not to love Thee. But am I giving Thee anything in giving Thee my empty heart? O my Lord, if I had the hearts of as many Seraphim as Thy omnipotence could create, with what joy would I consecrate them all to Thee! I offer Thee the precious heart of Thy most worthy Mother, who has more love for Thee than all hearts that have been, are, or shall be. O Mother of Jesus, love Thy Adorable Son for me. O good Jesus, love Thy sweet Mother for me. O all ye citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, love Jesus and Mary for me, and unite me with your great love, now and eternally.”

REFLECTION

When we reflect on the the way the Heart of Jesus throbs for each one of us, our response always feels inadequate. St. John Eudes uses poetic hyperbole to speak of a worthy offering in the love of countless Seraphim, and yet it is not actually hyperbole. Even that would still be inadequate. Our expressions of love and devotion ultimately always fall short. The closest we come is in the love of the Heart of Mary, because her response is the most perfect mirror of God’s love, a mirror without blemish. And it is also in the Holy Mass that we are given a worthy response, a response which steadily transforms our lives to be a more constant loving response to His love: “Look, O Lord, upon the Sacrifice which you yourself have provided for your Church, and grant in your loving kindness to all who partake of this one Bread and one Chalice that, gathered into one body by the Holy Spirit, they may truly become a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your glory” (Eucharistic Prayer IV). In light of this we can ask ourselves: how adequately do I respond to the love of the Heart of Jesus for me? What expressions of love would characterize an adequate response? Do I offer the Mass as a response to His Love with all my heart, mind, soul and strength by my full, conscious and active participation?

PRAYERS

Newman’s Prayer to the Sacred Heart (longer or shorter form)
One of the prayers from the Roman Missal
The Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

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LONGER PRAYER TO THE SACRED HEART
St. John Henry Newman

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, Desiderio desideravi—“ With desire I have desired.” I worship You, then, with even my best devotion and love, with my true and free will, with my high intention and my most resolved effort. Adorable Heart of Jesus, You are the instrument of the Divine Love. You are the seat of all the affections of the Holy Trinity. You are the center of all the attributes of the Godhead. O my Jesus, leave me not to myself, for I am very weak. If You leave me, I must fall. I know not myself; I know not what is in me; but You know me, and You are my Strength. Be my life, be my light, be my hope, and be my joy.

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SHORTER PRAYER TO THE SACRED HEART
St. John Henry Newman

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I adore You in the person of the Incarnate Word, who for the sake of His creatures was made vulnerable and broken. Grant that my heart may be like Thine.

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PRAYERS FOR THE FEAST OF THE SACRED HEART
Roman Missal

Collect 1 for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart
Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who glory in the Heart of your beloved Son and recall the wonders of his love for us, may be made worthy to receive an overflowing measure of grace from that fount of heavenly gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever

Collect 2 for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart
O God, who in the Heart of your Son, wounded by our sins, bestow on us in mercy the boundless treasures of your love, grant, we pray, that, in paying him the homage of our devotion, we may also offer worthy reparation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

Collect for the Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart
Clothe us, Lord God, with the virtues of the Heart of your Son and set us aflame with his love, that, conformed to his image, we may merit a share in eternal redemption. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

Preface for the Sacred Heart
It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord. For raised up high on the Cross, he gave himself up for us with a wonderful love and poured out blood and water from his pierced side, the wellspring of the Church’s Sacraments, so that, won over to the open heart of the Savior, all might draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.

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LITANY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
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 Ghost, 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 Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mother, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, united substantially with 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 center 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 all the fullness of Divinity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in Whom the Father is 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 rich in mercy, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, enriching all who invoke You, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, fount 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 offenses, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, made 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 our sins, 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 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.

Jesus, meek and humble of Heart.
Make our hearts like unto Yours.

Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the Heart of Your most-beloved Son and upon the praises and satisfaction which which He offers You in the name of sinners; and to those who implore Your mercy, in Your great goodness, grant forgiveness in the Name of the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and
reigns with You forever and ever. Amen.

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ACT OF OBLATION TO MERCIFUL LOVE
St. Thérèse of Lisieux
J.M.J.T
Offering of myself as a Victim of Holocaust to God’s Merciful Love
O My God! Most Blessed Trinity, I desire to Love You and make You Loved, to work for the glory of Holy Church by saving souls on earth and liberating those suffering in purgatory. I desire to accomplish Your will perfectly and to reach the degree of glory You have prepared for me in Your Kingdom. I desire, in a word, to be a saint, but I feel my helplessness and I beg You, O my God! to be Yourself my Sanctity!

Since You loved me so much as to give me Your only Son as my Savior and my Spouse, the infinite treasures of His merits are mine. I offer them to You with gladness, begging You to look upon me only in the Face of Jesus and in His heart burning with Love.

I offer You, too, all the merits of the saints (in heaven and on earth), their acts of Love, and those of the holy angels. Finally, I offer You, O Blessed Trinity! the Love and merits of the Blessed Virgin, my dear Mother. It is to her I abandon my offering, begging her to present it to You. Her Divine Son, my Beloved Spouse, told us in the days of His mortal life: “Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name he will give it to you!” I am certain, then, that You will grant my desires; I know, O my God! that the more You want to give, the more You make us desire. I feel in my heart immense desires and it is with confidence I ask You to come and take possession of my soul. Ah! I cannot receive Holy Communion as often as I desire, but, Lord, are You not all-powerful? Remain in me as in a tabernacle and never separate Yourself from Your little victim.

I want to console You for the ingratitude of the wicked, and I beg of You to take away my freedom to displease You. If through weakness I sometimes fall, may Your Divine Glance cleanse my soul immediately, consuming all my imperfections like the fire that transforms everything into itself.

I thank You, O my God! for all the graces You have granted me, especially the grace of making me pass through the crucible of suffering. It is with joy I shall contemplate You on the Last Day carrying the sceptre of Your Cross. Since You deigned to give me a share in this very precious Cross, I hope in heaven to resemble You and to see shining in my glorified body the sacred stigmata of Your Passion.

After earth’s Exile, I hope to go and enjoy You in the Fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for Your Love alone with the one purpose of pleasing You, consoling Your Sacred Heart, and saving souls who will love You eternally.

In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself. I want no other Throne, no other Crown but You, my Beloved!

Time is nothing in Your eyes, and a single day is like a thousand years. You can, then, in one instant prepare me to appear before You. In order to live in one single act of perfect Love, I OFFER MYSELF AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, asking You to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within You to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of Your Love, O my God!

May this martyrdom, after having prepared me to appear before You, finally cause me to die and may my soul take its flight without any delay into the eternal embrace of Your Merciful Love.

I want, O my Beloved, at each beat of my heart to renew this offering to You an infinite number of times, until the shadows having disappeared I may be able to tell You of my Love in an Eternal Face to Face!
Marie, Francoise, Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, unworthy Carmelite religious.
This 9th day of June, Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, In the year of grace, 1895.

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

INTRODUCTION

The Heart of Jesus is fully divine and also fully human. As a fully human Heart, It feels intensely—grief, joy, desire, aversion, even anger and fear. In His Heart, all these emotions reveal the fullness of divine Love, or, in the words of Pope Francis, they become sacraments of divine love. As we explore that love more deeply and discover its true magnitude, it becomes obvious that we cannot repay His love other than by giving 100% of our love in exchange for 100% of His love. Furthermore, as we behold the suffering that He endures for us, our pious desire to console the Heart of Jesus helps us realize that it is only by letting ourselves be loved that we bring consolation to the most painful suffering of the Heart of Jesus. Then we can enter into the wellspring of the love of His Heart especially by fully receiving the Sacraments—living out our Baptism and receiving deeply from the Eucharist. Having beheld, loved and received from the wellspring of sweet love from the Heart of Jesus, we are moved to love others as He has loved us. Indeed, as we receive more of His love, our hearts are transformed to become more united with the Heart of Jesus. This is true even to the extent that we can truly love with His Heart. We deepen our intimacy by sharing His suffering, which is also necessarily the suffering of others. And we bring His love to the suffering of others in this mystical way. Finally, we repair the offenses against His Heart by entering into suffering and sharing His Heart with those whose suffering we share. Throughout this week, we will offer some simple prayers from saints and from the liturgical celebration of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus along with a Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On the last day of this week, we will make a special initial consecration through St. Thérèse’s Act of Oblation to Merciful Love. And then we are ready to make our consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Hearts of Joseph and Mary.

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Day 27: Human Emotions as Sacraments of Divine Love

READING 1
Hosea 11:8-9

How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! How can I make you like Admah! How can I treat you like Zeboiim! My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.

READING 2
From the Encyclical Dilexit Nos x 60-62 by Pope Francis

The eternal Son of God, in his utter transcendence, chose to love each of us with a human heart. His human emotions became the sacrament of that infinite and endless love. His heart, then, is not merely a symbol for some disembodied spiritual truth. In gazing upon the Lord’s heart, we contemplate a physical reality, his human flesh, which enables him to possess genuine human emotions and feelings, like ourselves, albeit fully transformed by his divine love. Our devotion must ascend to the infinite love of the Person of the Son of God, yet we need to keep in mind that his divine love is inseparable from his human love. The image of his heart of flesh helps us to do precisely this.

Since the heart continues to be seen in the popular mind as the affective centre of each human being, it remains the best means of signifying the divine love of Christ, united forever and inseparably to his wholly human love. Pius XII observed that the Gospel, in referring to the love of Christ’s heart, speaks “not only of divine charity but also human affection.” Indeed, “the heart of Jesus Christ, hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Word, beyond doubt throbbed with love and every other tender affection.”^[1]

The Fathers of the Church, opposing those who denied or downplayed the true humanity of Christ, insisted on the concrete and tangible reality of the Lord’s human affections. Saint Basil emphasized that the Lord’s incarnation was not something fanciful, and that “the Lord possessed our natural affections.”^[2] Saint John Chrysostom pointed to an example: “Had he not possessed our nature, he would not have experienced sadness from time to time.”^[3] Saint Ambrose stated that “in taking a soul, he took on the passions of the soul.”^[4] For Saint Augustine, our human affections, which Christ assumed, are now open to the life of grace: “The Lord Jesus assumed these affections of our human weakness, as he did the flesh of our human weakness, not out of necessity, but consciously and freely… lest any who feel grief and sorrow amid the trials of life should think themselves separated from his grace.”^[5] Finally, Saint John Damascene viewed the genuine affections shown by Christ in his humanity as proof that he assumed our nature in its entirety in order to redeem and transform it in its entirety: Christ, then, assumed all that is part of human nature, so that all might be sanctified.^[6]

REFLECTION

The Heart of Jesus throbs with love for you. Although we are struck by the way Jesus navigates situations that would be terrifying for most of us, or seems to remain calm and collected in situations that would be extremely frustrating for us, we cannot infer a kind of stoicism from that. Human emotions are the body’s response to our perception of reality, namely the goodness and badness of what is really present. If Jesus seems calm in a terrifying situation, it is because He is present to a greater reality that relativizes the terror, for example, when He declared to Pilate: “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” At the same time, He experiences the real goodness of God’s love breaking through when others are less aware, for example, when “he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will’” (Lk 10:21).

Jesus rejoices in you. He delights in you. He thanks the Father every time He sees the Father’s love breaking through and your heart becoming fully alive. He grieves with you, like with Martha and Mary. What we find in Jesus is the warmth and tenderness of a human heart that is fully alive and full of unconditional love for you.

PRAYERS

Newman’s Prayer to the Sacred Heart (longer or shorter form)
One of the prayers from the Roman Missal
The Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

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[1]Haurietis Aquas $\S$ 41.
[2]Ep. 261, 3: PG 32, 972.
[3]In Io. homil. 63, 2: PG 59, 350.
[4]De fide ad Gratianum, II, 7, 56: PL 16, 594 (ed. 1880).
[5]Enarr. in Ps. 87, 3: PL 37, 1111.
[6]Cf. De fide orth. 3, 6, 20: PG 94, 1006, 1081.

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
Luke 1:34-38

And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

READING 2
From Mary in the Mystery of the Covenant by Father Ignace de la Potterie, SJ

Mary’s response: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word” is, following the Latin translation, often called Mary’s “fiat.” Nevertheless, we have to take note that the Latin corresponds to two Greek expressions which manifest distinct nuances.

We know about the “fiat” of the Annunciation, but there is also the “fiat voluntas tua” of the Our Father (Mt 6:10), and that of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:42) with its verb in the passive imperative “génêthêtô.” For the “fiat” of Mary at the Annunciation Luke employs the optative “genoïto” without a subject which is used postively only in this unique place in the New Testament. In Greek, the optative, expresses “a joyous desire to,” never a resignation or a constraining submission before something burdensome and painful. The resonance of Mary’s “fiat” at the moment of the Annunciation is not that of the “fiat voluntas tua” of Jesus in Gethsemane, nor that of a formula corresponding to the Our Father. Here there is a remarkable detail, which has only been noticed in recent years, and which even today is frequently lost from sight. The “fiat” of Mary is not just a simple acceptance and even less, a resignation. It is rather a joyous desire to collaborate with what God foresees for her. It is the joy of total abandonment to the good will of God. Thus the joy of this ending responds to the invitation to joy at the beginning.

REFLECTION

Mary’s yes was not resistance, nor even resignation, nor mere acceptance, but a joyous desire, a free and eager embrace of God’s will. Even when she asked “How will I know this…?” it was with no shadow of a doubt that God could do it, but simply clarifying how it would work. She wanted to know how she should properly cooperate so as to let it happen to her. Why was her Yes eager, but the Fiat that Jesus taught us by His prayer (the Our Father) and His example (Gethsemane) was only acceptance? Jesus was teaching us to accept God’s will in the midst of circumstances that were tainted by evil. We cannot give an eager Yes in those circumstances. But Mary was accepted the Incarnation. Her eager Yes was for God to manifest Himself in her life in an Incarnate way. This is the eager Yes we can give as well. When it is something purely good where God wants to manifest Himself more fully in us, we can give our eager Yes. This will invite God to be greater in our lives and may require us to become littler.

Are there any areas in your life where you have given a reluctant Yes to God that can become a little more eager Yes? Is there an opportunity to (re)commit to your vocation with a genoïto like Mary’s? Are there ways God is seeking to be greater in your life and is inviting you to become littler? Mary can help us give our genoïto to all the good God wants to do in us.

PRAYERS

O Holy Mary by John Henry Newman
Sub tuum praesidium
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or
Litany of Loreto or
at least one decade of the Rosary or
Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey