SACRED HEART OF JESUS NOVENA - DAY 3

MEDITATION III. 
The Heart of Jesus Christ Panting to be Loved. 

Jesus has no need of us; He is equally happy, equally rich, equally powerful with or without our love; and yet, as St. Thomas says, [Opusc. 63, c. 7] He loves us so, that He desires our love as much as if man was His God, and His felicity depended on that of man. This filled holy Job with astonishment: What is man that Thou shouldst magnify him or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon him? [Job vii. 17] 

What! Can God desire or ask with such eagerness for the love of a worm? It would have been a great favor if God had only permitted us to love Him. If a vassal were to say to his king, "Sire, I love you," he would be considered impertinent. But what would one say if the king were to tell his vassal, "I desire you to love me"? The princes of the earth do not humble themselves to this; but Jesus, Who is the King of Heaven, is He Who with so much earnestness demands our love: Love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart. [Matt. xxii. 37] So pressingly does He ask for our heart: My son, give Me thy heart. [Prov. xxiii. 26] And if He is driven from a soul, He does not depart, but He stands outside of the door of the heart, and He calls and knocks to be let in: I stand at the gate and knock. [Apoc. iii. 20] And He beseeches her to open to Him, calling her sister and spouse: Open to Me, My sister, My love. [Cant. v. 2] In short, He takes a delight in being loved by us, and is quite consoled when a soul says to Him, and repeats often, "My God, my God, I love Thee." 

All this is the effect of the great love He bears us. He who loves necessarily desires to be loved. The heart requires the heart; love seeks love: "Why does God love, but that He might be loved Himself," [In Cant. s. 83] said St. Bernard; and God Himself first said, What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou fear the Lord thy God, . . . and love Him? [Deut. x. 12] Therefore He tells us that He is that Shepherd Who, having found the lost sheep, calls all the others to rejoice with Him: Rejoice with Me, because I have found My sheep that was lost. [Luke xv. 6] He tells us that He is that Father Who, when His lost son returns and throws himself at His feet, not only forgives him, but embraces him tenderly. He tells us that he that loves Him not is condemned to death: He that loveth not abideth in death. [l John iii. 14] And, on the contrary, that He takes him that loves Him and keeps possession of him: He that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him. John iv. 16] Oh, will not such invitations, such entreaties, such threats, and such promises move us to love God, Who so much desires to be loved by us? 

Affections and Prayers

 My dearest Redeemer, I will say to Thee, with St. Augustine, Thou dost command me to love Thee, and dost threaten me with Hell if I do not love Thee; but what more dreadful Hell, what greater misfortune, can happen to me than to be deprived of Thy love! If, therefore, Thou desirest to frighten me, Thou shouldst threaten me only that I should live without loving Thee; for this threat alone will frighten me more than a thousand hells. If, in the midst of the flames of Hell, the damned could burn with Thy love, O my God, Hell itself would become a paradise; and if, on the contrary, the blessed in Heaven could not love Thee, Paradise would become hell. Thus St. Augustine expresses himself. 

I see, indeed, my dearest Lord, that I, on account of my sins, did deserve to be forsaken by Thy grace, and at the same time condemned to be incapable of loving Thee; but still I understand that Thou dost continue to command me to love Thee, and I also feel within me a great desire to love Thee. This my desire is a gift of Thy grace, and it comes from Thee. Oh, give me also the strength necessary to put it in execution, and make me, from this day forth, say to Thee earnestly, and from the bottom of my heart, and to repeat to Thee always, My God, I love Thee, I love Thee, I love Thee. Thou desirest my love; I also desire Thine. Blot out, therefore, from thy remembrance, O my Jesus. the offences that in past times I have committed against Thee; let us love each other henceforth forever. I will not leave Thee, and Thou wilt not leave me. Thou wilt always love me, and I will always love Thee. My dearest Saviour, in Thy merits do I place my hope; oh, do Thou make Thyself to beloved forever, and loved greatly, by a sinner who has offended Thee greatly. 

O Mary, Immaculate Virgin, do thou help me, do thou beseech Jesus for me. 

Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus - Day 2

           MEDITATION II. 

             The Loving Heart of Jesus.
Oh, if we could but understand the love that burns in the heart of Jesus for us! He has loved us so much, that if all men, all the Angels, and all the Saints were to unite, with all their energies, they could not arrive at the thousandth part of the love that Jesus bears to us. He loves us infinitely more than we love ourselves, He has loved us even to excess: They spoke of His decease (excess) which He was to accomplish in Jerusalem. [Luke ix. 31]And what greater excess of love could there be than for God to die for His creatures? He has loved us to the greatest degree:Having loved His own . . . He loved them unto the end; [John, xiii. 1] since, after having loved us from eternity, -----for there never was a moment from eternity when God did not think of us and did not love each one-of us: I have loved thee with an everlasting love, [Jer. xxxi, 3]-----for the love of us He made Himself Man, and chose a life of sufferings and the death of the Cross for our sake. Therefore He has loved us more than His honor, more than His repose, and more than His life; for He sacrificed everything to show us the love that He bears us. And is not this an excess of love sufficient to stupefy with astonishment the Angels of Paradise for all eternity?

This love has induced Him also to remain with us in the Holy Sacrament as on a throne of love; for He remains there under the appearance of a small piece of bread, shut up in a ciborium, where He seems to remain in a perfect annihilation of His majesty, without movement, and without the use of His senses; so that it seems that He performs no other office there than that of loving men. Love makes us desire the constant presence of the object of our love. It is this love and this desire that makes Jesus Christ reside with us in the Most Holy Sacrament. It seemed too short a time to this loving Saviour to have been only thirty-three years with men on earth; therefore, in order to show His desire of being constantly with us, He thought right to perform the greatest of all miracles, in the institution of the Holy Eucharist. But the work of redemption was already completed, men had already become reconciled to God; for what purpose, then, did Jesus remain on earth in this Sacrament? Ah, He remains there because He cannot bear to separate Himself from us, as He has said that He takes a delight in us.

Again, this love has induced Him even to become the food of our souls, so as to unite Himself to us, and to make His heart and ours as one: He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me and I in him. [John, vi. 57] O
wonder! O excess of Divine love! It was said by a servant of God, if anything could shake my faith in the Eucharist, it would not be the doubt as to how the bread could become flesh, or how Jesus could be in several places and confined into so small a space, because I should answer that God can do everything; but if I were asked how He could love men so much as to make Himself their food, I have nothing else to answer but that this is a mystery of faith above my comprehension, and that the love of Jesus cannot be understood. O love of Jesus, do Thou make Thyself known to men and do Thou make Thyself loved!

Affections and Prayers

 O adorable heart of my Jesus, heart inflamed with the love of men, heart created on purpose to love them, how is it possible that Thou canst be despised, and Thy love so ill corresponded to by men? Oh, miserable that I am, I also have been one of those ungrateful ones that have not loved Thee. Forgive me, my Jesus, this great sin of not having loved Thee, Who art so amiable, and Who hast loved me so much that Thou canst do nothing more to oblige me to love Thee. I feel that I deserve to be condemned not to be able to love Thee, for having renounced Thy love, as I have hitherto done. But no, my dearest Saviour, give me any chastisement, but do not inflict this one upon me. Grant me the grace to love Thee, and then give me any affliction Thou pleasest. But how can I fear such a chastisement, whilst I feel that Thou continuest to give me the sweet, the pleasing precept of loving Thee, my Lord and my God? Love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart. [Matt. xxii. 37] Yes, O my God, Thou wouldst be loved by me, and I will love Thee; indeed I will love none but Thee, Who hast loved me so much. O Love of my Jesus; Thou art my Love. O burning heart of my Jesus, do thou inflame my heart also. Do not permit me in future, even for a single moment, to live without Thy love; rather kill me, destroy me; do not let the world behold the spectacle of such horrid ingratitude as that I, who have been so beloved by Thee, and received so many favors and lights from Thee, should begin again to despise Thy love, No, my Jesus, do not permit this. I trust in the Blood that Thou hast shed for me, that I shall always love Thee, and that Thou wilt always love me, and that this love between Thee and me will not be broken off for eternity.

O Mary, Mother of fair love, thou who desirest so much to see Jesus loved, bind me, unite me to thy Son; but bind me to Him, so that we may never again be separated.

Novena to The Sacred Heart of Jesus -  St. Alphonsus