First Friday Devotions

The following article on the Origins & Purpose of the First Fridays will always remain posted for those who may be just starting their Nine First Fridays. The meditation for the current month is found below this introductory article, please scroll down.

CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE
1. INTRODUCTION FOR BEGINNERS: The Origins and Purpose of the "Nine First Fridays" Devotion
2. MEDIATION FOR THIS MONTH'S FIRST FRIDAY: Serialization from the book The Virtues of the Sacred Heart
3. PRAYERS: Various Prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

This month's First Friday Meditations and Prayers can be found beneath the following introductory article

THE ORIGINS & PURPOSE OF THE "NINE FIRST FRIDAYS" DEVOTION

Honoring the Sacred Heart
There are many ways to honor the Sacred Heart of Jesus; for example, Prayers, Consecrations, Novenas, Pilgrimages, Enthronements, Night Adoration, The Thursday night Holy Hour, and in the Blessed Sacrament; remembering of course that Our Lord's Sacred Heart is present in the Blessed Sacrament. We also honor the Sacred Heart by keeping Our Lord's commandments and studying His words and teachings, and by being faithful to the traditional teachings of His Church.

In His great love for us, Our Lord and Savior remains in His Sacred Humanity, and His Heart of Flesh is for us the great reality and the great symbol of that great Love for us. During the revelations of His Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary, Our Lord said that He desired to be honored in all places under the figure of His Heart of Flesh, as: "a favor to men and to set them once more in these last ages — under the sweet liberty of the empire of His love" The figure of Our Lord's Heart of Flesh is shown in the pictures and statues of the Sacred Heart. Our Lord seeks for us to honor Him explicitly and implicitly in this way. By honoring His Heart, we honor the whole Christ.

The End Times or Last Ages
Notice the above reference of Our Lord to the "last ages." In His first revelation Our Lord explained how devotion to His Sacred Heart will obtain many graces, and that it was being given to draw men and women back from “the pit of perdition” — which perfectly portrays the great dangers of the times in which we now live. As an antidote to falling into sin, we are shown, in this revelation, that Our Lord offers to us “the sweet liberty of the empire of His Love.” The focus of our lives must be on Him, and not on unwanted worldly ways and distractions. Devotion to His Heart would draw men away from sin.

Fr. Culleton, in his book The Prophets And Our Times, states: “There is evidence that it was the will of Our Divine Lord that Devotion to the Sacred Heart be reserved for the last ages of the world, so that, in the last great struggle between Himself and Satan, the souls that He loves so dearly may be drawn to Him with renewed warmth, and thus strengthened against the final desperate attacks of the enemy” (Fr. Culleton, The Prophets and Our Times, ch. 4).

“In the times preceding the end of the world, Satan and his cohorts were to be loosed upon the earth in a mighty effort to draw as many souls as possible away from God, before the power of Hell would be remarkably restricted, if not completely broken. Satan's mission is one of hate. God wins souls through love. Our Blessed Savior knew that the hatred which would be rampant in those evil days could be best conquered by a devotion which would inspire love and charity in the hearts of men. It was to serve, as it were, as a magnet and a bulwark of strength by giving men a clearer knowledge of God's deep and abiding love and mercy. It would provide a harbor of peace and security in those days of confusion and anguish, when men's souls would be tried almost beyond endurance” (Fr. Culleton, The Prophets and Our Times, ch. 4).

“In all times of great distress or danger, God has provided men with the means of conquering evil, as evidenced by the history of the world, both before the time of Christ, but especially since the Redemption. To mention just one of the instances of Divine intervention when a special devotion was given to the world at a crucial period, let us consider the Rosary. In the 13th century when the Albigenses were preaching their vicious doctrines against marriage, and the spread of this heresy seriously endangered the morals of the people, St. Dominic began preaching against them. He had but little success until Our Blessed Lady appeared to him and told him to encourage devotion to the Rosary. This was done and the heresy quickly disappeared” (Fr. Culleton, The Prophets and Our Times, ch. 4).

“St. Gertrude, in the 14th century, who often conversed with the Beloved Disciple St. John, on one occasion asked him why he, who loved our Blessed Lord so fervently, had never written anything about the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He explained to her his mission was to expound the Doctrine of the Incarnation and that as for the Love of the Incarnate Word as exemplified by His Divine Heart, it was reserved for the last ages to make it known, "so that the world, carried away by follies, may regain a little of the warmth of early Christian charity by learning of the love of the Sacred Heart."

It was on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, three centuries later in 1647, that Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and made certain promises to those who had a special devotion to His Sacred Heart, which promises were destined to become the means of salvation to so many countless Christians. Regarding this vision, the Saint explained, "I understand that this devotion to the Sacred Heart was a last effort of His love towards Christians of these latter times, by proposing to them an object and a means so calculated to persuade them to love Him" (Fr. Culleton, The Prophets and Our Times, ch. 4).

“That devotion to the Sacred Heart … must consist of two essential acts: love and atonement” (Fr. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, §§ 1259)

The twofold nature of devotion to His Sacred Heart—that of love and reparation—is shown by Our Lord in His first revelation to St. Margaret Mary. It was December 27th, 1673, the feast of St John the Evangelist (and Apostle). St John is closely connected to the Sacred Heart on account of his laying his head on Our Lord's Heart at the Last Supper and because he was at the foot of the Cross on Calvary, when that Sacred Heart was pierced with a lance. The Sacred Heart Devotion is intrinsically linked to the Holy Eucharist (which is the fruit of the first Mass at the Last Supper) and the Sacrifice of the Mass (which is nothing other than the unbloody re-enactment of Calvary once again). The Holy Eucharist is both a Sacrament and a Sacrifice. Our Lord gives us Himself (His ‘Heart’) to eat in the Holy Eucharist; and He asks us to carry our cross and suffer with Him, as He did for us throughout His life, and especially on Calvary: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Fr. Larkin in his book Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, under the heading: "Essential Elements of The Devotion," gives us an outline of the chief elements of this devotion: "Devotion to the Sacred Heart, then, is nothing else than love for the Person of Jesus [the Incarnate Word] whose infinite love is symbolized by His Heart. Or put it in another way. It is love for the Heart of Jesus, considered as the symbol of His love for us" (pp. 52-53). Fr. Larkin then lists the chief elements of this devotion according to mind of St. Margaret Mary and her director, Father Croiset. We will list them here and then make further explanatory comments upon them. They are as follows:

1. Worship of the Sacred Heart. He proposed His Heart for worship as "the inexhaustible source of all the treasures of love, mercy and grace, sanctification and salvation for men." "He asks that Its image be singularly honored."

“Our divine Lord assured me that He takes a singular pleasure in being honored under the figure of His Heart of flesh, the image of which He wishes to be exposed in public in order to touch the unfeeling hearts of men. He promised that He would pour out in abundance, into the hearts of all those who would honor His Heart, all the gifts with which it is filled, and everywhere this image is exposed and honored, it would draw down all kinds of blessings” (Fr. Larkin's Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, p. 78).

Do we have an image (statue or painting or print) of the Sacred Heart in our home? If we do, then well and good, but that is only the beginning—the planting of a seed. What honor do we show to that image by way of prayers and devotions? How often do we do so?

2. Belief in the merciful love of that Heart, for all men and for ourselves in particular, with all our shortcomings. "Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It has spared itself nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself to testify to them Its love."

Sometimes we may find the mercy of the Heart of Jesus hard to believe—we may think it unbelievable. Yet God is unbelievable in what He does—believe me! Here are some quotes of Our Lord’s, taken from the book by Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, Words of Love, which takes extracts from Our Lord’s messages to three mystics: Sr. Josefa Menendez, St. Consolata Bertone and Sr. Mary of the Trinity. These go to show the Sacred Heart’s unbelievable love for souls:

"Consolata, it often happens that good and pious souls, and, very frequently, also souls who are consecrated to Me, wound My Heart to Its very depths by some diffident phrase such as: 'Who knows whether I will be saved?' Open the Gospel and read there My promises. I promised to My sheep: 'I will give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall pluck them out of My Hand.' Do you understand, Consolata? No one can take a soul from Me!

"Now read on: 'That which My Father hath given Me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of the Hand of My Father.' Do you understand, Consolata? No one can snatch a soul from Me.... In all eternity they will not perish ... because I give them eternal life. For whom have I spoken these words? For all the sheep, for all souls!

"Why then the insult, 'Who knows whether I will be saved?' I have given assurances, in the Gospel, that no one can pluck a soul from Me and that I will give that soul eternal life, and so the soul cannot perish. Believe Me, Consolata, into Hell go only those who really wish to go there; for, though no one can snatch a soul from Me, the soul may, through the free will granted her, flee from Me, may betray Me, deny Me, and so go to Satan of her own volition.

"You see, final impenitence is found only in a soul who purposely wishes to go to Hell and, therefore, obstinately refuses My mercy, for I never refuse to pardon anyone. I offer the gift of My immense compassion to all, for My Blood was shed for all! For all!

"No, it is not the multiplicity of sins which condemns a soul, for I forgive everything if she repents, but it is the obstinacy of not wishing to be pardoned, of wishing to be damned! Dismas, on the cross, had only one single act of faith in Me, but many, many sins; he was pardoned in an instant however; and, on the very day of his repentance, he entered into My kingdom and is a saint! Behold the triumph of My Mercy and of faith in Me!

"No, Consolata, My Father who has given Me the souls is greater and more powerful than all the demons. No one can snatch souls from the Hand of My Father!” (Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, Words of Love, chapter 5).

3. A generous return of love for Jesus Christ. "Our Lord gave me to understand that the great desire, which He had of being loved perfectly by men, had caused Him to form the design of manifesting His Heart and of making, in these last ages, this last effort of His love, by proposing an object and a means so proper to induce men to love Him and to love Him solidly" (St. Margaret Mary).

What does it mean to return love to Jesus? The first level of love is to keep His commandments: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Fr. Tanquerey, in his renowned classic The Spiritual Life, writes:

“The chief care of beginners is that of preserving charity. Their efforts, then, are directed toward the avoidance of sin, above all, mortal sin, and toward the conquest of evil inclinations, of the passions, and of all that could make them lose the love of God. This is the purgative way, the end of which is the purification of the soul.

“The chief concern of those already advanced, the proficients, is progress in the positive exercise of the virtues and growth in charity. The heart, already purified, is all the more open to divine light and to the love of God. The soul wishes to follow Jesus and to imitate His virtues, and since by following Him one walks in the Light, this is called the illuminative way. Here the soul strives to avoid not only mortal, but even venial sin.

“Perfect souls have but one concern to cling to God and to take their delight in Him. Ever seeking to unite themselves to God, they are in the unitive way. Sin fills them with horror, for they fear to displease God and to offend Him. The virtues that most attract them are the theological virtues, which unite them to God. Hence, the earth seems to them an exile, and, like St. Paul, they long to die to be joined to Christ.” (Fr. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, §§ 341-343).

4. This is the characteristic element of the devotion. Our Lord asks for reparation from His faithful friends to console Him for the coldness and indifference of so many, they are to make Communions of reparation, especially on the First Fridays, to make the Holy Hour, but above all to strive to love Him more and more in order to make up for those who do not love Him.

“That devotion to the Sacred Heart … must consist of two essential acts: love and atonement. Love is the first and the foremost of these duties, according to St. Margaret Mary as well as according, to St. John Eudes. St. Margaret Mary writes: "He made me see that it was the great desire He had of being loved by men, and of withdrawing them from the road of perdition, that induced Him to conceive this plan of making His Heart known to men … Let us, then, love this, the only love of our souls, since He has loved us first and loves us still so ardently that He continually burns with love for us in the Blessed Sacrament.”

“The second of these essential acts is atonement; for the love of Jesus is outraged by the ingratitude of men, as He Himself declared in the third great apparition to St. Margaret Mary: ‘Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love. In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitiide, by their irreverences and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of love … My daughter, I come into the heart I have given you in order that, through your fervor, you may atone for the offences which I have received from lukewarm and slothful hearts, that dishonor me in the Blessed Sacrament.’” (Fr. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, §§ 1259-1260).

5. Special love and reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. “I have an ardent desire to be honored by men in the Blessed Sacrament."

In the fourth revelation of His Sacred Heart Our Lord said to St. Margaret Mary:
"Behold this Heart, Which has loved men so much, that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify to them Its love; and in return I receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude by reason of their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt which they show Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel the most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me that treat Me thus. Therefore, I ask of thee that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise thee that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its divine love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored."

This is very much focused on the Eucharist, and we should never forget that Our Lord's Body and Blood; the Eucharist, contains His Sacred Heart. And again we see in this revelation how Our Lord reveals His feelings to us. The focus here is very much on the indifference that is so offensive to Him. Our Lord God again emphasizes the importance of "repair" (reparation) and He asks for a special feast for this purpose. He is again drawing attention to Himself and what He does and does not expect from us, and here He very specifically draws attention to the Ministers and Religious of His Church. Who can fathom the magnificence of Our Lord's revelations and the great honor bestowed upon St. Margaret Mary, upon the Church and upon the whole of mankind? Our Lord also gave the First Fridays devotion:

"I promise you, in the excess of the mercy of My Heart, that Its all-powerful love will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under My displeasure nor without receiving the Sacraments, My Divine Heart becoming their assured refuge in that hour."

Besides going to Mass and Holy Communion on the First Fridays of the month, we can also visit Our Lord much more often in the Blessed Sacrament, present, yet often abandoned and alone, upon our altars. Visiting Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is a reflection of the depth and strength of our Faith. If we really believe in His presence in the tabernacle, then what could keep us away? Or whatever keeps us away, has become more important to us than our God Himself.

St. Margaret Mary looked to the Blessed Virgin as being the way to Our Lord; to the Immaculate Heart being the way to the Sacred Heart:

"The most efficacious way to obtain devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was through the Immaculate Heart of Mary." She taught this to her novices and also composed a prayer for them to pray."

Consider how Enthroning the Sacred Heart in our homes, parishes, work places etc. allows us to honor Our Lord in the way that He has requested. And even without or until an Enthronement we can still honor Him as the center of our lives. Our Lord deserves all of our Love, and when we honor Him under His Heart of Flesh in our prayers and in our ways we are responding to His great Love in a special way and which He has given to help us. Fr. Larkin wrote about the Enthronement of The Sacred Heart as follows:

"By installing or enthroning the image of the Sacred Heart in the place of honor in this room, you have told Our Blessed Lord you accept Him as your Master in all things and recognize His complete jurisdiction over your family "... "So you see, the Enthronement doesn't add any new obligations to the ones you already have; it simply renews in a striking and visible way the vows you made on the day of your baptism: to accept all of God's teachings and His laws and to renounce the devil and all his pomps and works."

Meanwhile, in the second/ third revelation of the Sacred Heart, St. Margaret Mary writes of Our Lord:
"He made known to me the ineffable marvels of His pure [love] and showed me to what an excess He had loved men, from whom He received only ingratitude and contempt. "I feel this more," [He said] "than all that I suffered during My Passion. If only they would make Me some return for My love, I should think but little of all I have done for them and would wish, were it possible, to suffer still more. But the sole return they make for all My eagerness to do them good is to reject Me and treat Me with coldness. Do thou at least console Me by supplying for their ingratitude, as far as thou art able."

In using the comparison of the great sufferings He endured during His Passion, Our Lord is making us very aware of the extent of His feelings. This revelation also sees Our Lord asking St. Margaret Mary to make reparation; to supplicate as much as she can; Our Lord asked of her:

"And in order to bear Me company in the humble prayer that I then offered to My Father, in the midst of My anguish, thou shalt rise between eleven o'clock and midnight, and remain prostrate with Me for an hour, not only to appease the divine anger by begging mercy for sinners, but also to mitigate in some way the bitterness which I felt at that time on finding Myself abandoned by My Apostles, which obliged Me to reproach them for not being able to watch one hour with Me."

Thus was instituted the Thursday night "Holy Hour” and which became an established devotion in the Church. Keeping our Lord company during His agony in the garden of Gethsemane, where He did sweat Blood for us; as St. Luke tells us: "...and being in agony He prayed the longer and His Sweat became as drops of Blood trickling down upon the ground." (Luke 22:43-44).

Our Lord knowing exactly what was ahead of Him, and the pain and suffering that this would bring. And indeed Our Lord had known of this for a long time. The Cross was planted in His human Heart from the very beginning of His incarnation. Only He, as God, could recompense for our sins; and so He became man for us; true God and true Man; He lay in our tombs for us as the saying goes. His love for mankind is an immense love; His Sacred Heart of flesh a proof of His love. In His agony in the garden He was seeking company in these moments; for His Apostles to be close to Him.

The Thursday night Holy Hour is linked to Night Adoration of The Sacred Heart. During the time when Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey was engaged in his great mission of seeking to bring every household in the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and from which developed the great Enthronement mission, Fr. Mateo also developed Night Adoration. Night adoration sees each member of a family typically spending one hour each week (or more) or each month in adoration of the Sacred Heart at home. This may well, of course, focus on the Thursday night Holy Hour. The family may all make Night Adoration simultaneously or in a relay, so as to cover as many hours as possible.

In his book Fr. Larkin tells of how Priests would keep a record of who was carrying out Night Adoration and when so as to try and ensure that every night hour of the month was covered in his parish. Night Adoration is a great way for an individual, a family and a parish to honor the Sacred Heart.

Meanwhile, in the fourth revelation of His Sacred Heart Our Lord said to St. Margaret Mary:
"Behold this Heart, Which has loved men so much, that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify to them Its love; and in return I receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude by reason of their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt which they show Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel the most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me that treat Me thus. Therefore, I ask of thee that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise thee that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its divine love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored."

This is very much focused on the Eucharist, and we should never forget that Our Lord's Body and Blood; the Eucharist, contains His Sacred Heart. And again we see in this revelation how Our Lord reveals His feelings to us. The focus here is very much on the indifference that is so offensive to Him. Our Lord God again emphasizes the importance of "repair" (reparation) and He asks for a special feast for this purpose. He is again drawing attention to Himself and what He does and does not expect from us, and here He very specifically draws attention to the Ministers and Religious of His Church. Who can fathom the magnificence of Our Lord's revelations and the great honor bestowed upon St. Margaret Mary, upon the Church and upon the whole of mankind? Our Lord also gave the First Fridays devotion:

"I promise you, in the excess of the mercy of My Heart, that Its all-powerful love will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the first Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under My displeasure nor without receiving the Sacraments, My Divine Heart becoming their assured refuge in that hour."

The nine first Fridays to be undertaken whilst observing due devotion to Our Lord, not being in mortal sin, and with the intention of making reparation to Him.

The Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart
to St. Margaret Mary

1. I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
2. I will establish peace in their homes
3. I will comfort them in all their difficulties
4. I will secure refuge during life, and above all, in death
5. I will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings
6. Sinners will find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy
7. Lukewarm souls shall become fervent
8. Fervent souls will quickly mount to high perfection
9. I will bless every place in which an image of my heart is exposed and honored
10. I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts
11. Those who promote this devotion shall have their names written in my Heart
12. I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all powerful love will grant to those who receive Holy Communion.

MEDITATION AND SPIRITUAL READING
FOR THE FIRST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH OF OCTOBER
"Could you not watch one hour with Me?"

The following readings are from the book, The Virtues of the Sacred Heart. Over the course of the First Fridays of the month, these monthly postings will examine
the chief virtues of Our Lord, which are there for our imitation. For there can no true devotion without imitation. The readings are not for half-hearted,
nor faint-hearted, nor cold-hearted. They will like a class, given by a teacher, and will take you the time that a class would take.
Only enter if you wish to learn and deepen you love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

THE VIRTUES OF THE SACRED HEART (OCTOBER READING)
4. Obedience of the Sacred Heart

“Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire: then I said: ‘Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of Me, that I should do Thy will!’ O my God, I have desired it and Thy law in the midst of My heart” (Psalm 39:7-9).

Entering Deeper into the Garden of the Sacred Heart
The fair garden into which we have been admitted has now displayed before us two of its admirable and most salutary plants: humility and meekness. These are the two sentinel shrubs, lowly but most beautiful, placed near the entrance of the sacred region; their heavenly freshness and their enrapturing loveliness make us forget the earthly and perishable beauties which may have hitherto captivated our hearts, whilst the divine efficacy of their fruit heals the wounds, which we may have brought along from the battlefields of the world, and gives us strength to continue our delightful wanderings in this mysteriously and unspeakably blissful Paradise.

Humility and Obedience Linked
When, therefore, we have tasted of that sweetly bitter fruit, when we have learned to be meek and humble of heart, we may step forward without fear, and plunge into the sacred groves, lose ourselves in the bewildering labyrinths, wander amid the varied flowers and be inebriated with their unearthly fragrances. The air is loaded with the odors of Heaven. The branches of the trees bend down with the fruits of Paradise, and seem to reach them to us and invite us to pluck them as we pass. We advance with a cautious, reverential step, for, we feel that we are treading on sacred soil, and as if, at every turn in the meandering pathway, we might meet, face to face, the Divine Presence whose abode we know is in this garden of delights.

The next rich ornament of the Paradise of God, or, to drop the allegory, the next virtue of the Sacred Heart which we are to consider, is Obedience. This virtue is allied to humility, and so closely allied, that the one cannot exist without the other. He who is not humble, will never be obedient; and he who is truly obedient must be humble Here we already begin to see how true it is that humility is the foundation of virtue; that we must learn that virtue well before we can proceed in our study of the Sacred Heart.

What is Obedience?
Obedience, according to St. Thomas, is a moral virtue which makes our will prompt to do the will of another, in whom, as our superior, we acknowledge the authority of God. The Angelic Doctor declares it to be the highest, the most precious of all the moral virtues, because it offers to God the highest and best gifts of our nature. It is a most necessary virtue too; since, without it, there can be no peace or happiness, no spiritual life or progress; just as in the physical world, there would be, first, a total stagnation, and speedily a total wreck, if the inferior bodies, influences or forces were not obedient to those which are above them.

Obedience in Nature
There is order in nature, there is teeming life; and there is happiness in the abodes of men. The spring produces its blossoms, the harvest its abundance of food and enjoyment. The shades of night wrap the wearied laborer in sleep to restore his strength; the glorious sunrise awakens the husbandman to his toil, the birds to their warblings, the whole Earth to fresh vigor and increase of life: because the laws remain undisturbed which regulate the movements of the heavens and the rotation of the Earth.

Each body or globe holds the post assigned to it and pursues its appointed path in the immensity of space, subject and subordinate to the one immediately above it, and all of them wisely submissive to one supreme mover, and gracefully circling around one common center. Let but one of the countless portions of the system leave its orbit for a single moment; let the subordination of the lower spheres to the higher be disturbed for one instant; and there will be a crash, a ruin, which will reduce the bright creation into a chaos in which all order and beauty, all life and happiness will be forever destroyed.

The Author of this natural order which preserves the material world, is also the author of a moral order among His rational and spiritual creatures, and the one is, in many ways, an image of the other. The necessity of subordination in nature shows the same necessity in man: the ruin, which would inevitably result from a violation of order in nature, indicates the sad effects of a similar disorder in the soul of man, and proves the necessity of obedience to the authority vested, by the decree of God, in those whom He has made superior to others.

Obedience Based Upon God
The Apostle tells us that “there is no power but from God; he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation.” (Romans 13). The principle then on which obedience rests, the source of its binding force on man s conscience, is the sovereignty of God, a sovereignty which belongs to Him by nature, by creation, by preservation; a sovereignty which He cannot abdicate, and to which all creatures must inevitably do homage, whether they will it or not.

He therefore who refuses obedience to an authority derived from God, is a rebel to the inalienable sovereignty of God; he rises, Satan-like, against his liege Lord; he arms himself against the King of Heaven and madly proposes to dethrone God. This is strong language, but it is merely putting in other words what Our Lord Himself said: “He that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.” (Luke 10).

But let this suffice to establish the value of obedience, its necessity for all those who aim at satisfying the claims of their Creator upon them and thus meriting His divine approval and His eternal recompense. Let it suffice also to give us an earnest desire to learn this most necessary virtue from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Heavenly Master into whose school we have entered to acquire the science of the Saints.

Obedience of the Sacred Heart
Let us then study the obedience of the Sacred Heart, since it has been pleased to give us examples of it and thus induce us to practice it with less difficulty. It is again the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for us, which makes it obedient; it is His love which makes Him go before us that we may follow Him in a painful path.

Like a tender mother, He takes the bitter draught first and smiles as He takes it, as if it were sweet to His palate, to encourage our weakness and overcome our repugnance. Like the eagle, He takes us on His wings and teaches us to soar aloft, far above the dark Earth, into our native element, where the golden sunlight never sets and is never obscured. It is the same wise love which made Him meek and humble to repair the ruin caused by pride and cruel selfishness, which now makes Him obedient to restore the peace and harmony between us and our God, which disobedience and rebellion had destroyed.

Disobedience Brought War
There was war between Heaven and Earth; the gates were closed, and on the battlements of Heaven there stood, day and night, in serene but awful anger, an army of angel soldiery, clad in the fiery mail of the divine indignation and armed with the flaming swords of God s vengeance against sin.

Generation after generation of the rebellious children of men passed upward from the gloomy Earth, the souls, by an impulse of their spiritual essence, pressing aloft to mingle with the source from which they had sprung. But the golden portals remained closed against them; the serenely but awfully angry sentinels warned them away from that abode of spotless sanctity, and the flaming swords of God’s vengeance pursued their lingering flight to the prison-houses in which they were to be confined.

On Earth, mankind felt its wounds and was sensible of its fall. There was a faint glimmering of hope, that one day peace would be restored; and all the spiritual nature of man, darkened though it was and Earth-bound by the weight of its guilt, was yet tinged with that faint ray and appeared to struggle upward against the burden which oppressed it. In pagan rites as well as in the sacrifices offered to the true God, though fainter far in those than in these, we see traces of the endeavors of mankind, if not to pacify an injured Divinity, at least to keep alive the hope that a victim, more worthy than any which they could offer, would yet be found to effect their reconciliation with Heaven. Yet, the efforts were fruitless; the victims were not accepted; God was unappeased; mankind remained unredeemed.

Obedience Restores Peace
But in the center of light, whence had proceeded that faint ray of hope which still lingered on Earth; in the bosom of the Eternal Father, there burned, with intensest glow, a compassionate love for the fallen race; an almost impatient love, which seemed to long for the appointed moment when it might burst forth and envelop in its flames the long-expected victim of expiation. And when that moment came at last, there went forth a voice from that burning center, and its words sounded with a divinely sweet melody through the vaults of Heaven:

“Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire: then I said: Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of Me that I should do Thy will, My God, I have desired it, and Thy law in the midst of My heart. The peace-offerings of guilty man, his holocausts and his incense have been inadequate, and would forever continue to be inadequate, to satisfy for his rebellion. But as his fall was the effect of pride and disobedience, behold I come to repair it by My obedience. Thy will, which he despised, it shall be My first and My constant care to revere and fulfill: obedience to Thy law shall reign in the midst of My Heart.”

Yes, His Heart will be obedient for us; His Heart will teach us how to obey, and thus at once pay the forfeit of our rebellion and enable us to share in the fruits of His redemption. And indeed, what was His whole life on Earth but an act of obedience? Follow Him from the cradle to the tomb, and it is the path of obedience that you have traced. What is the history of His three and thirty years in the gospel, but the obedient fulfillment in His person of whatever had been mirrored of Him in the law and the Prophets?

God’s Law in His Heart
That law, the expression of God’s will, was in His Heart, as though it were the life of His Heart, the soul of His entire being. It certainly was the guide of His actions, the lamp by whose light He walked. Whatever had been written of Him, He accomplishes to the letter. Every prophecy He fulfills; every type and figure He verifies in His own person.

His path through life, from His first faint cry of helplessness at Bethlehem to his last breath on Calvary, leads through a long series of painful labors faithfully performed, of bitter persecutions patiently borne, of manifold sorrows meekly endured, in obedience to the decree of God; until all the sacrifices have been accomplished, all the work assigned to Him completed, so that He may truly exclaim with that last breath of His: “It is consummated!”

What was written of Him at the head of the book, is written again on its every page, down to the very end. He has done Thy will, O God, and Thy law was at all times in the midst of His heart. Truly has He said: “I do always the things that please Him.” (John 10). “Yea, Father, for so hath it seemed good in Thy sight.” (Matthew 11).

But this obedience to the law of His Eternal Father was not the only obedience which He practiced for our sake; or rather, this view of His entire life as one long act of submission to the will of God, is not the only view in which we should consider it, so as to derive from His example the full benefit which may come to us from it. For surely no rational mind can refuse submission to the will of God. However faithless we may be in practice, we can never deny the principle that God, as our Creator, is our Master; and as our Master, He has a necessary claim to our obedience.

Obedience to God is Easier, Obedience to Men is Harder
We are not generally so rash as openly to rebel against the authority of God and declare our entire independence of Him. The difficulty lies in obedience to our fellow-men whom God has placed over us and who share His authority, His sovereignty in our regard; and to teach us this obedience to God, which is mediate and indirect, and therefore repugnant to our proud hearts, the Sacred Heart of Jesus would go before us in its observance; and, as usual, His love for us knows no bounds, sets no limits to the extent of its obedience. In this, as in all the rest, He loses sight of Himself to think only of us, and to bestow on us a more copious redemption.

Hence, He subjects Himself to His own creatures, and in so doing, He takes upon Himself a part which, by nature, can never be His. For, who is He? How can He obey? Obedience is the duty of inferiors; but He is not, cannot be an inferior. By nature He is above all. It requires then a miracle of divine power, the union of two incompatible and essentially contradictory qualities to make it possible for Him to obey. But He works the wonder; He does not hesitate at the strangeness of the result. He will be God, and yet obedient; Supreme Lord and Law-giver, and yet subject not only to His own laws, but to the lowest and meanest of men; and so subject as no earthly slave ever was or could be.

Obedience to Superiors is Natural
Among men, obedience is proper and intelligible enough, because it is supposed to be exercised by the young towards the old; by the ignorant towards those who are wise; by the weak towards the strong; by the subject towards those in whose hands God has placed power. Order is a law of nature. Men are not all equal in all respects, and hence it is just that some should be subject to others. If all had equal rights in all things, equal power, equal jurisdiction; if all were masters and none were servants, all rulers and none to obey, all kings and no subjects, the whole world would stand still; nothing could be done.

There would be a Babel of confused commands; a universal rebellion of children against parents, wives against husbands, scholars against masters. Men would cease to be social beings. Society would be dissolved into individualism, and every man’s hand would be raised against his brother. Hence, obedience of man to his superior is indispensable to his own preservation as well as to the general good. But obedience in our Divine Lord to man, His creature, reverses the order. In Him, God obeys man; the Creator is subject to His own creature; the King descends below the slave. The wise asks wisdom from the foolish; the powerful is powerless against the weak; the Master learns from His own disciples. Infinite greatness, wisdom, power, is ruled and governed by what, in comparison with Him, is infinite littleness, ignorance and weakness.

Jesus Obeys Those Inferior to Himself
It is true that Joseph and Mary are most dear to Him, most magnificently adorned with grace and sanctity, exalted in gifts of mind and heart far above Principality and Power; yet they are infinitely inferior to Him. But Jesus obeys His parents, because In them He recognizes the authority of His Eternal Father, “of whom all paternity in Heaven and Earth is named.” (Ephesians 3).

To them He offers the holocaust of His will, and through them to God, His Father. And such is His earnestness to teach us obedience by His example, such the importance He attaches to this virtue, that nearly the whole of His life on Earth is written in three words: “Erat subditus illis: He was subject to them.” (Luke 2). His divine wisdom thought that three words would suffice for the history of thirty years of that life: but nothing less than divine wisdom could have thought so. It was the divine wisdom of the Sacred Heart, the wise love of the Sacred Heart, which would by this means teach us obedience, whilst it was, at the same time, atoning for our rebellion. Thirty years of a God s life in the simple words: “He was subject to His parents!”

Our whole attention is centered on that single virtue. He did nothing during all those wonderful years but obey. The heavenly bodies moved at His beck; the seasons came and went at His bidding; the Earth was clad with circling plenty with the changing seasons; men and animals lived and died at His command; all creation was clasped in His hand and was governed and sustained by His will during all those thirty years, as it had been ever since He had called it into existence. But all that is buried in silence, passed by, as if it were not worth the mention. One word alone is recorded, and it is recorded for our good: it is, OBEDIENCE; the obedience of God to His creatures for love of us.

Jesus’ Obedience Goes Even Further
Nor is He obedient only to Joseph and Mary, whose peerless sanctity might in some measure have reconciled Him to the task, and whose gentle rule over Him was exercised with such fearfully humble reverence for His Divine Person. He subjects Himself to all who choose to command His services, harsh and heartless though they may be, loaded with the guilt of an ill-spent life, and therefore objects of abhorrence to His most pure eyes. He is subject to them also with the same perfect and cheerful obedience; because in them too he acknowledges the authority of God.

How often, during those laborious years of His hidden life, was He employed with His foster-father, by the rude Nazarenes, receiving their orders, roughly spoken, no doubt, as to a poor, unskillful apprentice; listening to their directions, haughtily and imperiously dictated, and, during the progress of the work and at its completion, hearing their unkind judgments, their bitter reproaches, perhaps the unjust denial of His little, hard-earned pittance.

Jesus Sees His Father’s Will in Obedience to Men
His Holy Father’s will thus came to Him in many a hideous disguise; but He recognized it in all, He adored it in whatever shape it appeared; He fulfilled it with the same meek and cheerful fidelity. O what a heart is the Heart of Jesus! What an abyss of wonderful subjection! In the midst of it is the law of God, the will of His Heavenly Father. He never resists, never rebels; He makes no claim of His own inherent rights; He suggests no devices of His own; He follows not His own wisdom, which would have astonished mankind by its works; He exerts not His own power, which would have made all creatures pliant to His mere desire.

He does what He is told, how He is told, when, where and how long. He does not omit one tittle; He does not change one iota; He does not fail for one moment. O wonderful Heart! Who will ever fathom the depth of the mysteries concealed in thee? Who will ever understand the nature, the extent, the value, the merit of thy obedience? Go into this interminable labyrinth, Christian soul; wander about in those thirty years of mysterious concealment. It is a region of deepest wonder, but full of loveliness; the very heart of this Paradise of God: yet all its beauty, all its wealth, all its varied sweets, are told in one word: obedience.

It is, moreover, a region of the calmest and most delightful happiness; because the will of God, which reigns there with supreme and unquestioned sway, is at all times amiable, adorably compassionate, most tenderly paternal in its rule: and it is this will alone that the Heart of Jesus sees in those whom it obeys. It hears always the fatherly voice of God in whatever is imposed by obedience; it submits to one and the same divine wisdom and power in the performance of every duty.

Peace of Heart in Obedience
There is then a constant, undisturbed peace and serenity, a cloudless joyousness, a fear less tranquility. Come what may, it is God’s will, and His law is the delight of that Heart at all times and under all circumstances. The sunshine of that divine submission gilds the darkest sky and fringes the stormiest clouds with its own pure, soft, hopeful, and blissful glory.

It is a perpetual rainbow which tells of God s smiles upon the obedience of His Son; of the approving light of the divine countenance which beamed through the darkness of the hidden life, and which will ever beam through the pitiless storm of injustice, oppression, persecution unto death, to which the love of Jesus will submit for our sake, in obedience to that law which is in the midst of His Heart.

Universal Obedience
The obedience of the Sacred Heart does not cease with the hidden life of Our Lord. Had human wisdom been called into his council, it would, no doubt, have suggested the propriety of now, at least, laying aside every appearance of weakness and poverty and lowliness; it would have urged the important ends of the Incarnation: the manifestation of God s truth to erring men, the establishment of God’s kingdom on Earth; it would have alleged the inherent dignity of the Divine Person, who had deigned to honor the fallen world with His presence; and these would have seemed more than sufficient arguments for His taking upon Himself the outward majesty and glory which would have subjected the minds of all men to His dominion, and bound their hearts to His service. And human wisdom would have spoken well, according to its light.

But, happily for us, the Sacred Heart followed only the impulse of its own love for us, and, to teach us obedience, continued its own obedience to the end, arid, instead of lessening it, increased it, deepened its wonder and its power, as well as its merit, until it disappears at last in the infinite abyss of obedience unto death, even the death of the cross.

Obedience at Birth and Death
The birth of Jesus had been an act of obedience to the proud decree of Augustus, ordering all his subjects to be enrolled in the cities of their origin; his death was to be an act of obedience to the iniquitous sentence of the Pagan Governor of Judea; and between these two acts of obedience there is an unbroken series of similar acts, an entire life spent in perfect submissiveness to all authority, whether lawful or usurped, justly or unjustly exercised, mildly or tyrannically exerted, wisely or unwisely ruling, so long as compliance with it did not involve an open transgression of that higher and more sacred law, the will of God, which reigned supreme in His Heart.

Surely, there was tyranny enough, in the rulers of His day, to merit even then all the abhorrence of His gentle Heart, and to receive, in due time, the eternal reprobation which His justice was to decree against it when brought to His tribunal. Fathers held an iron scepter over their children, masters over their slaves, husbands over their wives; whilst the kings of the nations disposed, with absolute and arbitrary sway, of the property and lives of their subjects, with no other restraint than their own caprice and die impulses of the fickle passions of their own corrupt hearts.

The Heart of Jesus knew all this, fathomed all its enormity, and felt all the bitterness of this injustice and oppression. But is there a single word of resistance? A single act of insubordination? A single sentiment or word of His which might be thought to preach sedition? True, He was accused of stirring up the people, of forming a party in His own interest, of aiming at the crown, of refusing to pay tribute to the emperor.

But His accusers, His judges, and all the world knew that the charge was false. He had openly declared that what was due to Caesar must be given him; He had paid His tribute, though a miracle was required to supply the means; He had fled to the mountains from those who would make Him king; He had said: “Upon the chair of Moses have sitten the Scribes and the Pharisees: all, therefore, that they shall say to you, observe and do it,” (Matthew 23). thus retiring obedience to the commands of those whose souls were full of guile.

All the jealousy of the Pharisees, all the malice of the Scribes, all the sleepless vigilance of envious Priests and Levites, could never find, in all His conduct, one real infringement of the divine or human law; and when, at last, their hour was come, and the power of darkness was to be permitted to prevail for a season, false witnesses, popular outcries, and threats of Caesar’s displeasure were the only means left them to accomplish the ruin of their detested rival.

No Rebellion in His Heart
But there was no rebellion in the Heart of Jesus, even against this intolerable in justice. He is led like a lamb to the slaughter; He stands humble and silent before His judges; He submits without a murmur to the indignities heaped upon Him by the rabble and by the soldiers of the High Priest; He bears the contempt of Herod and his army, as if all this were due to Him; He suffers the stripes and the thorns, though condemned to the former after a solemn declaration of His innocence, and enduring the latter from the mere caprice of His brutal tormentors. Like the obedient Isaac, He carries on His shoulders the wood of His sacrifice; at the word of His executioners, He lays Himself meekly on His cross and stretches out His hands and His feet to be nailed to His dreadful death-bed.

No angel’s hand stays the arm uplifted to strike Him; no voice from Heaven saves His obedience from death. His sacrifice must be completed; His obedience must be to the end, because He is to love us to the end, and to forget Himself to think only of us to the end; till even His love can devise nothing more to prove its intensity, its sincerity in the abundance of its redemption.

And here, whilst we contemplate this holocaust of obedience, let us listen to the words of the Apostle, who says of Him: “Whereas He was the Son of God, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and being made perfect, He became to those who obey Him, a cause of eternal salvation.” (Hebrews 5). It is a bold saying; “The Son of God learned obedience.” He in whom all that is good and holy subsisted in its entire perfection, all virtue and sanctity in their highest possible degree, can hardly be supposed to have needed to learn obedience.

Perfection of Obedience
Yet He learned it, and learned it by suffering the most unjustly inflicted torments, by being subjected to the most trying abuse of power and authority. And this may comfort and encourage us in our struggle with our rebellious hearts, when we find that after years of painful efforts, we are still far from having learned obedience; nay, it seems that the longer we practice the lesson, the more difficult it becomes. What wonder that we should fall short of perfection, when even He had to learn this lesson to the last hour of His life?

But He reached that perfection of obedience for us, that we might not lose heart, but continue our endeavors to bend our stubborn minds and our repugnant wills to the authority which God has given others over us. It is thus that the obedience of the Sacred Heart becomes to us a cause of eternal salvation; because when its love has conquered our hearts, and made them subject to itself, it infuses its own spirit of placid, calm, uncomplaining obedience into them, the wound of our rebellion is healed; the peace is restored between our hearts and our God, and the lost inheritance is given back to us among the citizens of Heaven.

Scriptural Lessons in Obedience
And now that we have contemplated the obedience of the Sacred Heart, and have listened to the lessons which it has been pleased to have recorded for our benefit in the Gospels, we shall not be surprised to find the same virtue inculcated by those into whose hearts the Spirit of the Sacred Heart was most abundantly poured out.

The Apostles, who had drunk at the fountainhead of heavenly wisdom, and who were to be the channels through which the “copious redemption” was to be transmitted to us, give us many a lesson of obedience. We have already heard St. Paul threatening damnation to those who would “resist the powers ordained of God.”

There is not a single epistle left us by the same Apostle in which he does not insist on the duty of obedience. “Let every soul be subject to higher powers.” “Be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience s sake.” (Romans 13). “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is just.” “Servants, be obedient to them that are your lords according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, as to Christ.” “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5 and 6; Colossianns 3) “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death.” (Philippians 2).

“We beseech you that as you have received of us, so also you would walk, for you know what precepts I have given to you. Therefore, he that despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God.” (1 Thessalonians 4). “We have confidence in you, that the things which we command, you both do and will do. And if any man obey not our word, note that man.” (2 Thessalonians 3). “Whoever are servants, let them count their masters worthy of all honor.” (1 Timothy 6). “Exhort servants to be obedient to their masters in all things. Admonish all to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey at a word; to be ready to every good work” (Titus 3:1). “Obey your prelates and be subject to them. For they watch as being to render an account of your souls; that they may do this with joy and not with grief. And may the God of peace fit you in all goodness, that you may do His will.” (Hebrews 13).

St. Peter is not less earnest in recommending the same virtue, and he expressly bids us (1 Peter 2) to be subject to all our superiors, “not only to the good and gentle,” who will not abuse their power, “but also to the froward,” who may tyrannize over us and make their rule a heavy burden. God has His own wise purposes in subjecting us, at times, to harsh and cruel masters. It becomes us not to question His Providence; but so long as we are not commanded to do what God forbids, we must submit to the authority which God has placed over us.

We have strayed from God by disobedience: we must return to Him by the path of obedience, a painful path, not without its thorns to wound our feet as we advance. We too must learn obedience by suffering, as our Model learned it, and when we have mastered this lesson, we shall have reached the height of perfection to which we are destined. For “obedience plants all other virtues in the soul, and preserves them when once planted,” say both St. Gregory and St. Bernard. And the Church, which is the living power through which our fallen nature is to be raised again arid restored to its pristine glory, gives us a life of obedience us the noblest in its perfection, the most secure, the most expeditious means of increasing in every virtue, the most abundantly blessed with every heavenly grace.

Doctors and Fathers on Obedience
The holy writers of the Church, her great Doctors and Fathers, seem unable to find words to express their thoughts on obedience, their idea of its greatness, its merits, its beauty, and the favor with which Heaven regards it. They compare its merit to that of martyrdom. They equal its grace to that of baptism; so that the sacrifice of our will through obedience is so precious in the sight of God, that if the soul of a Religious man were to burst its bonds when it has just spoken, at the foot of the altar, its holy vow, by which it becomes a holocaust to God, it would fly at once from the flames of its sacrifice on Earth to the bosom of God.

St. John Climacus says, that “obedience is a voluntary death; it is the tomb of our own will; it is a life without solicitude; a danger without fear; a plea which God cannot reject; it is a navigation free from storms; a journey made without fatigue; it is a substitute for discretion; it puts our burden on another’s shoulders.”

We may say, without fear of contradiction, that obedience is the restorer of mankind. Whether we consider our relations to God, to our fellow-men, or to ourselves; whether we consider our social, moral, civil, or individual condition, we shall find that all the evils to which each of these conditions is subject, all the disorders which disturb those relations and produce discord and unhappiness, are the sad consequences of rebellion against authority.

If Only…
Had the will of God remained the fixed and recognized center around which all created wills would have revolved, and to which they would have invariably tended, the world would have remained in its primitive beauty, and retained its primitive bliss unimpaired. Paradise would still be the abode of mankind.

There would have been no war between Heaven and Earth. Men would have lived in unbroken peace among themselves. No tyrant would ever have crushed his abject slaves into the dust. No outraged people would have risen against its ruler. No brother’s hand would have been lifted against a brother. No human blood would have reddened the Earth. No tears would have been shed in sorrow.

Because the will of God, being the rule of all other wills, would have guided them all in harmony, and there could have been no jarring or clashing among the subjects where all were obedient to the same infinitely wise and infinitely holy rule.

But Man Wanted It His Way
But when the will of man left its prescribed course, and turned away from its proper center, disorder was inevitable in his entire nature. The principle of authority was attacked in its highest and most sacred seat, the sovereignty of God over his creatures; and when it had been disregarded and rejected there, it could not be secure in other and less sacred abodes. If man is not subject to God, much less will he be subject to man. Hence, rebellion soon broke down every barrier which authority had erected; and where God had not been obeyed, neither princes nor parents, neither secular nor ecclesiastical superiors could stem the tide of revolt. Interest may, for a time, restrain the other passions of the heart; force may, for a season, beat down the upheavings of the tumultuous masses.

I Will Not Serve!
But the principle of authority is fallen; man acknowledges no superior but his own will. He has seen his guides, his princes, his teachers trample upon the law of God, and has learned from them to do the same; and he soon turns against his rulers the weapons which they have put into his hands. He spurns all control; he bursts every bond; he sweeps away, one after another, all laws which he finds weakened by their separation from the principle of authority. And, thus, disobedience always brings its own punishment along with it. He that rebels against his lawful superiors, will be rebelled against by his own lawful subjects.

We know how temporal sovereigns have expiated their rebellion against the Church. Throne after throne was overturned by the same engines which they had erected and directed against the Church. And now, from seat to seat, the principle of authority has been driven, until it hardly finds a dwelling-place on Earth outside the Church. The deluge of revolution has risen above every height, and the Ark alone remains, borne upon the breast of that deluge, and bearing in its bosom the hope of the coming generation, the germ of the better future. Restore the principle of authority to its everlasting center, recognize it in God and in God s representative on Earth, His Church, and the olive-branch of peace will soon be a token that the deluge has subsided; the fair rainbow will be a promise of better and happier days.

“Et nunc, reges, intelligite; erudimini qui judicatis terram. And now, O ye Kings, understand; receive instruction, you that judge the Earth.” (Psalm 2:10). But it is not likely that the rulers of the Earth will heed our warning. They have been deaf to a mightier voice than ours, one which has been frequently raised to make known to them the coming and inevitable danger: the voice of those whom God had placed as sentinels on the watch-towers of Sion, and who, from their elevated position, and with the aid of the divine Wisdom which had raised them to it, clearly perceived the gathering storm, and warned both kings and people to shelter themselves against its fury. But “man, when he is come into the depths of sin, contemneth: ignominy and reproach follow him.” (Proverbs 18:3).

The Mother of Virtues
Let us, then, leave them to their fate, and return to ourselves who have come into the Paradise of the Sacred Heart, to feast upon its blessed and salutary fruits. We must apply to ourselves what we have learned; we must make our hearts obedient like the Heart of Jesus. Obedience is the mother of virtues; it is the queen of all the moral virtues, and this sufficiently indicates that it is the most difficult of them to acquire and to practice; and, indeed, it is true to say, that no virtue is more rarely met with in perfection.

Obeying When Agreeing
So long as the will and judgment of our superiors agree with our own; so long as we are commanded to do what we ourselves would choose to do, there is no great difficulty in obeying. And, in theory, the obedience which bends our will to that of a superior, and blinds our judgment to make it see only with the light of another, whom God has placed over us and made the depositary of His own power and wisdom in our regard, is most just, most reasonable, and, therefore, most beautiful and most delightful. For, what can be more just than that we should be subject to God? What more reasonable than that we should reject our own wisdom when it is opposed to the wisdom of God? What more beautiful than the order which this subjection produces and preserves? What more delightful than the assurance that we are doing God’s will under the smiles of God’s complacency?

Obedience, the Greatest Freedom
It is this which renders the life of obedience so noble, so holy, so desirable; since it gives us the greatest and the truest liberty, which consists in willing to do only what is worthy of us, the will of God, and makes our hearts so calmly happy, by the certainty that obedience is the path on which the golden light of Heaven rests to guide our steps without danger of straying.

But when the sacrifice is demanded of ourselves; when the practice of this so just and reasonable, so beautiful and delightful obedience comes to our own doors; when something on which we have set our hearts is refused, or we are bid to do what our own judgment does not approve, or to do it in a manner which our wisdom and experience condemn; oh, how our very souls rebel with all their powers against the command or the decision of our superior!

How we plead and urge; how we ply objections and excuses; how our heart sinks within us when neither entreaty nor excuse avails; how deeply we are wounded, and how long the wound rankles in our bosom; how loudly we sometimes complain of what has been enjoined us; how apt we are to seek comfort from others by pouring out to them the bitterness of our souls; how ready to ascribe some sinister motive as the cause of the command, some groundless suspicion, some false accusation, some secret jealousy! Where is now the excellence, the beauty of obedience?

What has become of those high thoughts of self-sacrifice, of heroic immolation of our own will and judgment on the altar of obedience? Where now that true and perfect liberty with which obedience was to make us free?

Who Said It Was Easy?
No! obedience is not easy. It is an inward martyrdom of the soul, a long, life-long crucifixion of our heart. And, therefore, perfect obedience is seldom found. Once more, then, we have a bitter fruit to taste; we have a painful struggle to undergo with our own hearts, to make them gradually more like that Heart which, for love of us, was obedient unto death. Let us not lose courage, however, but, with the Heart of Jesus before us, and with the assistance of the grace which it will pour into ours, let us labor earnestly at the task we have under taken.

Think Seriously and Deeply
In order to succeed in acquiring this difficult and precious virtue of obedience, we must, by repeated and serious meditation, lay deep in our minds the foundation on which it rests, which is, the conviction that God’s will should be our guide and our law; that whatever is done contrary to that rule, is done in vain; that this sovereign and all-wise Will is most certainly made known to us by our superiors, whoever they may be; that God directs them in their government; that no command issues from their lips but with His permission and for our good; be they wise and good, or unwise and wicked, they are God’s ministers to us unto justice, and their orders are God s own, except when they command what is evidently sinful; that we cannot err in following the voice of obedience, but shall certainly go astray if we refuse its guidance; that God will never lay to our charge what we have done through obedience.

But these truths must be made to sink deep into our souls, they must become, as it were, a part of our minds; for then we shall carry them into practice. This foundation of obedience is laid by Faith; for, every one of the principles it contains is derived directly from the truths which Faith teaches. For the practice of obedience, and especially for its practice in its highest form, Charity is the impelling and sustaining power. “For, this is the charity of God, that we keep His commandments,” says St. John; and Our Lord Himself had said before him: “He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me.” (John 14:21).

Will You Imitate Him?
Now, this charity will be given us out of the Sacred Heart, which is the furnace ever burning with that heavenly fire, and ever eager to communicate its flames to our hearts. Can we refuse to obey, after all that the Heart of Jesus has endured to teach us this virtue? Will not the thought, that we can, by imitating His obedience, repay Him in some degree for His immense love for us, be sufficient to make the practice of obedience less arduous, less repulsive? Shall we not rather rejoice in proportion to the pain of the sacrifice, since we can thus give Him more signal proofs of our gratitude?

Let, then, this grateful love daily increase in us by means of a constant and tender devotion to the Sacred Heart; and the bitterness of this fruit of our Paradise will be changed into sweetness. For, when our minds are informed with the principles of faith on which obedience is founded, and our hearts warmed with the charity by which obedience lives and labors; then we shall obey as the Sacred Heart obeyed: promptly, without excuse; cheerfully, without interior repugnance or outward murmur; exactly, without changing an iota of the command; fully, without omitting one tittle of what is required of us; blindly, without regard to the suggestions of our own little wisdom; fearlessly, without the slightest misgiving about the result; constantly, without ever being weary of what we know to be the most holy, most wise, most adorable will of God; obeying perfectly in all things and obeying even unto death, though it were the death of the cross.

PRAYERS TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, to Thee I consecrate and offer up my person and my life, my actions, trials, and sufferings, that my entire being may henceforth only be employed in loving, honoring and glorifying Thee. This is my irrevocable will, to belong entirely to Thee, and to do all for Thy love, renouncing with my whole heart all that can displease Thee.

I take Thee, O Sacred Heart, for the sole object of my love, the protection of my life, the pledge of my salvation, the remedy of my frailty and inconstancy, the reparation for all the defects of my life, and my secure refuge at the hour of my death.

Be Thou, O Most Merciful Heart, my justification before God Thy Father, and screen me from His anger which I have so justly merited. I fear all from my own weakness and malice, but placing my entire confidence in Thee, O Heart of Love, I hope all from Thine infinite Goodness. Annihilate in me all that can displease or resist Thee. Imprint Thy pure love so deeply in my heart that I may never forget Thee or be separated from Thee.

I beseech Thee, through Thine infinite Goodness, grant that my name be engraved upon Thy Heart, for in this I place all my happiness and all my glory, to live and to die as one of Thy devoted servants. Amen.

Acts of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
O sweet Jesus, Whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt, behold us prostrate before Thy altar eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries, to which Thy loving Heart is everywhere subject.

Mindful alas! that we ourselves have had a share in such great indignities, which we now deplore from the depths of our hearts, we humbly ask Thy pardon and declare our readiness to atone by voluntary expiation not only for our own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those, who, straying far from the path of salvation, refuse in their obstinate infidelity to follow Thee, their Shepherd and Leader, or, renouncing the vows of their baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of Thy law.

We are now resolved to expiate such and every deplorable outrage committed against Thee; we are determined to make amends for the manifold offenses against Christian modesty in unbecoming dress and behavior, for all the foul seductions laid to ensnare the feet of the innocent, - for the frequent violation of Sundays and holy days, and the shocking blasphemies uttered against Thee and Thy Saints.

We wish also to make amends for the insults to which Thy Vicar earth and Thy priests are subjected, - for the profanation, by conscious neglect or terrible acts of sacrilege, of the very Sacrament of Thy divine love; and lastly for the public crimes of nations who resist the rights and the teaching authority of the Church which Thou hast founded.

Would, O Divine Jesus, we were able to wash away such abominations with our blood! We now offer, in reparation for these violations of Thy divine honou, the satisfaction Thou didst once make to Thine eternal Father on the cross and which Thou does continue to renew daily on our altars; we offer it in union with the acts of atonement of Thy Virgin Mother and all the Saints and of the pious faithful on earth; and we sincerely promise to make recompense, as far as we can with the help of Thy grace, for all neglect of Thy great love and for the sins we and others have committed in the past.

Henceforth we will live a life of unwavering faith, of purity of conduct, of perfect observance of the precepts of the Gospel and especially that of charity. We promise to the best of our power to prevent others from offending Thee and to bring as many as possible to follow Thee.

O loving Jesus, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary our model in reparation, deign to receive the voluntary offering we make of this act of expiation; and by the crowning gift of perseverance keep us faithful unto death in our duty and the allegiance we owe to Thee, so that we may all one day come to that happy home, where Thou with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest God, world without end. Amen.

Litany of the 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 Ghost in the Virgin Mother’s womb, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of God, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, of infinite Majesty, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, holy 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, glowing furnace of charity, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, vessel 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, wherein are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, wherein dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead, 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, rich unto all who call upon Thee, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, fount of life and holiness, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, propitiation for our offenses, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, overwhelmed with reproaches, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, bruised for our iniquities, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, obedient even 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 hope in Thee, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, hope of those who die in Thee, Have mercy on us!
Heart of Jesus, delight of all the Saints, Have mercy on us!

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord!

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord!

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us!

V. Jesus, meek and humble of Heart,
R. Make our hearts like unto Thine.

Let us pray
Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the Heart of Thy wellbeloved Son and upon the praise and satisfaction which He offers unto Thee in the name of sinners; and do Thou, of Thy great goodness, grant them pardon when they seek Thy mercy, in the Name of the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee for ever and ever. R. Amen.