Meditations for Special Days: Of the Year': Meditation for New Year's Day: Of the Year'

Of the Year'

Meditation for New Year's Day

Let Us Adore Jesus at the Beginning

Of his Life on Earth

0 JESUS, my Lord, I adore, bless and love Thee with all the powers of my soul at the first moment of Thy life of suffering on earth.

I adore all the holy thoughts, sentiments and dispositions of Thy divine soul, and all that took place within Thee in that first moment.

0 Admirable Jesus, from the very first moment of Thy mortal life, Thou didst turn towards the Eternal Father to adore, love and glorify Him, to refer to His omnipotence Thy being, Thy life and all its consequences. Thou didst give Thyself to Him to do and suffer everything He pleased, for His glory and for love of us. I behold that, at the same instant, Thou didst turn Thy spirit and heart towards me, to think of me, to love me, to make great plans for my soul and to prepare very special graces for me.

Blessed be Thou, 0 Good Jesus, and may all the creatures of heaven and earth, and all the powers of Thy divinity and Thy humanity eternally bless Thee for these divine operations. (1). The first and last of these meditations are taken from "Part Six" of The Kingdom of Jesus. The others are to be found in the Manual of Piety which St. John Eudes compiled for his order of priests, the Congregation of Jesus and Mary.

Let Us Give Ourselves to Jesus to Begin the Year

As HE BEGAN HIS LIFE UPON EARTH

0 Jesus, I give myself to Thee, that I may commence this year as Thou didst begin Thy life on earth, and share in Thy most holy dispositions. I beg Thee, by Thy great mercy, to implant these dispositions in my heart.

0 Most Adorable Jesus, in honor of and in union with the humility, love and other holy dispositions with which Thou didst adore and love the Eternal Father, giving Thyself to Him at the first moment of Thy life, I adore, love and glorify Thee, as my God and my Saviour, as the Creator of time, the King of years and of centuries, and as the divine Redeemer who purchased for me, at the cost of Thy Precious Blood, all the time that is allotted to me on earth.

0 Jesus, I consecrate to Thee all my minutes, hours, days and years, my being and my life, and all that goes with them. I desire to employ everything for Thy pure glory alone. I desire all m y thoughts and acts, every beat of my heart, every breath I draw, and all else that shall take place i n me this year, and during my whole life, to become so many acts of praise and love for Thee. May i t please Thee, my dear Jesus, to grant that this may be so, through Thy most great power And goodness.

I also offer Thee, 0 Jesus, all the love and glory that shall be given to Thy majesty. I unite myself with all the honor and praises that shall be given Thee this year and forever, by the Eternal Father, the Holy Spirit, Thy Blessed Mother, the angels and saints and all Thy creatures.

0 Most Amiable Jesus, I adore all the designs Thou dost shape for me during this year. Do not permit me to put obstacles in their way. I give myself to Thee to do and suffer everything Thou dost please, for the accomplishment of these eternal designs. In honor Of, and in union with the love with which Thou didst accept, at the first moment of Thy Incarnation, all the sufferings Thou hadst to bear in life, I now accept and embrace, for Thy love, all the sufferings of

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body and spirit I shall have to undergo this year and during my whole life.

0 my Saviour, a year will come that will be the last in my life Perhaps this very year now unfolding is to be my last. If I knew with certainty that this was to be my last year on earth, with what care and fervor would I spend it in Thy service! Nevertheless, I wish to spend this year as if I had no more time to love and glorify Thee in this world, and to make up for the occasions in the past, when I have fallen away from my love of Thee. Grant me, 0 Good Jesus, all the graces that I need for this constancy.

Let Us Offer the Beginning of the Year to

The Blessed Virgin in Honor of the

First Moment of her Life

0 Blessed Virgin, Mother of my God and Saviour, I honor and reverence thee in the first moment of thy life. I honor and reverence the dispositions of thy holy soul, and all that took place i n thee at that time.

Thou didst begin immediately, 0 holy Virgin, to love and glorify God most perfectly, and from that first moment to the last of thy life, thou didst ever love and glorify Him more and more. As for me, in spite of all the years I have been in this world, I have not yet begun to love and serve Him as I should.

0 Mother of mercy, beg thy Divine Son to have mercy on me. Atone for my failings, offering Him on my behalf all the love and glory thou didst ever give Him, to satisfy for my neglect in loving and glorifying Him. Grant that I may share in thy surpassing love for Him, and in the fidelity of that great maternal love. Pray for me, that He may give me the grace to begin, at least now, to love Him perfectly, and that all that shall take place during this year, and all my life, may be consecrated to His glory and thy honor.

0 angels, And saints of Jesus Christ, pray for me, that our loving Saviour may give me new grace and new love for Him, to devote

this year and my whole life purely and solely to the service of His glory and love.

Ejaculatory prayer:

"Behold I make all things new." Ecce nova facio omnia (APOC. 21, 5)

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Meditation for Ash Wednesday

The Holy Season of Lent

Lent is a Season of Grace and Blessing

0 JESUS, King of ages and Sanctifier of time, I adore Thee as the Author of the holy season of Lent, and as the source of all its holiness. 0 my God, I adore Thy providential designs towards the Church, towards our own Community and myself in particular, during this penitential time of special grace and benediction, in which, 0 my Saviour, Thou dost indeed desire to grant me many very special graces if I interpose no obstacles. Do not permit any obstruction, but destroy in me whatever may be contrary to Thy benevolent designs, and grant me the dispositions to accomplish perfectly Thy most holy will. 0 my dearest Lord, I testify that with all my strength I detest my sins for love of Thee, I renounce my self-love, my own will and all that pertains to "the old man," and I give myself to Thy Providence to do and suffer all that Thou dost please on my behalf throughout my life, and especially during this holy season of Lent.

0 my God, I wish to consider and spend this Lent, as it were to be the last Lent of my life. To that end, I dedicate and consecrate to Thee all my actions, promising that I wish to do or think nothing save for Thy supreme glory, and to fulfil my obligations with all the perfection possible to me, with the help of Thy bountiful grace, which I implore with my whole heart for this intention.

How to Spend the Season of Lent Profitably

0 my Jesus, I desire to spend this holy season in company with Thee and Thy most holy Mother and, so far as I can with the assistance

of Thy grace, to keep it as Thou and she would have done. I see that Lent was spent by Thee in solitude, apart from the society of men, apart even from the sweet company of Thy most holy Mother, i n unbroken silence, in ceaseless prayer, in extremely rigorous penance, fasting stretched on the ground, suffering in the desert a multitude of pains both bodily and mental.

I adore Thee, 0 my God, in all these achievements and in an the interior dispositions of Thy holy soul. I give myself to Thee for the accomplishment and imitation of Thy Lent, inasmuch as Thou shalt desire of me. I wish to love with Thee, and for love of Thee, solitude, silence, prayer and penance. I beseech Thee to grant me the grace to dissociate myself from vain and useless conversations, to abstain from all wrong and idle words, to perform all my acts in spirit of prayer and recollection, and to practise, for love of Thee~ some measure of penance and mortification.

0 my Saviour, I offer Thee the abstinence and fast of this Lenten season, together with all the fasts and other mortifications of Holy Church, of all the Saints, of Thy Blessed Mother, in honor of and in union with Thy most exemplary fast and penance, in atonement for my sins and in fulfilment of Thy divine designs for Holy Church, for our Community and for my own soul in particular.

0 Mother of Jesus, I offer myself to thee. Make me, I beseech thee, a participant in the holy dispositions with which thou didst spend this penitential season.

0 angels of Jesus Christ, 0 saints of God, pray for me. Obtain for me the grace to employ this Lent and the remainder of my life in faithful service of my God, according to His most holy will.

Ejaculatory prayer:

"The world shall rejoice: and you shall be made sorrowful." Mundus gaudebit, vos autem contristabimini (John 16, 20).

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Meditation for Good Friday

Duties to Our Dying Saviour

THIS is the last hour of the temporal and passible life of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth. Our God, Our Saviour, Our Father is agonizing and dying on the Cross. Let us reader Him, with all possible devotion, our final homage and service.

Our first duty is to adore Jesus, and to invite all the angels and saints to adore Him with us, i n the dreadful manifestation and awesome mysteries of His mortal life, especially of His last day, last hour, last moment, last thoughts, last words, actions and sufferings, in the last disposition of His holy soul and in His last breath.

The second duty is to bless and thank Him, begging all the angels, saints and His most holy Mother to help us to offer Him thanksgiving for everything He spoke, did and suffered for the glory of His Heavenly Father and for our salvation.

The third duty is to beg our Saviour's forgiveness and make reparation in the name of all men for the multiple offenses and outrages He suffered on earth on our account. We must offer Him, i n atonement, all the love and honor which were, are and shall always be given Him in heaven and on earth by His Eternal Father, by the Holy Spirit, by His Blessed Mother, by all His angels and His saints, also to offer and yield ourselves to Him to do and suffer whatever shall please His holy will.

The fourth duty is to prostrate ourselves at the feet of Jesus, agonizing and dying on the Cross, beseeching Him to give us His benediction before leaving mortal life, and, by the virtue of this benediction, to destroy in us all kinds of malediction, that is, every trace of sin and inclination to evil, to bless our body and our soul, our eyes,

our ears, our mouth, our tongue, our hands, our feet, our memory, our mind and our will, all our senses interior or exterior, so that henceforth we employ them only for His greater glory.

The fifth duty is to tell God the Son, dying for us on the Cross, that we wish to die with Him and for Him; to die to sin, to the world, to ourselves, to all that displeases Him. We should offer ourselves to Him for this purpose, begging Him very earnestly to impress on our minds a perfect image of His most holy death, and to make us die the precious and desirable death of the saints, that we may henceforth live only in Him and for Him.

Duties to Mary, Mother of Jesus

After having fulfilled our obligations towards the Son of God, we have still three duties to His holy Mother.

The first is to prostrate ourselves in heart and in spirit at her feet asking her pardon for the cruel death of her Son, and for the most bitter sufferings of her pure heart which we have caused. I n reparation, we must offer her all the honor, glory and praise which have been, are and will be forever rendered to her in heaven as well as on earth by the Most Holy Trinity, by the sacred humanity of her Son, by all the angels and all the saints. We must also give ourselves to our Lady as her slaves, promising that we wish to serve and honor her all our lives in every way possible to us.

The second thing we must do for the Blessed Virgin is to remember that Our Lord Jesus Christ, dying on the Cross, gave her to us as our Mother, and gave us to her as her children, when, addressing her, He said: "Behold thy Son"; and speaking to each of us in the person of St. John: "Behold thy mother." We ought to thank Our Lord with our whole heart for having given us His Mother to be our Mother; we ought to give thanks to the most holy Virgin for having received us as her children, and to beg our Saviour that inasmuch as He has associated us with Him as the Beloved Son of Mary, He also make us share His perfect filial devotion to His admirable Mother.

Our third debt to the Mother of Jesus is to acknowledge and salute

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her as our Mother, declaring that we desire to serve, love and honor her as our Mother, obey her as a Mother and study to make ourselves like unto her as children should resemble their mother; and, consequently, to imitate her humility, her patience, her obedience, her purity, her mildness and docility, her charity and all her other virtues. We must beseech our Lady to look upon us, her unworthy children, to protect and to guide us in all things and to be a mother to us both in life and i n death.

Ejaculatory prayer:

"He loved me and delivered himself for me." Dilexit me et tradidit semetipsum pro me (Gal. 2, 20). 338-