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Most lovable Jesus, I hear you say in this tabernacle where you dwell: Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi: hic habitabo, quoniam elegi eam (Ps. CXXXI, 15). If, then, you have chosen your dwelling among us upon the altars, remaining in the Blessed Sacrament, and if the love you bear us makes you find your rest there, it is right that our hearts should also dwell always with you in affection and find there every delight and repose. O happy are you, loving souls, who find no fairer repose in the world than in staying near your sacramental Jesus! And happy shall I be, my Lord, if from this day forward I find no greater delight than in being always present to you, or always thinking of you who are in the Blessed Sacrament always thinking of me and of my good!
Ah, my Lord, why have I lost so many years in which I did not love you? Unhappy years, I curse you! And I bless you, O infinite patience of my God, who for so many years have borne with one so ungrateful to your love. And yet, ungrateful though I am, you still wait for me. Why, my God, why? So that one day, overcome by your mercies and your love, I might surrender myself entirely to you. Lord, I wish to resist no more; I wish to be ungrateful no more. It is right that I should consecrate to you at least this time that remains to me, be it little or much, of life. I hope, my Jesus, for your help in being entirely yours. You favored me so greatly when I was fleeing from you and despising your love; how much more do I hope you will favor me now that I seek you and desire to love you. Grant me, then, the grace to love you, O God worthy of infinite love. I love you with all my heart, I love you above all things, I love you more than myself, more than my life. I repent of having offended you, O infinite goodness. Pardon me, and together with your pardon grant me the grace to love you greatly until death in this life and for all eternity in the next. Show by your power, O Almighty God, this wonder in the world: that a soul so ungrateful as mine should become one of your greatest lovers. Do this through your own merits, my Jesus. This I desire; this I resolve to do for all my life; you who inspire the desire in me, give me the strength. -- My Jesus, I thank you for having waited for me until now.
Spiritual Communion.
To Mary
Nullus est, said St. Germanus, speaking to Most Holy Mary, qui salvus fiat nisi per te: nemo qui liberetur a malis nisi per te: nemo cui donum concedatur nisi per te. Therefore, my Lady and my hope, if you do not help me, I am lost and will not be able to come to bless you in paradise. But I hear, my Lady, from the saints, who all say that you never abandon those who have recourse to you: only he is lost who does not have recourse to you. I, wretched as I am, have recourse to you and place in you all my hopes. -- With St. Bernard: Haec tota mea fiducia: haec tota ratio spei meae.
Prayer of St. Anselm:
We beseech you, O most holy Lady, by that grace with which God so exalted you and made all things possible to you together with him, to bring it about that the fullness of grace which you have merited may make us partakers of your glory. Strive, O most merciful Lady, to procure that good for which God was pleased to become man in your chaste womb. Do not be reluctant to listen to us. If you deign to pray to your Son, he will hear you at once. It suffices that you wish us to be saved, and then we cannot but be saved. Who can restrain the depths of your mercy? If you do not have compassion on us, you who are the Mother of mercy, what will become of us when your Son comes to judge us?
O Mary, behold the danger in which we stand, and have pity on us.
Chapter 21 of 38