Luisa Piccarreta 5, Hours of the Passion. Sr. Augustine, The passion of the whole body of Christ

The Twenty Four Hours of the Passion

03- Third Hour From 7 to 8 PM

http://luisapiccarreta.me/the-twenty-four-hours-of-the-passion/third-hour-from-7-to-8-pm

  

Trinity-on-Earth
Third Hour From 7 to 8 PM The Legal Supper

Third Hour From 7 to 8 PM The Legal Supper

O Jesus, You now arrive at the cenacle together with Your beloved disciples and You begin Your supper with them.  How much Sweetness, how much Affability You show through all Your Person, as You lower Yourself to taking material food for the last time!  Everything is Love in You.  Also in this, You not only repair for the sins of gluttony, but You impetrate the sanctification of food.

Jesus, my Life, Your sweet and penetrating gaze seems to search all of the apostles; and also in this act of taking food Your Heart remains pierced in seeing Your dear apostles still weak and listless, especially the perfidious Judas, who has already put a foot in hell.  And You, from the bottom of Your Heart, say bitterly, “What is the usefulness of My Blood?  Here is a soul so favored by Me—yet, he is lost!”

And You look at him with Your eyes refulgent with Light and Love, as though wanting to make him understand the great evil he is about to commit.  But Your Supreme Charity makes You bear this sorrow and You do not make it manifest even to Your beloved disciples.  

Leonardo Giampietrino-Last-Supper-ca-1520

     And while You grieve for Judas, Your Heart is filled with joy in seeing, on Your left, Your beloved disciple John; so much so, that unable to contain Your Love any longer, drawing him sweetly to Yourself, You let him place his head upon Your Heart, letting him experience Paradise in advance.

And it is in this solemn hour that the two peoples, the reprobate and the elect, are portrayed by the two disciples:   the reprobate in Judas, who already feels hell in his heart; the elect in John, who rests and delights in You.

O my Sweet Good, I too place myself near You, and together with Your beloved disciple I want to place my weary head upon Your Adorable Heart, praying You to let me experience the delights of Heaven also on this earth so that, enraptured by the Sweet Harmonies of Your Heart, the earth may no longer be earth for me, but Heaven.

But in the midst of those Most Sweet and Divine Harmonies, I hear sorrowful heartbeats escaping You:  these are for lost souls!  O Jesus, O please, do not allow any more souls to be lost.  Let Your heartbeat, flowing through them, make them feel the heartbeats of the Life of Heaven, just as Your beloved disciple John felt them, and attracted by the Gentleness and Sweetness of Your Love, they may all surrender to You.  

O Jesus, as I remain upon Your Heart, give food also to me, as You gave it to the apostles:  the Food of Love, the Food of the Divine Word, the Food of Your Divine Will.  O my Jesus, do not deny me this Food, which You so much desire to give me so that Your very Life may be formed in me.

My Sweet Good, while I remain close to You, I see that the food You are taking together with Your dear disciples is nothing but a lamb.  This is a figurative lamb, and just as this lamb has no vital humor left by force of fire, so You, Mystical Lamb, having to consume Yourself completely for creatures by force of Love, will keep not even a drop of Blood for Yourself, pouring it all out for Love of us.  

So, O Jesus, there is nothing You do which does not vividly portray Your Most Sorrowful Passion, which You keep always present in Your Mind, in Your Heart—in everything.  And this teaches me that if I too had the thought of Your Passion before my mind and in my heart, You would never deny me the Food of Your Love.  How much I thank You!

O my Jesus, not one act escapes You that does not keep me present and that does not intend to do me a special good.  So I pray you that Your Passion be always in my mind, in my heart, in my gazes, in my steps and in my pains, so that, wherever I turn, inside and outside of myself, I may always find You present in me.  And You, give me the grace never to forget what You have borne and suffered for me.  May this be my magnet, which, drawing my whole being into You, will never again allow me to go far away from You.

 

     donewill.blogspot.co.uk      

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Saint Augustine, 

The passion of the whole body of Christ.

   

A D O R A T I O Spiritualité
Doctrine Philosophie Evangile Office des Lectures Théologie

   RESPONSORY

Wisdom 16:20; John 6:32

You fed your people with the food of angels,
bread from heaven, ready to hand,
– source of all delight and satisfying to every taste.

It was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven.
It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
– Source of all delight and satisfying to every taste.

SECOND READING

From a commentary on the psalms by Saint Augustine, bishop
(Ps. 140, 4-6: CCL 40, 2028-2029)

The passion of the whole body of Christ

Lord, I have cried to you, hear me. This is a prayer we can all say. This is not my prayer, but that of the whole body of Christ. Rather, it is said in the name of his body. When Christ was on earth he prayed in his human nature, and prayed to the Father in the name of his body, and when he prayed drops of blood flowed from his whole body. So it is written in the Gospel: Jesus prayed with earnest prayer, and sweated blood. What is this blood streaming from his whole body but the martyrdom of the whole Church?

Lord, I have cried to you, hear me; listen to the sound of my prayer, when I call upon you. Did you imagine that crying was over when you said: I have cried to you? You have cried out, but do not as yet feel free from care. If anguish is at an end, crying is at an end; but if the Church, the body of Christ, must suffer anguish until the end of time, it must not say only: I have cried to you, hear me; it must also say: Listen to the sound of my prayer, when I call upon you.

Let my prayer rise like incense in your sight; let the raising of my hands be an evening sacrifice.

This is generally understood of Christ, the head, as every Christian acknowledges. When day was fading into evening, the Lord laid down his life on the cross, to take it up again; he did not lose his life against his will. Here, too, we are symbolized. What part of him hung on the cross if not the part he had received from us? How could God the Father ever cast off and abandon his only Son, who is indeed one God with him? Yet Christ, nailing our weakness to the cross (where, as the Apostle says: Our old nature was nailed to the cross with him), cried out with the very voice of our humanity: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The evening sacrifice is then the passion of the Lord, the cross of the Lord, the oblation of the victim that brings salvation, the holocaust acceptable to God. In his resurrection he made this evening sacrifice a morning sacrifice. Prayer offered in holiness from a faithful heart rises like incense from a holy altar. Nothing is more fragrant than the fragrance of the Lord. May all who believe share in this fragrance.

Therefore, our old nature, in the words of the Apostle, was nailed to the cross with him in order, as he says, to destroy our sinful body, so that we may be slaves to sin no longer.
RESPONSORY
Galatians 2:19-20

With Christ I have been nailed to the cross,
– and I live now no longer my own life,
but the life of Christ who lives in me.

I live by faith in the Son of God
who loved me and gave up his life for me.
– And I live now no longer my own life,
but the life of Christ who lives in me.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

Lord,
watch over your Church,
and guide it with your unfailing love.
Protect us from what could harm us
and lead us to what will save us.
Help us always,
for without you we are bound to fail.