NOVENA in honour of the SACRED HEART of JESUS – DAY ONE – 14 JUNE

NOVENA in honour of the SACRED HEART of JESUS – DAY ONE – 14 JUNE

By St Alphonsus Liguori  (1696-1787) Most Zealous Doctor
From The Holy Eucharist Published in 1758

MEDITATION I.
The Amiable Heart of Jesus.

He who shows himself amiable in everything must necessarily make himself loved.   Oh, if we only applied ourselves to discover all the good qualities by which Jesus Christ renders Himself worthy of our love, we should all be under the happy necessity of loving Him.   And what heart among all hearts can be found more worthy of love than the Heart of Jesus?

A heart all pure, all holy, all full of love towards God and towards us;  because all His desires are only for the Divine glory and our good.   This is the heart in which God finds all His delight.     Every perfection, every virtue reign in this heart; —–a most ardent love for God, His Father, united to the greatest humility and respect that can possibly exist;  a sovereign confusion for our sins, which He has taken upon Himself, united to the extreme confidence of a most affectionate Son;  a sovereign abhorrence of our sins, united to a lively compassion for our miseries;  an extreme sorrow. united to a perfect conformity to the will of God.

In Jesus is found everything that there can be most amiable.   Some are attracted to love others by their beauty, others by their innocence, others by living with them, others by devotion.   But if there were a person in whom all these and other virtues were united, who could help loving him?   If we heard that there was in a distant country a foreign prince who was handsome, humble, courteous, devout, full of charity, affable to all, I who rendered good to those who did him evil;   then, I although we knew not who he was, and though he knew not us and though we were not acquainted with him, nor was there any possibility of our ever being so, yet we should be enamoured of him and should be constrained to love him.   How is it, then, possible that Jesus Christ, Who possesses in Himself all these virtues and in the most perfect degree and Who loves us so tenderly, how is it possible that He should be so little loved by men and should not be the only object of our love?

O my God, how is it that Jesus, Who alone is worthy of love and Who has given us so many proofs of the love that He bears us, should be alone, as it were, the unlucky one with us, Who cannot arrive at making us love Him;  as if He were not sufficiently worthy of our love!   This is what caused floods of tears to St. Rose of Lima, St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Teresa, St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, who, on considering the ingratitude of men, exclaimed, weeping, “Love is not loved, Love is not loved.”

LET US PRAY – DAY ONE:

O my amiable Redeemer,
what object more worthy of love could Your Eternal Father command me to love than You?
You are the beauty of Paradise,
You are the love of Your Father,
Your heart is the throne of all virtues.
O amiable heart of my Jesus,
You deserve the love of all hearts;
poor and wretched is that heart which loves You not!
So miserable, O my God, has my heart been, during all the time in which it has not loved You.
But I will not continue to be so wretched;
I love You, I will always continue to love You, O my Jesus.
O my Lord, I have hitherto forgotten You and now what can I expect?
That my ingratitude will oblige You to forget me entirely and forsake me forever?
No, my Saviour, do not permit this.
O lovely flames that burnt in the loving heart of my Jesus,
enkindle in my poor heart that holy fire which You came down from Heaven to kindle on earth.
Consume and destroy all the impure affections that dwell in my heart
and prevent it from being entirely Yours.
O my God, grant that it may only exist to love You and You alone, my dearest Saviour.
You are now the only object of my love. I love You, I love You, I love You and I will never love anyone else but You.
My beloved Lord, do not disdain to accept the love of a heart which has once afflicted You by my sins.
Let it be Your glory to exhibit to the Angels
a heart now burning with the love of You, which hitherto shunned and despised You.

Most holy Virgin Mary, my hope, will you assist me
and beseech Jesus to make me, by His grace, all that He wishes me to be.
Amen