Everyday unite your prayers and adorations with those of the Most Holy Virgin and of one of the nine choirs of Angels and Saints, to honour one of the dispositions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to practise some virtue in its honour.
THE THIRD DAY
With the Blessed Virgin, the Thrones and the Holy Apostles.
Adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus, presenting to the Eternal Father our good works and our prayers and beseeching for our deficiencies, to the infinite Majesty of God.
Practice—Thank God for having given you so powerful a Mediator and endeavour to conform daily, more and more, to the sentiments of this Sacred Heart.
Prayer of St Alphonsus Liguori to the Sacred Heart
O Adorable Heart of my Jesus, Heart created expressly. for the love of men! Until now, I have shown towards Thee only ingratitude. Pardon me, O my Jesus. Heart of my Jesus, Abyss of Love and of Mercy, how is it possible, that I do not die of sorrow when I reflect on Thy Goodness to me and my ingratitude to Thee? Thou, my Creator, after having created me, hast given Thy Blood and Thy Life for me and, not content with this, Thou hast invented a means of offering Thyself everyday for me, in the Holy Eucharist, exposing Thyself to a thousand insults and outrages. Ah, Jesus, do Thou wound my heart with a great contrition for my sins and a lively love for Thee. Through Thy Tears and Thy Blood, give me the grace of perseverance in Thy fervent love, until I breathe my last sigh. Amen.
Quote of the Day – 17 June – “The Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” – Friday within the Octave of Corpus Christi – 1 Corinthians 23-29, John 6:56-59.
O Divine Jesus! Lonely in So Many Tabernacles By St Pope Pius X (1835-1914) “Pope of the Blessed Sacrament”
O Divine Jesus! Lonely today in so many Tabernacles, without visitor or worshipper, I offer Thee my lonely heart. May it’s every beat be a prayer of love to Thee. Thou art ever watching under the Sacramental Veils, in Thou love, Thou never sleeps and Thou art never weary of Thy vigils for sinners. O Loving Jesus! O Lonely Jesus! may my heart be a lamp, the light of which shall burn and beam for Thee alone. Watch, Sacramental Sentinel! Watch for the weary world, for the erring soul and for Thy poor lonely child. O Jesus, my God, I adore Thee, here present in the Sacrament of Thy love. Amen
Indulgences: 100 days each time before the Tabernacle 300 days each time before the Blessed Sacrament Exposed (St Pope Pius X – 3 July 1908) Prayers to the Sacred Heart 15th Ed 1936
One Minute Reflection – 17 June – “The Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” – Friday within the Octave of Corpus Christi – 1 Corinthians 23-29, John 6:56-59.
“This is the Bread that has come down from Heaven; not as your fathers ate the manna and died. He who eats this Bread shall live forever.”- John 6:59
REFLECTION – “It is wonderful that God rained manna on our fathers and they were fed with daily food from Heaven. And so it is written: Man ate the bread of angels. Yet, those who ate that bread all died in the desert. But the food that you receive, that living Bread which came down from Heaven, supplies the very substance of eternal life, and whoever will eat it, will never die, for it is the Body of Christ!
Consider now which is the more excellent – the bread of Angels or the Flesh of Christ, which is indeed the Body that gives Life. The first was manna from Heaven, the second is above the Heavens. One was of Heaven, the other is of the Lord of the Heavens; one subject to corruption if it was kept till the morrow, the other free from all corruption, for if anyone tastes of it with reverence, he will be incapable of corruption. For our fathers, water flowed from the rock; for you, Blood flows from Christ. Water satisfied their thirst for a time; Blood cleanses you forever. The Jew drinks and still thirsts but when you drink, you will be incapable of thirst. What happened in symbol is now fulfilled in reality.
If what you marvel at is a shadow, how great is the reality, whose very shadow you marvel at. Listen to this, which shows, that what happened in the time of our fathers was but a shadow. They drank, it is written, from the rock that followed them and the Rock was Christ! All this took place as a symbol for us. You know now what is more excellent – Light is preferable to its shadow, reality to its symbol, the Body of the Giver, to the manna He gave from Heaven.” – St Ambrose (340-397) Great Western Father and Doctor of the Church (An excerpt from On the Mysteries).
PRAYER – O God, Thou Who in this wondrous Sacrament have left us a memorial of Thy Passion, grant us, we beseech Thee, so to venerate the Sacred Mysteries of Thy Body and Blood, that we may ever experience, within us, the effect of Thy Redemption. Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen (Collect). MAY the HEART of JESUS be loved everywhere.100 Days, Indulgence Once a day – Pope Pius IX 23 September 1860.
Our Morning Offering – 17 June – “Month of the Sacred Heart”
Be the Heart of My Heart By St John Eudes (1501-1680) Apostle of the Sacred Heart
O Heart all Lovable and all Loving of my Saviour, be the Heart of my heart, the Soul of my soul, the Spirit of my spirit, the Life of my life and the sole Principle of all my thoughts, words and actions, of all the faculties of my soul and of all my senses, both interior and exterior. Amen
St John Eudes is the author of the Proper for the Mass and Divine Office of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin. St John was an ardent proponent of the Sacred Heart and dedicated himself to it’s promotion and celebration. The Masses he compiled for both the Sacred Heart of Jesus and for the Immaculate Heart of Mary, were both first celebrated during his lifetime. He preached missions across France, including Paris and Versailles, while earning recognition as a popular evangelist and confessor. St John Eudes was also a prolific writer and wrote on the two Holy Hearts despite opposition from the Jansenists.
Saint of the Day – 17 June – Saint Ranieri Scaccero (c 1117-1161) Confessor, Pilgrim, Monk, Musician, Penitent, Ascetic, Preacher, Miracle-worker. Born in c 1117 in Pisa, Italy and died on 17 June 1161 at the Abbey of Saint Vito, Pisa, Italy of natural causes. Patronage – of Pisa, Italy. Also known as – Ranieri of Pisa, Ranieri de Aqua, Rainer, Rainerius, Rainier, Raniero, Raynerius, Regnier.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “In Pisa, Saint Raniero, poor man and pilgrim for Christ.”
Ranieri was the son of Gandulfo Scacceri, a prosperous merchant and shipowner of Pisa and Mingarda Buzzaccherini. In his youth, he was a travelling musician. He spent a wild and sinful youth as a wandering minstrel and musician, carousing all night, sleeping by day if at all.
It was at the age of 19 that Ranieri decided to radically change his life. One evening, while performing for a merry crowd in a castle,he met a Hermit named Alberto, from Corsica “who wore a cloak of animal hair, like a goat” and had entered the Pisan Monastery of St Vitus and had become renowned for his work for the poor. This meeting led Ranieri to embrace the Faith with conviction, he burned his fiddle, and gave up the life of a minstrel. Thus he place himself, at the service of God
Desiring to visit the Holy Land, Raineri set himself up as a merchant in order to pay for his fare. The business took him to many ports and he became wealthy. His travels eventually took him to the Holy Land, where, it is said, he had a vision by which he understood that his wealth was hindering him from devoting himself to God.
At the age of 23 he decided to live in absolute poverty: he got rid of all the riches and gave them to the poor and needy. His only concern remained to imitate his teacher, Jesus Christ, as best as possible. Wearing the robe of the penitent given to all the pilgrims who went to Mount Calvary, he spent a long period with the Hermits in the Holy Land, where he performed numerous miracles.
He punished his body with long fasts, normally abstaining from food everyday of the week except Thursdays and Sundays. His austerity was so excessive, his later biographer noted, that God had to tell him to eat! The renunciation of himself and the total service to God, allowed him to overcome the numerous temptations that the evil one never ceased attacking him with during his 13-year stay in the Holy Land.
Returning to Pisa in 1154 and entered the Monastery of Saint Andrew and subsequently that of Saint Vitus. and became a renowned Preacher. Ranieri was already then, surrounded by the fame of a saint. He continued to work miracles even in his hometown. The admiration of his fellow citizens would accompany him, until the last day of his life. Ranieri died seven years after his return from the Holy Land on Friday 17 June 1161. His body was carried in a triumph through the City to the Cathedral of Pisa, its resting place.
In the eyes of the Pisans, Ranieri was a saint already in life. Once he abandoned his earthly life, one of his disciples, the Canon Benincasa, undertook to write a Life of the Saint in 1162, a text that knew a great success . In 1755 it was translated by the Carmelite Friar ,Giuseppe Maria Sanminiatelli . In 1842 it was re-published in Pisa.
The Blessed Ranieri Frees the Poor from a Prison in Florence (1437-44)
In 1632 the Archbishop of Pisa, the local clergy, the Pisan Magistrate, with the announcement of the sacred Congregation of Rites, elected Ranieri as the main Patron of the City and the Diocese. In 1689 the transfer of his body was decided, which was definitively placed on the High Altar. During the night of the translation, the Pisans illuminated their houses to pay homage to the figure of their most beloved Saint. He was Canonised by Pope Alexander III.
In 1161 or 1162, a Pisan Canon, Benincasa, wrote a long and invaluable Vita of the Saint. He says Raineri resembled the Son of God through his life of strict imitatio Christi – imitation of Christ. Benincasa wrote that Ranieri demonstrated “a royal priesthood in Christ” of which Raineri and all the Baptised are a part.
Ranieri is generally portrayed as a bearded hermit in a hairshirt holding a Rosary or Crucifix; as a young pilgrim in a hairshirt carrying a banner with the Pisan Cross; as being raised up by devils; or as dying in a hairshirt.
St Himerius of Amelia St Hypatius of Chalcedon St Molling of Wexford St Montanus of Gaeta St Nectan of Hartland Bl Paul Burali d’Arezzo Bl Peter Gambacorta Bl Philippe Papon St Prior St Rambold of Ratisbon St Ranieri Scaccero (c 1117-1161) Pilgrim, Monk St Theresa of Portugal
Martyrs of Apollonia – 7 Saints: A group of Christians who fled to a cave near Apollonia, Macedonia to escape persecution for his faith, but were caught and executed. The names we know are – Basil, Ermia, Felix, Innocent, Isaurus, Jeremias and Peregrinus. They were beheaded at Apollonia, Macedonia.
Martyrs of Aquileia – 4 Saints: Four Christian Martyrs memorialised together. No details about them have survived, not even if they died together – Ciria, Maria, Musca and Valerian. c.100 in Aquileia, Italy.
Martyrs of Chalcedon – 3 Saints: Three well-educated Christian men who were sent as ambassadors from King Baltan of Persia to the court of emperor Julian the Apostate to negotiate peace between the two states, and an end of Julian’s persecutions of Christians. Instead of negotiating, Julian imprisoned them, ordered them to make a sacrifice to pagan idols and when they refused, had them executed. Their names were Manuel, Sabel and Ismael. They were beheaded in 362 in Chalcedon (part of modern Istanbul, Turkey) and their bodies burned and no relics survive.
Martyrs of Fez – 4 Beati: A group of Mercedarians sent to Fez, Morocco to ransom Christians imprisoned and enslaved by Muslims. For being openly Christian they were imprisoned, tortured, mutilated and executed. Martyrs – Egidio, John, Louis and Paul. They were martyred in Fez, Morocco.
Martyrs of Rome – 262 Saints: A group of 262 Christians Martyred in the persecutions of Diocletian. In c303 in Rome, Italy. They were buried on the old Via Salaria in Rome.
Martyrs of Venafro – 3 Saints: Three Christian lay people, two of them imperial Roman soldiers, who were converts to Christianity and were Martyred together in the persecutions of Maximian and Diocletian – Daria, Marcian and Nicander. They were beheaded c.303 in Venafro, Italy. By 313 a basilica had been built over their graves which were re-discovered in 1930. They are patrons of Venafro, Italy.
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