Passio Domini Thursday Meditations
Eucharistic Rosary ²
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Introduction
From the Gospel of St. John (6:47-55. 58-64)
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink …. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
Beginning of the prayers of the Rosary: Creed, Our Father, three Hail Mary’s …
1. Jesus Meets His Holy Mother
V. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R. Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.
Mary accompanies Jesus to Calvary. She endures a real martyrdom in her soul on the way; but when one loves, one desires to suffer with the beloved.
Today, on his way of suffering, Jesus Eucharistic often meets with the children of his love the spouses of his Heart, the ministers of his grace among his enemies. But far from consoling him as Mary did, they join with his tormentors in humiliating, blaspheming, and denying him. How many are the apostates and renegades who forsake the service and love of the Holy Eucharist as soon as that service calls for a sacrifice or for an act of practical faith! o Jesus, my good Savior, with Mary my Mother, I will follow you amid humiliations, insults, and injuries, and make amends to you with my love!
Silence
Decade of the Rosary
ALL: Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He is offended. And through the infinite merit of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
2. The Cyrenean Helps Jesus To Carry His Cross
V. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R. Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.
Jesus was giving way more and more beneath his burden. The Jews, wishing to have him die on the Cross in order to complete his humiliation, urged Simon of Cyrene to help him bear the Cross. The latter refused and had to be forced to take upon himself an instrument of death so ignominious in his eyes. He yielded and merited that Jesus should touch his heart and convert him.
Jesus calls people to him in his Sacrament, and almost no one responds to his invitations; he invites them to his Eucharistic Banquet, and they have a thousand pretexts for refusing to come to it. The faithless and ungrateful soul refuses the grace of Jesus Christ, the most excellent gift of his love. He has his hands full of graces but nobody wants them; people are afraid of his love!
Instead of the honors due to him, Jesus receives most of the time only disrespect. People are embarrassed at meeting him in the streets; they turn quickly away as soon as they see him; they have not the courage to give Him the outward evidences of their faith.
O divine Savior, can this be so? Alas! It is only too true, and I feel the reproaches of my own conscience. Yes, often, bent upon an earthly pleasure, I have refused to hear your call; often, in order not to be obliged to amend my ways, I have rejected the invitation of your table with which you in your love have honored me. I regret it from the depths of my heart; I know that it is better to let everything else go than by my own fault to miss a single Communion, the greatest and the sweetest of your graces. Forget the past, dear Savior, and accept my resolutions for the future and by your strength help me to keep them!
Silence
Decade of the Rosary
ALL: Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He is offended. And through the infinite merit of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
3. A Holy Woman Wipes The Face Of Jesus
V. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R. Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.
The face of the Savior no longer looks human; the executioners have covered it with mud, spittle, and blood! He, the splendor of God, is unrecognizable, and his divine Face is covered with defilements. Holy Veronica braves the soldiers. Beneath the pollution she has recognized her Savior and her God, and moved with pity, she wipes that august countenance. Jesus rewards her by imprinting his features upon the cloth.
O divine Jesus, your adorable Sacrament is greatly outraged, insulted, and profaned, and where are the compassionate souls who will make up for these abominations? Ah, it is saddening and appalling that so many sacrileges should be committed so lightly against the sublime Sacrament. It would seem that Jesus Christ is nothing more among us than an unregarded or even contemptible stranger!
It is true that he veils his face beneath the appearances of very weak and lowly species: that is in order that our love may discover in them his divine features. 0 Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, Son of the living God and I adore your holy Face, full of glory and majesty, beneath the Eucharistic veil! Lord, I beseech you to imprint your features in my heart, that wherever I go, I may carry Jesus with me, Jesus Eucharistic!
Silence
Decade of the Rosary
ALL: Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He is offended. And through the infinite merit of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
4. Jesus Falls The Second Time
V. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R. Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.
In spite of Simon’s help, Jesus succumbs a second time to his weakness, and it is a cause of new sufferings for him. His hands and knees are wounded by his falls on this laborious way, and the ill treatment inflicted by his executioners increases with their rage.
Oh, how ineffectual is human aid without the help of Jesus Christ! And how many falls are in store for him that relies on others!
How often the God of the Eucharist falls nowadays by Communion in lukewarm and cowardly hearts that receive him without reverence, and let him go without an act of love and gratitude! Thus Jesus’ stay within us is fruitless because of our coldness.
Who would dare to receive one of the great of the earth with as little attention as the King of Heaven is every day received?
Divine Savior, I apologize to you for all my Communions that have been lukewarm and without devotion. How many times I already have received you in my heart. I thank you for them and I mean to be faithful to you in the future; only give me your love, that is enough!
Silence
Decade of the Rosary
ALL: Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He is offended. And through the infinite merit of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
5. Jesus Consoles The Holy Women Who Weep For Him
V. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R. Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.
It was the Savior’s mission in the days of his mortal life to comfort the afflicted and the persecuted. He desires to be faithful to it at the very time of his greatest sufferings. Thus he forgets himself and dries the tears of the holy women who weep over his sorrows and his passion. What goodness!
Very few people come to visit and to adore Our Lord in his Sacrament of divine love. And even fewer people remember to offer him reparation for their own sins and for those of all mankind. He is with us day and night, alone. Oh, if his eyes could weep, what tears they would shed for the ingratitude and neglect of his own! Ifhis Heart could still suffer, what torments he would feel at seeing himself forsaken in this way, even by his friends!
Yet, for all that, as soon as we come to him, he receives us with kindness, listens to our complaints, to the often very long and selfish tale of our woes, and he forgets himself to comfort us and strengthen us. 0 divine Savior, why do I so often depend on human consolation instead of coming to you? I feel that this wounds your Heart, which is jealous of my own. In your Holy Eucharist be my only consolation, my one confidant! One word, one look of your loving kindness will suffice for me. Let me love you with all my heart, and then do with me as you will!
Silence
Decade of the Rosary
ALL: Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He is offended. And through the infinite merit of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
If time permits, the leader (or each one Silently) can pray:
Jesus, I beg You for a drop of Your most Precious Blood in this hour of Your most bitter agony for [insert intention]
-for the Holy Church
-for our Holy Father
-for our bishops
-for the sanctification of priests
-for vocations to the priesthood and religious life
-for the conversion of sinners
-for our country
-for an end of abortion and contraception
-for an end of divorce
-for sanctification of family life
-for all who are dying
-for the Poor Souls in purgatory
( … for personal intentions)
Prayers for the intention of the Holy Father
Holy, holy, holy …
*Meditations taken from
Eucharistic Stations of the Cross, by St. Peter Julian Eymard
Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
O sweet Jesus, whose overflowing charity for men is repaid by so much forgetfulness, negligence, and contempt, behold us prostrate before Your altar, eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries, to which Your loving Heart is subjected. Mindful that we, ourselves, have had a share in such great indignities, which we now deplore from the depths of our hearts, we humbly ask Your pardon and declare our readiness to atone by voluntary expiation not only for our own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those who straying far from the path of salvation, refuse in their infidelity to follow You, their Shepherd and Leader, or, renouncing the vows of their Baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of Your law.
We are now resolved to expiate each and every outrage committed against You; we are determined to make amends for the manifold offenses against Christian modesty in unbecoming dress and behavior, for all the foul seductions laid to ensnare the feet of the innocent, for the frequent violations of Sundays and holy days, and the blasphemies uttered against You and Your Saints. We wish also to make amends for the insults to which Your Vicar on earth and Your priests are Subjected to, for the profanations by conscious neglect or terrible acts of sacrilege, of the very Sacrament of Your Divine love; and lastly for the public crimes of nations, who resist the rights and teaching authority of the Church which You have founded.
Would that, O Divine Jesus, we were able to wash away these abominations with our blood. We now offer, in reparation for these violations of Your Divine honor, the satisfaction You once made to Your Eternal Father on the Cross and which You continue to renew daily upon our altars. We offer it in union with the acts of atonement of Your Virgin Mother and all the Saints and of the pious faithful on earth; and we sincerely promise to make recompense as far as we can with the help of Your grace, for all neglect of Your great love and for the sins we and others have committed in the past. Henceforth we will live a life of unwavering faith, of purity of conduct, of perfect observance of the precepts of the Gospel, especially that of charity.
O loving Jesus, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary our model in reparation, deign to receive the voluntary offering we make of this act of expiation; and by crowning gift of perseverance keep us faithful unto death in our duty and the allegiance we owe to You, so that we may all one day come to that happy home, where You with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign one God, world without end. (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical, Miserentissimus Redemptor)
The texts of the Circular Letters are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without written permission.
©2021 Opus Sanctorum Angelorum Inc.
Back to Meditations Index →