| Sacred Heart
A PRAYER WHEN
IN POOR HEALTH
Jesus
in the goodness of Your Heart, You have given me the great gift of life. You have asked me
to take up my cross daily and follow You. Today my illness is a heavy burden, Lord, and I
need the comfort You promised.
As
you showed Your wounded side to Thomas, open Your Heart and have mercy now on me. Take
special care of those I love and of all the poor and suffering throughout the world.
(Sacred Heart League) |
MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS HAVE MERCY ON ME.
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DRIVER'S PRAYER
God
our Father, you led Abraham from his home and guarded him in all his wanderings. You
guided him safely to the destination you had chosen for him. Be with us now as we travel.
Be our safety every mile of the way. Make us attentive, cautious and concerned about our
fellow travelers.
Make
our highways safe and keep us from all danger . Guide our destination for today and may it
bring us one day closer to our final destination with you. We pray this in Jesus' name,
Amen.
(Sacred Heart
Auto League) |
INTRODUCTION
Devotion to the Sacred
Heart of Jesus is the worship of God's incarnate love for mankind, which brings us a
deeper contemplation of the love of God the Son. It originates in God's continuous love
for Israel, in which He says, "My steadfast love shall not depart from you" (Is.
54:10), for "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jer. 31:3). Man is
invited to "love the Lord your God with all your heart" (Deut. 6:5), and to see
that "great are the works of the Lord; to be pondered by all who love them" (Ps.
11 1:2). At the appointed time, "God so loved the world that He gave His only
Son" (Jn. 3:16) to save sinners, so that, for us who believe, "God's love has
been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 5:5).
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The life
that Jesus gives to the world comes from the grace of the Holy Eucharist, His body and
blood under the appearances of bread and wine. The Church was born from the blood and
water that flowed from the open side of Jesus, a stream that " gave the sacraments of
the Church the power to confer the life of grace" (St. Bonaventure). Jesus is the
Word made flesh (cf. Jn. 1: 14) whose Heart, "full of goodness and love,"
contains all the treasures of His divine love. He is God made man, the Lord we adore in
His Eucharistic presence. |
In Rome in 1550, and
half a century later, Pope Clement VIII approved the devotion for the whole Church for the
purpose of strengthening the faith, converting sinners, and praying for world peace. The
faithful were encouraged to appeal to the mercy in the Heart of their Eucharistic Lord. In
1853, St. John Neumann of Philadelphia became the first U.S. Bishop to institute the
observance of this devotion in his diocese.
In 1675, Our Lord
appeared in Paray le Monial, France to St. Margaret Mary from out of the monstrance with a
flaming Heart of love, and said, "Behold this Heart that has so loved men that It has
spared nothing even to exhausting and consuming Itself in order to show them Its love ...
I promise that My Heart will pour out abundantly the power of Its love upon those who pay
It ... honor." Thereafter, devotion to the Sacred Heart spread, and was officially
recognized by the Church in 1856. At Fatima, Portugal in 1916, devotion to the Sacred
Heart received further impetus when the Angel of Portugal told the children of Fatima to
pray to the Most Holy Trinity for the conversion of sinners "through the infinite
merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary."
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