Monday, August 6, 2012

Prayer in Honor of the Transfiguration of Our Lord


O God, Who in the glorious Transfiguration of Thine only-begotten Son didst strengthen the sacraments of faith by the testimony of the Fathers of Thy Holy Church , and Who didst wonderfully foreshow the perfect adoption of Thy children by a voice coming down in a shining cloud, mercifully grant that we be made co-heirs of the King of glory Himself, and grant us to be sharers in the same glory. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

Sanctify, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the gifts offered on the glorious Transfiguration of Thine only-begotten Son, and by the splendors of that very illumination cleanse us from the stains of our sins. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

Grant, we beseech Thee, O almighty God, that with the understanding of a purified mind we may follow those sacred mysteries of Thy Son's Transfiguration which we celebrate with our solemn office. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

Saturday, August 4, 2012

First Saturday Devotion

First Friday  is a devotion to the beloved Sacred Heart of Jesus. First Saturday, similarly, is a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is wholly within reason that these two devotions deelply connected—for where one heart is beating, so, too, is the other.

Our Lord Jesus Sacred Heart takes its form from Mary’s body, a body that is fueled by her own heart. Yet, her own heart is Immaculate precisely because of Christ’s own Sacred Heart, which simply conveys the graces of His Sacrifice to His own mother at her own conception to ensure His own conception. It is an amazing circularity of love between two hearts, a love between Mother and Son that is so readily able to extend beyond the confines of time. It is this love between the Sacred Heart on First Fridays and the Immaculate Heart on First Saturdays that we seek to consecrate ourselves to through these two devotions.

In 1917, when Our Lady appeared at Fatima, she began a series of visits to three children. One of these children, Lucy, was visited by the Blessed Mother for the remainder of her life. During these visits, the Virgin Mary showed Lucy and the other children glimpses of Hell and revealed to them a number of secrets and prophecies. One of the revelations made to Lucy in 1925 was the foundation from which First Saturdays arose.

The vision that occurred was a joint visit from Mary and the Infant Child Jesus. Mary conveyed to Lucy that her heart was wounded, showing Lucy a representation of her Immaculate heart, surrounded by thorns. This heart was victim to “ungrateful men” who “wound [her heart] at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude.” Because of these wounds, the Blessed Mother asked Lucy to perform a certain sort of penance to console her compassion-thirsty heart. That penance, it turns out, is the backbone of what First Saturdays is about.

“Say to all who, for five months, on the first Saturdays, confess, receive Holy Communion, recite the Rosary, and keep Me company during fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to my Immaculate Heart, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of souls.”

Thus, the First Saturday devotion requires:

a.) Confession (which later visions revealed could occur within 8 days before or after the first Saturday);

b.) Reception of Holy Communion;

c.) Recitation of the Rosary;

d.) 15 minutes of meditation (separate from the saying of the Rosary) on any one or more of the mysteries of the Rosary;

e.) a-d being done with the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart.

f.) The discipline must be kept for five first Saturdays in-a-row.

In 1930 it was revealed to Lucy, after she had entered the convent that the number of Saturdays necessary to complete the devotion correlates to the five blasphemies that Mary’s Immaculate Heart suffers from:

1.) Blasphemy against her Immaculate Conception;

2.) Blasphemy against her perpetual virginity;

3.) Blasphemy against her divine maternity of God and mankind;

4.) Distortion of her image;

5.) Neglect of implanting knowledge, love and devotion into the hearts of children.

Additionally, over time the promises associated with the practice have expanded to include not only the personal salvation of one’s own soul, but to grant salvation to all sinners (especially the blasphemers) and for peace in the world. Thus, this practice and devotion is of the utmost importance for young and Faithful Catholics to take up. In a world mired in turmoil, the Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart will purify us by showing us a great, maternal love—a love that ultimately seeks to unite us to the Sacred Heart of her Son, Jesus Christ.

Friday, August 3, 2012

The First Friday of the Month


It was the special desire of our Lord Jesus Christ, revealed to Blessed Margaret Mary, that the first Friday of each month be consecrated to the devotion to and adoration of His most Sacred Heart. 

As the object of this devotion is to inflame our hearts with an ardent love for Jesus, and to repair thereby, as far as lies in our power, all the outrages which are daily committed against the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, it is evident that these exercises are not confined to any particular day. Jesus is equally deserving of our love at all times; and as this most loving Savior is daily and hourly loaded with insults and cruelly treated by His creatures, it is but just that we should strive each day to make an the reparation in our power. Those, therefore, who are prevented from practicing this devotion on the first Friday can do so on any other day during the month. In the same manner they may offer the first Communion of each month for this intention, consecrating the whole day to the honor and glory of the Sacred Heart, and performing in the same spirit all the pious exercises they were unable to accomplish on the first Friday.

Moreover, Our Lord suggested another feature in this consoling devotion of the first Friday, by the faithful practice of which he led Blessed Margaret Mary to expect the grace of final perseverance, and that of receiving the Sacraments of the Church before dying, in favor of those who should observe it. This was to make a novena of Communions in honor of the Sacred Heart on the first Friday of the month for nine successive months.

An Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
[For the First Friday of the Month]

Adorable Heart of Jesus, glowing with love for us and Inflamed with zeal for our salvation: O Heart! ever sensible of our misery and the wretchedness to which our sins have reduced us, infinitely rich in mercy to heal the wounds of our souls, behold us humbly prostrate before Thee to express the sorrow that fills our hearts for the coldness and indifference with which we have so long requited the numberless benefits that Thou hast conferred upon us. With a deep sense of the outrages that have been heaped upon Thee by our sins and the sins of others, we come to make a solemn reparation of honor to thy most sacred majesty. It was our sins that overwhelmed Thy Heart with bitterness; it was the weight of our iniquities that pressed down Thy face to the earth in the Garden of Olives, and caused Thee to expire in anguish and agony on the Cross.

But now, repenting and sorrowful, we cast ourselves at Thy feet, and implore forgiveness. Adorable Heart of Jesus, source of true contrition and ever merciful to the penitent sinner, impart to our hearts the spirit of penance, and give to our eyes a fountain of tears, that we may sincerely bewail our sins now and for the rest of our days. Oh, would that we could blot them out, even with our blood! Pardon them, O Lord, in Thy mercy, and pardon and convert to Thee all that have committed irreverences and sacrileges against Thee in the Sacrament of Thy love, and thus give another proof that Thy mercy is above all Thy works. Divine Jesus, with Thee there are mercy and plentiful redemption: deliver us from our sins, accept the sincere desire we now entertain, and our holy resolution, relying on the assistance of Thy grace, henceforth to be faithful to Thee. And in order to repair the sins of ingratitude by which we have grieved Thy most tender and loving Heart, we are resolved in the future ever to love and honor Thee in the most adorable Sacrament of the Altar, where Thou art ever present to hear and grant our petitions, and to be the food and life of our souls. Be Thou, O compassionate Jesus! our Mediator with Thy Heavenly Father, Whom we have so grievously offended; strengthen our weakness, confirm these our resolutions of amendment, and as Thy Sacred Heart is our refuge and our hope when we have sinned, so may It be the strength and support of our repentance, that nothing in life or death may ever again separate us from Thee. Amen.

Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have mercy on us.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have mercy on us.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have mercy on us.Amen

Let us always remember the Poor Souls


Eternal Father, I offer You the most precious blood of thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, for those in my own home and in my family. Amen

Prayer for the Conversion of Scandinavia


300 Days, once a day. (See Instructions.) 54 Leo XIII, April 18, 1885.


O good Jesus , prostrate at Thy feet, we humbly implore Thee, by thy most Sacred Wounds and by the Precious Blood which Thou didst shed for the salvation of the whole world, that Thou wouldst deign to cast a look of pity on the peoples of Scandinavia, seduced from the Faith for so many centuries, and plunged in the darkness of heresy, separated from thy Church, deprived of the participation of the adorable Sacrament of thy Body and Blood, and of the other sacraments instituted by Thee, as the refuge of souls in life and in death.


Remember, O Redeemer of the world, that for these souls too Thou didst suffer bitter death, with the loss of all thy blood. Bring back, O good Shepherd, these wandering sheep ofthine to the one fold and to the healthy pastures of thy Church, so that they may form with us one flock , tended by Thee, and by thy Vicar on earth, the supreme Pontiff, whom, in the person of the Apostle St Peter, Thou didst commission to feed thy sheep and thy lambs. Graciously hear, O good Jesus, the prayers which we offer Thee with the most lively trust in the love of thy Sacred Heart, and to thy most Holy Name be praise, glory, and honor, world without end. Amen.

The Raccolta ( Collection of Indulgenced Prayers and Good Works )

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