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.
Jesus,
you who love us
beyond the ken
of earthly wisdom,
who calls us home
even
the ugly,
the aching,
the miserable,
the cast off,
the poor,
the selfish,
the self-righteous,
the uncaring
enough to die
for each and every one,
here, watching God's folly,
I fall down on my knees
and adore you.
O Jesus,
son of Mary,
son of God,
who knew the taste of dust
on the road,
the feel of sweat on your forehead,
the bite of hunger
at the end of a long day,
the weight of wood,
smooth under a carpenter's hand,
rough against the back,
the anger of a mob,
the betrayal of friends,
the loneliness of suffering,
evil done in the name of justice,
the bitterness of a shameful death,
and still you loved us.
O Folly of God,
love beyond compare,
Emmanuel,
remember us this day,
weak,
--be our strength,
alone,
--be at our side,
hurting,
--be our healer,
in need
--be our help.
Open our hearts to you,
you who are all love,
whose heart is big enough
to hold the whole world
whose hands wait to lift us up
whose love waits to heal us,
whose peace can transform us.
Amen.