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For the Feast of the Holy Innocents

Those for whom I wrote and prayed this prayer today, on the feast of the Holy Innocents, will understand that it was written and prayed for them. Many suffer well into adulthood, and even into old age, from things suffered in childhood, and often kept secret. The innocence that was robbed can be recovered, as can the joy of a pure childhood. The King of Love, being King of every year, month, day, and hour of time, can restore what was taken, and what He restores is brighter than what was lost.

O Divine Lover of Innocence,
Thou restorest innocence to those,
who, having lost it, turn to Thee in their sorrow and shame.
Thine it is, O Jesus, King of Love,
to restore the purity and joy of a holy childhood
to men and women of all ages
robbed of both purity and joy
by acts of cruelty, perversion, or lust.

The innocence that Thou restorest,
in Thy merciful goodness,
surpassses in brightness the innocence that was never tainted,
because it is marked by the diamonds of Thy tears,
and because Thou givest it,
washed clean in Thy Most Precious Blood,
as a free gift to those who ask it of Thee.

To all who ask for it today
restore the priceless grace of a holy childhood.
Protect Thou the little ones everywhere,
lest souls be damaged and destroyed by sin,
and lest any of those whom Thou hast destined for glory in Thy Kingdom
be lost along the way. Amen.

Over the centuries, souls have been drawn irresistibly to the mystery of the Infant Christ. Among these was the great Pierre Cardinal de Bérulle, the "Apostle of the Incarnate Word." The image I chose to illustrate this prayer of mine was originally designed to inspire devotion in souls, who, following the teaching of Cardinal de Bérulle, would offer themselves to the Infant Jesus. The prayer that I was moved to make today, as a kind of amende honorable to Jesus in His adorable innocence in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, is one, I think, that Pierre de Bérulle would have understood and made his own.

Lord Jesus Christ,
Thou, innocent Lamb of God;
Thou, pure Victim, Holy Victim, Immaculate Victim,
I adore Thee who art present here
with all the love of my heart,
and I thank Thee that, from this altar, even now,
Thou art offering Thyself to the Father
as the sacrifice of propitiation
that destroys the sin of the world
and restores poor sinners to friendship with God,
not by changing Thy Father's Heart,
but by opening the hearts of poor sinners
to receive His pardon, His mercy, and His grace.

Do Thou open hearts long closed by sin.
Do Thou deliver souls languishing in darkness
and in the shadow of death.
Do Thou set free souls bound in the fetters and chains
forged by Satan and his hateful allies.
Do Thou give sight to the blind,
movement to the paralyzed,
hearing to the deaf,
and tenderness to the stony-hearted.

Unite me to Thyself,
and, by Thy Virgin Mother's prayers,
so make me one sacrifice with Thee,
that I may appear before the Father,
consumed in the flames of Thy holocaust,
and made pure in the fire of love
that ever burns in Thy Eucharistic Heart. Amen.

The Innocence of Childhood Restored

O Thou, Innocent Lamb of God