Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
On the occasion of our 150th
Anniversary
November 30 – December 8 – 2004
1854
– 2004
MSC
General House
Via
Asmara 11
Rome
– Italy
May
2004
On
the occasion of the 150th anniversary of their foundation, the Missionaries of
the Sacred Heart draw inspiration from the sentiments embodied in the novena of
their Founder, F. Jules Chevalier.[1]
When
he arrived at the Issoudun presbytery in the autumn of 1854, we know that with
his first colleague, Abbé Maugenest, Jules Chevalier decided to begin a Novena
to Our Lady in order to associate her with their missionary project. The Dogma
of her Immaculate Conception is about to be proclaimed. One hundred and fifty years later, drawing
on, inspired by, their Founder's message, the sons of Fr. Chevalier, wherever
they are in the world, wish to unite in prayer.
Our
Founder had a keen sense of communion through prayer. So it was that on 25
March 1874, prompted by Father Miniot, he proposed the 'perpetual cult' to the
members of the Fraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart; the associates
united with the Sacred Heart in honouring Our Lady and they united with Mary to
acknowledge what they owed to the Heart of Christ; in particular giving
themselves to adoration, praise, imitation, reparation.[2]
The
practice of the 'Perpetual Cult' continued in M.S.C. communities with the same
purpose of giving praise and honour to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.[3]
In
the spirit of the foregoing, then, we are proposing an anniversary novena. It
is our desire and wish that during those nine days which precede the
anniversary of our foundation on December 8, 2004, there should be a real
communion in prayer. At the beginning of this third millennium, we place
ourselves anew under the protection of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, preparing
ourselves to receive the blessings which the Lord will assuredly make available
for a renewal of our apostolic life.
In
many parts of the world, our Congregation is greatly expanding: an occasion for
which to give thanks and at the same time an opportunity to re-affirm our
vocation and mission.
Elsewhere,
particularly in the 'First World', the Provinces are living through difficult
times because of the lack of vocations and a preponderance of aged members. Yet
for those disposed to open their hearts to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, hope
remains alive.
Sharing
together this novena makes it possible in the full, rich, fraternity of our
communion, to ask God for all those spiritual and material benefits which are
so necessary if we are to realize our vocation and mission here and throughout
the world.
Some
explanation would be helpful, it seems to me, if we are to understand more
fully the text of this novena. In the first place, it was Father André Mayor of
the French-Swiss Province who, faced with a large choice of texts from Father
Chevalier's writings on the 'Perpetual Cult', laid down the framework for this
novena. It proved impossible, however, to publish his work in full because of
the difficulty experienced translating many texts of the Founder conveyed in
French phraseology proper to the 19th century.
We
have, accordingly, chosen to provide for each day
Each
community can use, adapt, as it sees fit, these different component parts of
the novena. They admit of a celebration of the Word either within the M.S.C.
community, or in a more open celebration inclusive of the community's friends.
What is proposed, suggested, in this booklet should not be interpreted as
inflexibly fixed but rather as an invitation to be creatively imaginative. We
have thought it best, having in mind the efficaciousness of this novena, to
present a framework only relatively precise and structured so that it can be
adaptably used in the four corners of the world and so enable us to be together
at this time during these days of prayer.
The
classic exercise of 'Perpetual Cult' takes place over one week, to which two
days are here added to introduce our novena. These two days invite us to
contemplate with Our Lady the Heart of Christ. According to the promise made at
the time of the first novena in 1854, we bear today the title of Missionaries
of the Sacred Heart. That is why it is normal for us to pray to and contemplate
the Heart of Christ. The heading for each day carries with it a sub-heading
which, except for the first day, comes from Father Chevalier.
May
this booklet enhance your experience of this time of grace so that we can
recall, in the biblical and liturgical sense of the word, that first novena
begun by our Founder which gave birth in the first instance to our Society and,
following on, what we today call the wider Chevalier family. This family draws
together those women and men who live from the spirituality of the Heart and
feel themselves to be animated by the charism of Father Chevalier, namely the
Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred
Heart, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, and the Lay Associates.
"We
shall pray to the Sacred Heart with all the fervour of which we are capable.
Prayer consoles, disarms, gains everything. Sometimes it takes the form of
supplication and praise, at other times thanksgiving or acknowledgement. And
this means, so efficacious in itself, becomes, as it were, all powerful when
associated with the feelings of the Heart of Jesus and one imitates, lives by,
the example He has given us because God, seeing in us His Son's image, our
reproducing of His virtues, will show Himself well disposed to, and accepting
of, all our desires and needs." (Text appointed for the eighth day).
May
the Lord renew us personally and community-wise in the graciousness of His love
which for us is "shown forth" in the transpierced Heart of Jesus on
Calvary. We have known and acknowledged the love God has for us.
Father
Michael Curran, M.S.C.
Superior
General
Rome,
25 March 2004
First Day of the Novena
(Tuesday 30
November 2004)
Contemplation of the Heart of Jesus
WORD
OF GOD (John 19, 31-37)
It
was Preparation Day, and to prevent the bodies remaining on the cross during
the Sabbath – since that Sabbath was a day of special solemnity – the Jews
asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken away. Consequently
the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified
with him and then of the other. When they came to Jesus, they found he was
already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his
side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water. This is the
evidence of one who saw it – trustworthy evidence, and he knows he speaks the
truth – and he gives it so that you may believe as ell. Because all this
happened to fulfil the words of scripture: “Not one bone of his will be
broken”; and again, in another place scripture says: “They will look on the one
whom they have pierced”.
MSC
CONSTITUTIONS (9)
When
he laid down his life, when his side was opened, he gave us his Spirit, who
pours love into our hearts and gives us the will to serve. Looking on him
who was pierced, we see the new Heart that God has given to us, an
inexhaustible source of life.
JULES
CHEVALIER (Book on the Sacred Heart)
Isn't it in the Pierced Heart that two loves
meet: the love of
God descending to the whole of creation, and
the love of the whole of creation rising to God?
The
Pierced Heart is the last word of God. Everything leads back to Jesus: He is
the beginning and the end, and in him everything leads back to his Heart!
MEDITATION
(MSC,
Documents of Renewal,
General
Chapters 1969 and 1975, n° 3 and 4)
[3]
When he laid down his life for his friends, when his side was pierced, Christ
gave us his Spirit. This Spirit puts love into our hearts and gives us the will
to serve. Looking on him who was pierced on the cross we see the new heart that
God has given us, and we wish to point this out to all men. We discover the
love of a God who became man for others, and we believe in this love. We want
to proclaim it and the new life it makes possible for all.
[4]
Moved by this love, and inspired by the same will to serve and to reply to the
needs of his day, Father Chevalier founded in the last century our apostolic
community, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. In the Heart of Christ, Fr.
Chevalier saw the symbol of the love which moved the Son of God not to hold
jealously to his state, but to become man and save us. The Founder saw
contemplation of the heart of Christ, and possession of its sentiments, as a source
of our consecration to the Lord, and of our commitment to the service of the
Church and men throughout the world. All this was for him devotion to the
Sacred Heart, and the remedy for the evils of society in his time. This vision,
so deeply rooted in scripture and tradition, we continue to live today in
patterns that are truly relevant to people of our time.
Prayers of
Intercession
Leader
Today we pray in communion with all M.S.C.
throughout the world who begin with us this Novena of prayer marking the 150th
anniversary of our Foundation.
Reader
1
Following the example of Father Jules
Chevalier, our Founder, we contemplate the pierced Heart of Jesus…
Reader
2
Lord Jesus, your pierced Heart is an open door for
all humanity:
- give us the grace so that we in turn may know how
to open our hearts to love as you have
loved, and grow into togetherness with you.
Lord Jesus, your Heart is source of mercy,
compassion, courage, strength:
- give us the grace to make our own the sentiments
of that Heart so that one recognizes in us
the Living One who makes us live.
Lord Jesus in your Heart
there dwells the fullness of God's love for the world:
- give us the grace to live this Novena in
communion with all the M.S.C. communities throughout the world, so that your
love be everywhere known and loved.
Lord
Jesus, in your Heart there dwells the love of God for creation and the love of
creation which reaches towards the Father:
-
give us the grace to be
witnesses of that love with which you fill our lives both here and throughout
the world.
(add private intentions in the same style)
An
alternative prayer
Wonderful
O Lord,
Your
love and your heart! Blessed
are you!
You
have done marvels for us! Blessed
are you!
You
have chosen us to serve you! Blessed are
you!
From
your heart there flows living water! Blessed
are you!
To
consecrate us in the truth Give
us your Spirit!
To
gather us in unity Give
us your Spirit!
To
send us as you were sent Give
us your Spirit!
To
make our hearts burn with your love Give
us your Spirit!
With
Mary at the foot of the Cross We pray to
you….
Contemplating
your opened Heart We pray to you….
For
those weighed down by burdens We pray
to you….
For
your missionary Church We
pray to you….
Jesus,
kindness of God! Come,
live in us!
Jesus,
mystery of love! Come,
live in us!
Jesus,
source of life! Come,
live in us!
Jesus,
Heart of our hearts! Come,
live in us!
or
an alternative ending
Jesus,
tenderness of God Jesus, mystery of
love!
Jesus,
source of Life! Jesus, Heart
of our hearts!
Prayer to Our
Lady of the Sacred Heart
(This Prayer
for each day of the Novena is found on the last page)
Second Day of the Novena
(Wednesday 31
November 2004)
That Wound was Necessary
might truly be
‘shown’ to us”
WORD OF GOD (Ezekiel
36, 25-28)
I shall pour
clean water over you and you will be cleansed; I shall cleanse you of all your
defilement and all your idols. I shall give you a new heart, and put a new
spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you
a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my
laws and sincerely respect my observances. You will live in the land which I
gave your ancestors. You shall be my people and I will be your God.
MSC CONSTITUTIONS
(3)
Father
Jules Chevalier was deeply moved by the evils that afflicted the people of his
time. As he contemplated the Heart of Christ, in whom is revealed the
compassionate love of the Father, he discovered there the remedy for the
ills of the world. Inspired by that love and guided by the Holy Spirit, he
founded within the Church the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
JULES CHEVALIER
(Book on the Sacred Heart)
From this
adorable Heart, ripped open by the lance and from which life had slipped away,
another life made its appearance. This is the life of the children of God,
heaven’s heirs. The Word, coming from the Heart of his Father, made the world
emerge from nothing; and from the Heart of the incarnate Word, pierced on
Calvary, I see a new world emerging, the world of those he has chosen. And this
creation, so fertile, full of grandeur and inspired by love and mercy, is the
Church, the mystical body of Christ, which makes this new creation present on
earth until the end of time, and which will live his divine life for all
eternity.
(André MAYOR, MSC, Prier 15 jours avec le
P. Jules Chevalier, p. 81.82. The words in italics are those of Fr.
Chevalier)
“The
pierced Heart of Jesus
is
the last word of God!”
All
has been said, in effect. The Father has no more to add, the Heart is the whole
of Jesus. "It is the hearth of his
warmth, the sovereign centre of his organism, the principle of his physical
existence." Following the blow to the side by the soldier's lance, "it is from this Heart, as from a
marital bed, that the Church has issued forth; it is from it that all the
sacraments draw their force and efficaciousness".
This
wound was necessary, etched in letters of fire and blood, as "God's last word"… so that all
that God’s love wanted to “enable us to see and to love” might be
clearly "shown" to us.
This
wound was necessary… as "a door
always open so that God can continuously come from himself and descend towards
his creatures, and, likewise, that they in turn can continuously ascend towards
him".
This
wound was necessary… cut into his side like a graft-incision, so that we could
be grafted on the very Heart of God; through it streams
the divine life of His adorable Heart: "Let
us attach ourselves then to Jesus as the shoot on the stock of the vine and we
shall live for ever and ever."
This
wound was necessary, as a fountain, "which,
contained over so many centuries, now pours forth all the more abundantly. It
dissipates desolating drought and brings back fertility. From this Heart then
there pour forth torrential floods of grace and light which flood the whole
universe, snatching it from its shroud, making it rise from the tomb, bringing
it back to life!" This wound in God’s Heart was necessary as the
signature on the great parchment of his love. Father Chevalier, you now read
there with open heart the dazzling and fully realized revelation of the Heart
of God.
Leader
Today we pray in communion with Papua New
Guinea (our first missionary apostolate), Australia and the Pacific Union.
Reader
1
Like Father Jules Chevalier we ourselves
discover in the wounded side of Jesus the outpouring of new life: a new world.
Reader
2
LORD
JESUS, the wound in your side has become the source of many blessings for us:
- at the heart of our wounds teach us to discover
your saving love.
LORD
JESUS, a new world flowed from your open side on Calvary:
-
at the heart of our world in constant change, teach us to discern the seeds of this new world.
LORD
JESUS, you make rise up from nothing those who were in darkness:
- together with the people and our confreres in
Papua New Guinea we learn to welcome the Gospel as the seed of life.
LORD JESUS, from your wounded Heart there poured
forth streams of grace and light:
-
together with our confreres and the peoples of Australia and Oceania, make us
also radiate that light.
LORD
JESUS…
An
alternative prayer
At
the moment when Jesus gave up his life,
The
moment the soldier pierced his heart,
At
the moment of the final act constituting his death,
At
this moment there flowed blood and water
Signs
of the Church about to be born,
Signs
of grace and life.
At
this sublime moment, you were present Mary,
Jesus
wanted you to be near his cross,
Wishing
you to be there
When
he gave his life for us.
You
are the first of the redeemed, Our Mother,
And
it is to each of us that Jesus says: "Behold your Mother!"
Because
you were with Jesus "until the end",
Until
the blow of the lance,
Our
Lady of the Sacred Heart, Our Lady of the open Heart,
You
are the Mother of all those who will be reborn to the life of God.
As
John did in that moment,
We
welcome you in our home.
And
since you are our Mother,
May
our home truly become your home.
Prayer to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Third Day of the Novena
(Thursday 2
December 2004)
Adoration
“Your life, O
Jesus, is a continuous, lasting worship! Everything in you is adoration; an
adoration of infinite value”
WORD OF GOD
(John 4, 21-24) – The Samaritan Woman
Jesus
said: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we
worship what we do know; for salvation comes from the Jews. But the hour will
come – in fact it is here already – when true worshippers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants.
God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth”.
MSC CONSTITUTIONS (34)
By
profession of the evangelical counsels, we proclaim that the driving
force in our lives as Missionaries of the Sacred Heart is our belief in the
love that God has shown us in the Heart of Christ. Our religious profession
expresses, above all, our desire to seek God and to respond to his love because
he has first loved us.
JULES CHEVALIER
(Book on the Sacred Heart)
Your
life, O Jesus, is a continuous, lasting worship. Everything in you is
adoration, an adoration of infinite value.
In a word, in you, God is adored by God. But you are not only God who adores; you are also God who is
revealed. And what glory for God in
this revelation of God’s self in you!
The
merciful goodness of God has come from heaven to visit us. The remembrance of
this divine heart is a source of consolation and joy. How good it is, how
pleasant, to make one’s abode there. In the Heart of Jesus I have found the
heart of a king, of a brother, of a dear friend. How could I not adore him?
(E.J. Cuskelly, MSC, Jules Chevalier, Man
with a Mission, p. 109)
If
Christ is to live in us, we must die to self. In this, Christ is again our
model, emptying himself in the Incarnation, sacrificing himself on the Cross
and in the Eucharist.
Centred
on Christ the High Priest and Mediator, this spirituality (of the French
School) must, of necessity, consider the two-fold aspect of priesthood: Christ
giving supreme glory and adoration to God, and Christ giving life and salvation
to men.
Its
specific method of prayer was also very Christ-centred, being summed up in
three steps: Christ before our eyes – reflective meditation; adoration; Christ
in our hearts – our affective response; communion; Christ in our hands – union
with Christ in action.
The
thrust of this method of prayer was that we might be united with Christ in his
adoration of the Father and in his work for the salvation of men. Through all
his life Jules Chevalier loved those texts of the epistle to the Hebrews (12,2
and 3,1) which tell us to fix our eyes on Jesus, apostle and high-priest of our
religion.
Prayers of Intercession
Leader
Today
we pray in communion with the countries of Western Europe: the oldest Provinces
of our Congregation.
Reader
1
Like
Father Jules Chevalier and his first companions we also wish to adore God in
spirit and in truth, here and throughout the world.
Reader
2
LORD
JESUS, "perfect adorer of the
Father":
-
teach us to know how to
adore in spirit and in truth, so that there may well up in us the desire of
your presence.
LORD JESUS, you invite us
to pray by calling God "Our Father",
- teach us to live, like you, as beloved daughters
and sons of the Father, in universal sisterhood and brotherhood.
LORD
JESUS, your life is continuous, lasting, worship; everything in you is
adoration:
-
teach us to awaken in ourselves a sense of total gift and gratuitousness; may
we acknowlede that everything comes
from you.
LORD JESUS, you make us responsible for watching
over, safeguarding, the faith:
- teach us, together with the people and with our
confreres who live in Europe, to safeguard in our hearts the challenge of faith
and the rich treasury of what we hope in.
LORD
JESUS…
An alternative prayer
We
come before you, O Lord, willingly available like Mary on Annunciation day:
-
Teach us to say YES to
your love!
We
come before you, O Lord, servants like Mary at the time of the Visitation:
- Teach us to serve you in our brothers and sisters!
We
come before you, O Lord, filled with wonder like Mary on Nativity day:
- Teach us to welcome you in our lives!
We
come before you, O Lord, with our hands open like Mary at the Presentation:
- Teach us awareness of the needs of our brothers
and sisters.
We
come before you, O Lord, standing like Mary at the foot of the Cross:
- Teach us to grow in Faith, Hope and Love!
We
come before you, O Lord, seeking the Spirit's coming, like Mary and the
Apostles at Pentecost:
- Teach us to seek the gift of the Spirit and build
up the Church!
Prayer to Our
Lady of the Sacred Heart
Fourth Day of the Novena
(Friday 3
December 2004)
Reparation
“No devotion is
more appropriate to the world of today than reparation to the Heart of Jesus”
WORD OF GOD
(Colossians 1, 24-26)
It makes me happy
to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can
to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his
body, the Church. I became the servant of the Church when God made me
responsible for delivering God’s message to you, the message which was a
mystery hidden for generations and centuries and has now been revealed to his
saints.
MSC CONSTITUTIONS
(24)
In
a constant effort to share in the sentiments of the Heart of Christ, we will be
attentive to all human needs and aspirations, such as the need to be
respected as persons, the need for love and peace, for freedom, justice and
truth, and the search for meaning in life. We will become all things to all
people, by respecting different cultures, and by being ready to undertake
whatever apostolic services people may need.
JULES CHEVALIER
(Book on the Sacred Heart)
Reparation
involves many acts. The most important are: knowledge, adoration, love,
satisfaction, prayer, praise, supplication, thanksgiving, imitation, union with
Jesus Christ, zeal for his glory, for the salvation of souls, for
mortification. To knowledge of the Heart of Jesus, we must join adoration. In
studying this divine Heart, we will realize that it is the Heart of a God, and
then we will prostrate ourselves before him in self-emptying and humiliation.
If knowledge of the Heart of Jesus leads to adoration, it also produces love.
So we should love him because of his warmth towards us that knows no bounds. We
should love him because of the immense benefits he heaps on us despite our
sins. Our love for him, therefore, should be generous, active and constant.
Thus, we shall naturally share his joy and sorrow. We shall not shrink from any
trouble, from any sacrifice to please him. We shall accept all suffering to
console him.
(Sr. Gerardine Doherty,
fdnsc, Member of Cor Novum Team)
Jules
Chevalier was intensely aware of the “evils of his time” and he urgently
desired to restore to those wounded by such “evils” their rightful dignity, the
truth of their personal value and worth. He longed to “repair” the “image of
God” where he saw it had been damages, mutilated, de-reverenced. His desires
seem very much in keeping with what is stated in the recent Apostolic
Exhortation on Consecrated Life: “The quest for divine beauty impels
consecrated persons to care for the deformed image of God on the faces of their
brothers and sisters, faces disfigured by hunger, faces disillusioned by
political promises, faces humiliated by seeing their culture despised, faces
frightened by constant and indiscriminate violence, the anguished faces of
minors, the hurt and humiliated faces of women, the tired faces of migrants who
are not given a warm welcome, the faces of the elderly who are without even the
minimum condition for a dignified life” (n° 75). Underneath all of the above
realities lurk sever injustices that need to be uncovered and “re-created”. I
believe that one aspect of reparation that perhaps we too readily overlook is
one that Jules consciously lived. He was critically aware of what was right and
wrong in his own life and attitudes, in his society and in specific situations.
He imagined a world that could be quite different: “I see a new world
emerging…” He was convinced that he world he knew was not the best, nor
the world that God intended, but a badly broken and distorted one which needed
to be restored, and, therefore could be immeasurably better and happier than
the one he knew. To live reparation today, I believe, is an invitation to
imagine the world, and one’s place in it, as quite different from the existing
order; to live reparation has something to do with grieving over what has
already been lost and the possibilities that have never actually been realized;
to live reparation is to feel in one’s own heart the enormous tension contained
in the paradoxical truth, “Redemption is complete but not yet finished”.
I believe that the quality of our reparation would be considerably
enriched if we constantly made the effort to examine, not only from the
economical, ecological and political viewpoints, but also from the theological
stance, the grass roots of the evils of our day. This, I think, would empower
us to act with greater creativity, effectiveness and awareness of the real
anxieties and urgent needs in today’s world.
Prayers of Intercession
Leader
Today we pray in communion with the countries of
Latin America where the M.S.C. have worked for so many years. Many of them have
given their lives in martyrdom.
Reader
1
Following the example of Father Jules Chevalier we
wish to undertake the spiritual way of reparation to restore the image of God
in the disfigured faces of our sisters and brothers.
Reader
2
LORD
JESUS, you are our peace and our reconciliation:
- give us the grace of knowing how to create a more
just and fraternal world.
LORD
JESUS, you make yourself come close to the hearts of the wounded and bruised:
- give us the grace to imitate you wholeheartedly
through our presence among those who are oppressed and discouraged.
LORD
JESUS, you accepted humiliation to redeem us and save us:
- give us the grace to discover your face in all those
who have been wounded by life; may we be able to love them as you love them.
LORD JESUS, your compassionate love has no limits
or barriers:
- give us, along with the people and our confreres
of Latin America, the grace of solidarity with those who live in very difficult
life-situations.
LORD
JESUS…
An alternative prayer
Lord
Jesus, given to us by the Father,
from
your wounded Heart there springs up a new world,
a
new creation of love and mercy
in
the Holy Spirit and in the power of the Resurrection!
Lord
Jesus, make this new world
present
in our time through the Church, your Body:
Consecrate
us in your offering,
renew
us in your love;
maintain
us among our sisters and brothers
as
people who are at their service,
bring
about in us that which is "lacking" in your passion
so
that it may reach all humankind;
from
the desert of our hearts make your life, love,
tenderness,
spring forth…
Then
shall our sisters and brothers be able to draw joy, abundant life,
from
the well-springs of your Heart;
until
that day when we shall be
"new heavens, new earth"
marked
by the seal of the Spirit,
for
the glory of the Father and the triumph of the Lamb! AMEN.
Fifth Day of the Novena
(Saturday 4 December
2004)
Love
“I have loved you with an eternal love”, God tells me. It is I, even I
myself in particular, that God has loved.
Readings
WORD OF GOD (John
3, 14-17)
The Son of Man
must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that
everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Yes, God loved the world so
much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be
lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to
condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.
MSC CONSTITUTIONS
(10, 11)
As
Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, we live our faith in the Father’s love
revealed in the Heart of Christ. We want to be like Jesus who loved with a
human heart; we want to love through him and with him and to proclaim his
love to the world.
Following the example of Jesus, we will
strive to lead others to God with kindness and gentleness, to unite them to him
by love and to free them from fear. Trusting in God’s grace, we will be ready
if necessary, to lay down our lives for them.
JULES CHEVALIER (Book
on the Sacred Heart)
Every creature, O
God, is a “word of love” that you speak to us. May we always be able to
understand what you thereby want to reveal to us of your heart. The smallest
atom, the most fragile flower, our human heart, which you modelled in the image
of the Heart of your only Son, all show us your love. Everything speaks to us
of you up to the day when, at the very apex of creation, you finally “showed”
us, on the Cross, the Heart of your Son, pierced more by love that by the
lance: Sun of suns, light of the world, living light, centre of love, source of
life, grace and blessing! This is your last word! After this word of love, you
are not able to add another! Let us say that Jesus is the manifestation of your
infinite goodness as Father. Even for you, to give more would be impossible!
MEDITATION
From Fr.
Chevalier’s Retraite de 8
jours selon la méthode de St Ignace, (Issoudun, Imprimerie Gaignault, 1904),
p. 17-18. We deliberately retain the presentation of the text as found in
the published work.
What is this
motive?…
God’s love for me.
God says to me, I have loved you with an
everlasting love!… Me!… It is specifically me whom God has so loved,…
ungrateful me,…sinful me… God of surpassing majesty, God of supreme beauty and
limitless perfection, God has loved me… God!… me!… What distance!… The
infinite!… and nothing!… rebellious nothing!… And God has loved this nothing! Loved!
O God of love, make me understand this word: Loved, and with an eternal
love! Before the beginning of the first being that came into existence… before…
an eternity before… God loved me… He alone existed and already he loved me; he
loves ever since he exists, that is from all eternity; he who has always been,
has never been without loving me, and it is through love that he decreed my
creation from all eternity.
A totally gratuitous love!… What did the
infinite owe to nothingness, being to nothing?…
A love of predilection!… To how many
thousands of thousands of beings has not God preferred me! They are and remain
in nothingness… I’m no longer there… I shall never enter it…
Why?
- I have loved you! God tells me.
The human being is created
(I am created, me) to praise, honour and serve God, our Lord.
Our Lord… the
work belongs to the worker… God created me; I belong to him; to him belongs my
understanding… my memory… my heart… etc. To him belongs my body… to him belong
all my moments… all the good things that he gives me or rather that he loans to
me… His is the dominion, absolute dominion, supreme dominion, inalienable
dominion, universal dominion!…
O Lord, beloved Lord! Be, in truth, the Lord
of my whole being… Be so in fact, as you are by right!
Prayers of Intercession
Leader
Today
we pray in communion with those countries which form the Union of Francophone
Africa and with those other African countries where M.S.C. work.
Reader
1
Following
the example of Father Jules Chevalier we have been chosen and called to be
Missionaries of the Love of God in this world.
Reader
2
LORD
JESUS, in your Heart you reveal God's love for us:
-
may we be throughout our lives creative and challenging witnesses of that love
so that the world may believe.
LORD
JESUS, everything in the world is a word of that love which God bestows on us:
-
may we come to acknowledge in our lives the gifts with which you favour us each
day.
LORD
JESUS, your love is at the centre of our brittle lives:
-
because you have chosen and called us to be witnesses of that love to everyone,
make that love, likewise, increase in us.
LORD
JESUS, in you God gives God’s self wholly and without calculation:
-
together with our confreres and faithful
we
ask you to give us fraternal hearts able to live according to the spirit of the
Beatitudes.
LORD
JESUS…
An
alternative prayer
Lord,
you call us to be united here
and
everywhere throughout the world;
you
bring us together to make us rejoice in the experience of your Love:
that
Love received from the Father,
the
Love offered to us by the Holy Spirit,
the
Love which makes us children of the same Father.
Together,
we are the Church
a
people on the way,
a
pilgrim people,
a
people always awaiting communion,
a
gathering of sinners always in need of reconciliation!
Together
with Our Lady of the Sacred Heart,
you
wish us to be, like her, witnesses of hope,
and
you send us as "missionaries" of your Heart
today,
tomorrow, and always.
May
we be so in truth! AMEN.
Prayer to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Sixth Day of the Novena
(Sunday 5 December 2004)
Gratitude
and Thanksgiving
“Jesus is indeed the supreme and infinite
manifestation of infinite Goodness. Moreover, he is the universal Eucharist”
Readings
WORD
OF GOD (Luke 17, 14b-19): The Healing of
the ten Lepers
As they were
going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back
praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and
thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This made Jesus say, “Were not all ten
made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise
to God, except this foreigner”. And he said to the man, “Stand up and go on
your way. Your faith has saved you”.
MSC CONSTITUTIONS (6)
With
our Founder, we contemplate Jesus Christ, united to his Father with bonds of
love and trust. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus gave thanks to his Father
for having revealed himself to the little ones; for he was his Servant,
deeply involved with the poor and with sinners. In the words of Father
Chevalier, “He was happy to pour out the tenderness of his Heart on little ones
and on the poor, on those who suffer and on sinners, on all the miseries of
humanity. The sight of any misfortune moved his Heart with compassion”.
JULES
CHEVALIER (Book on the Sacred Heart)
The soul that is
possessed of a true devotion to the Sacred Heart has no other desire that to
give itself without reserve to this divine Heart. It would like to annihilate
itself for him. In contemplating his incomprehensible mercies and the ineffable
movements of his love, it is transported by the liveliest gratitude. At the
sight of the indifference, coldness, outrages with which his love and benefits
are repaid, it would like to offer itself in return. In a word, the Heart of
Jesus tends to become more and more the preferred object of its thoughts, the
centre of its affections and its unique treasure (Mt 6, 21). He is for it
everything in everything (Col. 3, 11), and soon it will have assimilated his sentiments
(Phil 2, 5) and his life (Phil 1, 21). As is easily understood, that in such a
soul, the divine Heart finds itself loved, honoured and consoled according to
his desires (Luke 17, 21).
MEDITATION
(E.J. Cuskelly,
MSC, Jules Chevalier. Man with a Mission, p. 127-128)
Recognizing
the Love of God for us
and
for all human beings
“We have learned to recognize the love of God in our regard and have
made it our belief” (1 Jn 4, 16).
From the starting point of St. John, one could set out an MSC
spirituality in four different aspects of belief in God’s love:
1. We have learned to believe in the love of God for us personally. This
is a living faith-experience which has provoked the gift of our own hearts to
Christ. From this flows a life of personal dedication to Christ and his
Kingdom.
2. We have believed in the love of God for all men – a love which would
give their lives meaning and purpose, if they would accept it. And here is the
source of all missionary and apostolic effort.
3. Because we believe in this love of God for all men whom he wills to
be saved and come to the knowledge of truth; because we believe that this love
will work through those who consecrate their lives to him, we are confident
that, if we work with courage and perseverance, God will give the increase.
4. And if we are a group that has come together because its members
“have believed in his love”, a real fraternal charity will reign among us.
And when we say that we have learned to believe in the love of God
manifested in Christ, we express the conviction that this love is able to give
meaning and purpose to all human life; that it can answer man’s deep
questioning and quiet the restless human heart. This implies that we live what
I would call “a spirituality of the heart”.
Prayers of intercession
Leader
Today we pray in communion with the Asian
countries, India, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Korea.
Reader
1
In acknowledgement and thanksgiving, together with
Father Jules Chevalier, we believe that God, in the Heart of His Son, loves us
with a human heart.
Reader
2
LORD JESUS, you
give thanks for those little ones who understand better than the wise and
learned:
- give us a child-like heart capable of wonder and
drawn to sing of the marvels God has accomplished for us.
LORD JESUS, it brings you
joy to pour out the tenderness of your Heart on the little ones, the poor and
sinners:
- give us the desire to give thanks in
acknowledging what you bring about in the hearts of those who are scarred by
life and un-loved.
LORD JESUS, you invite us
to prayer and thanksgiving:
- help us to know how to pray like you and with you
so that the world may discover the love with which it is loved.
LORD JESUS, your marvels
shine like the rising sun coming to meet us each morning:
- together with the peoples and our confreres in
India and Asia, may we know how to live every moment in acknowledgement and thanksgiving.
LORD
JESUS…
An
alternative prayer
Wonderful,
O Lord, your Love!
Wonderful
your Heart!
We
praise you,
we
bless you,
we
glorify you,
we
give you thanks,
for
you have chosen us
to
serve in your presence.
Humbly,
we ask of you
that
by sharing in your love
we
become consecrated by the Holy Spirit
into
one body of praise and service,
within
which there throbs the love of your
Heart
for
the Father and the world,
today,
each day, and forever. AMEN.
Prayer to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Seventh Day of the Novena
(Monday 6
December 2004)
Compassion and Mercy
“Mercy everywhere
accompanies his steps
and strength
never abandons him”
WORD OF GOD (Mt 9,
36 & Mt 11, 28-30)
When he saw the
crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like
sheep without a shepherd…
Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you
rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden
light.
MSC CONSTITUTIONS (22)
In the poor and the little ones, in all the
victims of injustice and violence, we will discover the face of Christ. He
asks us to bring his love into their lives. In answer to his call, we
will show our compassion towards them by working courageously to guarantee
their human rights and to change the hearts of their oppressors.
JULES CHEVALIER (Book on the Sacred Heart)
By his
incarnation, the Son of God gave himself to the world. He appeared among us
with a heart full of compassion, love and mercy.
Two attributes seem to dominate in God: mercy and
power. The creature, made in his image, receives the imprint of them in the
most intimate part of its substance, its blood. Science discovers there two
elements (iron and sugar) that seem to correspond to these two virtues. The
Heart of Jesus possesses them to an eminent degree. They are the distinctive characteristic
of his mission. From the cradle to the cross, gentleness and strength appear in
him in an incomparably striking way. Mercy goes with him everywhere and
strength never abandons him.
MEDITATION
(E.J. Cuskelly, MSC, A new Heart and a new Spirit. Reflections on MSC
Spirituality, p. 65-66)
We believe in a compassionate love.
Fr. Chevalier
proposed to his missionaries the mind and example of the Good Shepherd whose
heart was full of compassion. One gets the impression that this is the Christ
he sees in all the Gospels: “During his mortal life, he was happy to pour out
all the tenderness of his heart on the little ones, the humble, the poor, on
those who suffer, on sinners – and all the miseries of mankind. The sight of a
misfortune, an unhappiness or any pain, touched his heart with compassion”
(Chevalier, Meditations, Vol. II, p. 32).
Explicitly and implicitly Fr. Founder refers us to the Christ of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle and High Priest of our faith. In this
epistle, Christ is put forward as the compassionate High-Priest. He is
compassionate and faithful. One aspect of the meaning of “faithful” in this
Epistle is that Christ is faithful in his mercy and compassion. His compassion,
his mercy, his kindness will never fail, and therefore we can always come with
confidence before the throne of grace. High Priests of that time were not
renowned for their sensitivity to human feelings… The author of the epistle
brings out the wonderful, compassionate sensitivity of Christ who was “not unable
to feel for us in our weakness” (Heb. 4, 15).
(E.J. Cuskelly,
MSC, Jules Chevalier. Man with a Mission, p. 129)
“Courage, strength, constancy”, these Chevalier regarded as virtues of
the Heart of Christ, for they express the very qualities of love. He himself
had the courage to undertake difficult enterprises for the cause of Christ – a
courage based on ‘belief in his love’: for example, when he was invited to
accept the vast mission of Micronesia and Melanesia.
Prayers of Intercession
Leader
Today we pray in communion with the new communities
set up in Central Europe and in Russia.
Reader 1
Like Father Jules Chevalier we find compassion and
mercy in the Heart of Christ.
Reader 2
LORD JESUS, your Heart is full of gentleness and
humility:
- stir up within us the
feelings of your Heart so that we may live fully united to you and all the
baptized.
LORD JESUS, yours is a compassionate Heart for
those who suffer:
- give us a heart which
is sensitive to those who suffer so that the burden they bear may be lightened.
LORD JESUS, your heart overflows with mercy for
sinners:
- preserve us from
judgment and condemnation; may our hearts entreat your merciful love.
LORD JESUS, in your Heart is found the gentleness
and strength which come from God:
- together with the people and our confreres of
Central Europe and Russia, we beseech you to favour us with a courageous faith
and a passionate pursuit of mercy.
LORD JESUS…
An alternative prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, in your Heart
you reveal to us your Father's immense love.
You are kind and merciful to sinners;
you are good to all those who suffer;
you are generous towards those who are deprived;
you are the strength of those who are weak,
you are light for the blind;
you are freedom
for the oppressed.
You want us to
become like you
in your love for the Father and for humankind,
our sisters and brothers.
Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, make our
hearts like yours.
May we, in our turn, make known the wondrous love
of God
through our sharing in the mystery of your death and
resurrection;
help us to unite to your joy and suffering
our own joy and sufferings. AMEN.
Prayer to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Eighth Day of the Novena
(Tuesday 7
December 2004)
Supplication
“God, seeing in
us the image of his son, the reproduction of his virtues, will show himself
favourable to all our desires”
WORD
OF GOD (John 17, 9-15)
I pray for them; I am not praying for the
world but for those you have given me, because they belong to you: all I have
is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified. I am not in the
world any longer, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy
Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one
life us. While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your
name. I have watched over them and not one is lost except the one who chose to
be lost, and this was to fulfil the scriptures. But now I am coming to you and
while still in the world I say these things to share my joy with them to the
full. I passed your word on to them and the world hated them, because they
belong to the world no more than I belong to the world. I am not asking you to
remove them from the world, but to protect them from the evil one.
MSC
CONSTITUTIONS (14)
As
Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, we must be convinced of the necessity of a
deep interior life that is open to the Holy Spirit, so that we may grow in
faith and knowledge of the mystery revealed in the Heart of Christ. This will
give us the strength to remain faithful to the mission and spirit of the
Society.
JULES
CHEVALIER (Book on the Sacred Heart)
We will pray to
the Sacred Heart with all the fervour of which we are capable. Prayer consoles,
prayer disarms, prayer obtains all things. At times it takes the form of
petition or praise, at times thanksgiving or gratitude. Prayer, even by itself
so efficacious, becomes as it were all powerful when united with the sentiments
of Jesus’ Heart and when we imitate the example he gave us; because then God,
seeing in us the image of his Son, through the reproduction of his virtues in
us, will show himself well-disposed towards whatever we desire.
(J.G. Bovenmars,
MSC, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, p. 358-359)
Most
people who come to visit a shrine of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart or who direct
themselves to her in prayer, do so to ask her some favour. In fact, the very
first prayer addressed to her, painted by Fr. Piperon on a statue of Our Lady
after the conversation “under the four lime trees” in 1859, and repeated by
many millions afterwards, was: “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, pray for us”.
When we come to our Mother we tell her about our worries, all kinds of worries,
and we invoke her help. When Jesus taught us how to pray he included the
petition “Give us this day our daily bread”. Our natural needs should be
included, but Jesus taught us to be concerned in the first place with his great
concern: “Hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come”. The spiritual values should
come first.
Our Lady was concerned about the
embarrassment of the couple at Cana who had no more wine, but the gift of wine
was a sign of the much greater gift of the Holy Spirit for which she prayer in
the Cenacle. Jesus preached the Kingdom of the Father; he came that we might
have life in abundance: life as children of God, as brothers and sisters. When
he healed the lepers, this was a sign of the spiritual healing he brings; when
he cured the blind, this signified that he was the light of the world. Hence
when we pray to our Lady we should be concerned primarily about the life she
obtained for us by giving Christ to the world, by sharing in the work of
redemption. We should pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit who renews our
hearts; we should pray that our faith and our love may grow, that she may help
us to enter into the new covenant more deeply; that we may be faithful.
Material and temporal benefits can be asked for also, in as far as they are in
line with God’s plan for us. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart leads us to her Son;
our personal plans and desires may not always be conducive to our true growth.
The Lord taught us also to pray: “Not my will but thy will be done”, and Our
Lady shared in Jesus’ surrender. In the school of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
we learn how to live, and also how to pray.
Leader
Today
we pray in communion with the North American countries: Canada and the United
States.
Reader
1
Our
Founder, Father Jules Chevalier, in bad times and good, knew how to ask God for
all that he needed to carry out his mission.
Reader
2
LORD JESUS, you who
beseeched the Father during your Passion:
-
may the desire grow in us to conform our lives to God's will,
in
asking Him for what we really need.
LORD JESUS, your prayer is communion with the
Father in the Spirit:
-
awaken in us the desire for true prayer, so that we shall be in communion with
you and with one another.
LORD JESUS, you seek on our behalf what is rightly
for our benefit:
-
awaken in our hearts a strong and wholehearted desire to live authentically the
mission you have confided to us.
LORD JESUS, you desire what God desires so that His
Kingdom come:
-
together with the people and our confreres in the U.S.A. and Canada, we beseech
you to bring about in us the desire to work gratuitously for your Kingdom.
LORD
JESUS…
An alternative prayer
I
lift my eyes towards your PIERCED HEART, Lord Jesus!
YOUR
HEART, where human beings and your Father give themselves the kiss of peace:
-
Blessed are you, and take pity on us, O Lord.
I
lift my eyes towards your PIERCED HEART, Lord Jesus!
YOUR
HEART, an open door to the inexpressible love of the Trinity:
-
Blessed are you, and take pity on us, O Lord.
I
lift my eyes towards your PIERCED HEART, Lord Jesus!
THAT
HEART, whence you renew us after the image of your Father:
-
Blessed are you, and take pity on us, O Lord.
I
lift my eyes towards your PIERCED HEART, Lord Jesus!
THAT
HEART, source of all the sacraments:
-
Blessed are you, and take pity on us, O Lord.
I
lift my eyes towards your PIERCED HEART,
Lord Jesus!
YOUR
WOUNDED HEART, on which we are all grafted:
-
Blessed are you, and take pity on us, O Lord.
Holy
Trinity, present in us, we adore You,
Father,
source of all gifts,
Son,
perfect in welcoming and sharing,
Spirit
of the Father and the Son, Spirit of communion,
bring
us together as one body,
of which Jesus becomes the Heart!
Prayer to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Ninth Day of the
Novena
(Wednesday 8 December 2004)
Union
“Our union with Jesus is beyond all our imagining. It is a mysterious
and profound union of life”
WORD
OF GOD (John 15, 1-4.26-27)
I am the true
vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit
he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear
even more. You are pruned already by means of the word that I have spoken to
you. Make your home in me, as I make mine in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit
all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you
remain in me… When the Advocate comes, whom I shall send to you from the
Father, the Spirit of truth who issues from the Father, he will be my witness.
And you too will be witnesses, because you have been with me from the outset.
MSC
CONSTITUTIONS (11)
Jesus
is the perfect model of our consecrated life; his love is our inspiration
and driving force. Therefore, our life and apostolate will be marked by a
sincere and fervent love of the Incarnate Word. This love will urge us
constantly to share the sentiments of the heart of Christ.
JULES
CHEVALIER (Book on the Sacred Heart)
Our personal
union with Jesus is beyond all our imagining.
It is not a simple union of resemblance and of love, it is a mysterious
and profound union of life: Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, Jesus is
the head and we are the members.
Everything
that God does has the purpose of obtaining our heart; all his works are a
petition: “My son, give me your heart”. Give! for love is free; I do not want to steal your heart
against your will; give it to me; that
is enough for me: possessing your heart, I shall possess you entirely,
and through you all the rest.
Doubtless
God, by right as Creator, owns both us and all things; his dominion is
absolute; but he still wishes to possess all by gift; he gives
everything and wishes that everything be given to him. And as it is through
love that he gives all, he wishes that all be given him through love.
Just
as there is in God a gift which is the Gift, the supreme gift,
the gift that contains all, that gives all, the gift that is his own
very love or the Holy Spirit, so there is in us a gift which is our gift, the
supreme gift of the whole of creation, the love in our soul. And the organ of this
love is the heart. We possess
the whole of God's Heart, he wants to have the whole of ours: My son give me
your heart!
MEDITATION
(E.J. Cuskelly,
MSC, A new Heart and a new Spirit, p. 116-117)
It
is not a sweet, valentine heart that we contemplate. The symbol of the “deep
things of God”, of the inner life of Christ in the depths of his personality is
“the pierced Heart”. This is the real symbol and sign of the special love that
was Christ’s; only this expresses the reality of what that love asked from Him…
Christ’s side was pierced by the soldier’s lance. This was far more than the
infliction of a wound on a body already dead. It was the outward sign of the
inner reality of the heart which, while living, was torn by the tension between
the love of the Son and the weakness of our sinful flesh. His inner life of
love, with all that it cost, is here revealed. In the heart of the Son, God’s
law is a delight; but in the heart of a son of Adam it is learned and given through
suffering and blood-sweat in the “Not my will, but thine be done”. It is
only through this total surrender that the prophetic words come true about the
new heart that God will give his people. If we want our prayer to be heard:
“Give to us, Oh Lord, a heart renewed”, we know where to look for inspiration
and strength.
We profess to be
Missionaries of the Heart of Christ. We say that we wish to make our own the
sentiments of his heart. I suggest that we need long and serious reflection on
this deep sentiment of “obedience” in the heart of Christ.
MSC Prayer of
Consecration
on
the occasion of the Jubilee of 2004
Leader
Today we are in communion with all M.S.C.s
throughout the world and in particular with those who have gathered at Issoudun
with Father General to renew our religious consecration at the end of this
Novena.
MAY
THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS BE EVERYWHERE LOVED! FOREVER!
Father,
source of everything that is good,
we
give you thanks:
You
so loved the world that you gave us your Son!
We
thank you for your Messenger,
who
took to himself a human heart like ours,
a
Heart through which he could love and bless us.
In
this Jubilee Year, together with Father Chevalier,
we
lift our eyes towards this adorable Heart,
which
we daily continue to wound
in
our sisters and brothers.
through
our violence, our injustice,
our
egoism and our indifference.
Father
of Jesus and Our Father,
you
formed our human hearts
by
focusing your gaze on the Heart of your Son,
who
would be born of the Virgin Mary.
Continue
in us today
what
you have so marvellously begun!
Give
to all Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
the
strength to travel with joy
on
Calvary's narrow way
and
to live out each day their consecration in the Church
and
for the world so that your Kingdom may come!
With
Our Lady, we contemplate
the
one who has been pierced.
He
has given up his Spirit, he has closed his eyes,
he
can no longer speak.
But
there remains for him, as "love's last word",
The
wound in his Heart "open forever more".
LORD
JESUS,
you
have called us to follow you and serve you.
So
that the world may come to know your love,
we
entrust ourselves to the infinite mercy of your
Heart,
and,
supported by the gift of your Spirit,
we
renew today our consecration
in
the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
May
your Spirit of love,
Our
Lady of the Sacred Heart
and
St. Joseph
help
us to remain faithful to your call
and
to our vocation,
here
and everywhere in the World!
AMEN.
All: Our Lady of the Sacred Heart,
we pray to you today
with
the same confidence which
characterized
Father Jules Chevalier
in his time.
Reader: In this anniversary Novena,
we place ourselves under
your protection
to share our Founder's
faith,
the audacity to the
point of folly of his projects,
the poverty of the means
at his disposal,
the courage of his
commitments,
his fidelity to prayer,
his understanding of a
worldwide mission,
his care for the
powerless and the poor,
his passionate love for
the Heart of Jesus,
since we bear, as he
promised you,
the name of Missionaries
of the Sacred Heart.
All: Our Lady of the Sacred
Heart,
with you and like you
we raise our eyes to
your Son.
We contemplate
the One who was Pierced,
his open Heart.
Reader: In this anniversary Novena,
we ask through your
intercession,
Our Lady of the Sacred
Heart,
the grace to carry out
our vocation and our
mission
here and everywhere throughout the world,
so
that Love may be loved and
the world may thereby be
renewed.
May the Lord consecrate
us
in the truth of his
Love,
gather us together in
his Unity,
send us on his Mission,
and give us a share in
His Spirit.
All: Our Lady of the Sacred
Heart,
be forever our Mother
so that, following your
advice,
we may "always do what your Son
tells us!"
AMEN.
[1] All the texts attributed to Fr. Jules Chevalier are taken from his book: The Sacred Heart of Jesus, 4th Edition, Paris, 1900, 512 pages.
[2] The members of Our Lady of
the Sacred Heart associations, the affiliated priest associates, the members of
our Third Order etc., united in this 'perpetual cult' of adoration and
reparation, from one great family, a united people within whom the divine Heart
is honoured "…in spirit and in truth (J. 4, 24) where he has established
his kingdom of peace and love!" (Chevalier, op.cit., p.420).
[3] It might seem that the works undertaken by the M.S.C. Society should in themselves be sufficient to ensure the success of our dear devotion… Nevertheless it has occurred to us that there was wanting to that grouping one particular element which would link them together and complement them all; it is that special work which we are now recommending under the name of a Perpetual Cult of Honour and Reparation towards the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Chevalier, op.cit., p.419).