Discover 5 short prayers on the Passion revealed to the saints by Jesus Christ and the graces He promises to those who keep these devotions!
Offering of the Bitterness of Our Lord’s Passion
I offer to You, O Lord, all the bitterness of Your Passion, in reparation for the offenses committed against You.
Promise
Once when Jesus Christ appeared to St. Mechtilde, He spoke to her concerning His Passion, saying: “I make over to you all the bitterness of My Passion, that you may offer it to Me again, as though it were your own possession. And whoever shall do this shall receive double at My hand, and whenever he renews this offering he shall assuredly receive the double; and this is that hundredfold which a man receives in this life, and in the world to come, life everlasting.”
Sighs of Love and Tears of Devotion
WITH heartfelt grief, I sigh while considering Your Holy Passion, O Lord, and I beg You to wound my heart with the arrow of Your love.
Promise
“Whenever anyone sighs toward Me with love in meditating on My Passion, it is as though he gently touched My wounds with a fresh-budding rose, and I wound his heart in return with the arrow of My Love. Moreover, if he sheds tears of devotion over My Passion, I will accept them as though he had suffered for Me.”
—Our Lord to St. Mechtilde
Crown of Thorns Prayer
DEAR Lord, I am grieved when I consider Your sad condition when You wore the Crown of Thorns upon Your holy head. I desire to withdraw the thorns by offering to the Eternal Father the merits of Your Wounds for the salvation of sinners. I wish to unite my actions to the merits of Your Most Holy Crown, so that they may gain many merits, as You have promised. Amen.
Promise
“The Holy Crown is for the faithful soul a source of merit . . . The Crown of Thorns will merit for you a crown of glory . . . A single soul performing her actions in union with the merits of My Holy Crown may gain more than many others.”
—Our Lord to Sr. Mary Martha Chambon
The Five Holy Wounds
JESUS, Saviour of the world, have mercy on me.
You to Whom nothing is impossible, bestow mercy to the wretched.
O Christ, Who by Your Cross has redeemed the world, hear us.
Hail, Jesus, my loving Spouse. I salute You in the ineffable joys of Your divinity; I embrace You with the affection of all creatures, and I kiss the sacred wound of Your love.
The Lord is my strength and my glory; He is my salvation.
Promise
Our Lord made known to St. Gertrude that if any one of these prayers is repeated five times in honor of the Five Wounds of the Lord, spiritually kissing the wounds devoutly, adding some prayers or good works, and offering them through the Heart of Jesus, they will be as acceptable to God as the most arduous devotion.
O Sacred Head Surrounded
O SACRED Head surrounded
By Crown of piercing thorn!
O bleeding Head, so wounded,
Reviled and put to scorn!
Death’s pallid hue comes o’er Thee,
The glow of life decays,
Yet angel hosts adore Thee
And tremble as they gaze.
I see Thy strength and vigor
All fading in the strife,
And death, with cruel rigor,
Bereaving Thee of life;
O agony and dying!
O love to sinners free!
Jesus, all grace supplying,
O turn Thy face on me!
In this Thy bitter Passion,
Good Shepherd, think of me,
With Thy most sweet compassion,
Unworthy though I be;
Beneath Thy Cross abiding,
Forever would I rest,
In Thy dear love confiding,
And with Thy presence blest.
—St. Bernard of Clairvaux
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This article is taken from a chapter in Prayers and Heavenly Promises by Joan Carroll Cruz which is available from TAN Books.
