My departed Savior! Nature uttered a cry of pain at your passing and mourned Your painful death, recognizing You as its Creator.¹ The angels hover around Your cross by the thousands and thousands, mourning Your death, worshipping You as the true God and accompanying You to Limbo, where You beatify those countless souls who have been waiting for Your arrival for centuries and millennia.

My Jesus! I cannot tear myself away from the cross, I cannot get enough of kissing Your holy wounds, which tell me with insistent eloquence how much You loved me. When I see Your mangled corpse, the wounds so deep that Your bones lie bare, oh, then I think I must die. I want to wash Your wounds with my tears, I want to love You so deeply that my love will heal them and restore Your humanity, which has become completely unrecognizable, to its natural beauty. I want to donate my blood to fill your anemic veins and call You back to life.

My Jesus, what love cannot do! Love is life. I want to give you life with my love. But if mine is not enough, then give me Your love, with which I can do everything. I will certainly be able to give life to Your most holy humanity.

My sweet Jesus! Even after Your death, You want to show me, indeed prove to me, that You love me and have prepared a place of refuge for me in Your Heart. A soldier comes who, obeying a higher power, wants to assure himself of Your death. He opens Your side with a lance, inflicts a deep wound and pierces Your heart. You, my love, shed the last drops of blood and water that Your loving heart still contains. Oh, what does not this wound, which love has opened, say to me! Even if Your mouth has fallen silent, Your heart still speaks, and it speaks to me:

"My child, after I had given up everything, I wanted to open a place of refuge in My Heart for all souls through this lance. This open heart will call out to all without ceasing: 'Come to Me if you want to be saved. In this Heart you will find holiness and become holy, in it comfort in affliction, strength in weakness, peace in doubt and companionship in abandonment. You souls who long for love for Me, if you really want to love Me, then come and take abode in this Heart of Mine. Here you will find true love for Me, glowing flames that will ignite you and consume you completely. Everything has its center in this heart. Here are My sacraments, here is My Church, here is the pulse of her life and the life of all souls.' In this Heart I also feel the desecrations of My Church, the attacks of her enemies, the arrows that strike her, the sufferings of My children who are trampled underfoot. Yes, there is no insult that this Heart of Mine does not feel. Therefore, My child, be your life in this Heart of Mine, defend Me, atone for Me and lead Me to them."

My love! If a lance has wounded Your Heart for me, then I pray that You too may wound my Heart, my inclinations, my desires and my whole being with Your own hands. Let there be nothing in me that is not wounded by Your love. I unite what I suffer with the immense sufferings of our dear Mother Mary, who, when She saw Your Heart pierced, was close to death from pain and love.

My Jesus, in this pierced Heart of Yours I will find my life. Everything I need to be able to work, I will take from this heart. Then my thoughts will no longer be viable themselves, and even if they come, I will make Your thoughts my own. My self-will will also no longer be viable, and even if it stirs, I will cling to Yours. My self-love will die. Should it revive, I will take Your love. Jesus, Your whole life is my life. This is Your will, and this is my will.

Deposition from the Cross

My Jesus who died in death! I see that the disciples are hurrying to take you down from the cross. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who have been in hiding ever since, now want to give you an honorable burial, full of courage and without fear of man. That is why they take up hammer and tongs to fulfill the holy and yet so sad task of untying You from the cross, while Your Mother, pierced with pain, spreads out Her arms to receive You on Her lap.

My Jesus! While they untie You from the cross, I too want to help Your disciples and hold Your holy body. With Your holy Mother I will adore You, show You the tenderness of my love and then close myself in Your heart, never to leave it again.

Reflections and Practices

by St. Fr. Annibale Di Francia

After His death, Jesus wanted to be wounded by a lance for Love of us. And we—do we let ourselves be wounded in everything by the Love of Jesus; or do we rather let ourselves be wounded by the love of creatures, by pleasures, and by attachment to ourselves? Also coldness, obscurity and mortifications, both interior and external, are wounds that the Lord makes to the soul. If we do not take them from the Hands of God, we wound ourselves, and our wounds increase passions, weaknesses, self-esteem—in a word, every evil. On the other hand, if we take them as wounds made by Jesus, He will place His Love, His Virtues and His Likeness in these wounds, which will make us deserve His Kisses, His Caresses and all the stratagems of a Divine Love. These wounds will be continuous voices that will call Him and force Him to dwell with us continuously.

O my Jesus, may Your lance be my guard that defends me from any wound of creatures.

Jesus allows Himself to be deposed from the Cross into the arms of His Mama. And we—do we deposit all of our fears, our doubts and our anxieties in the hands of our Mama? Jesus rested on the lap of His Divine Mother. And do we let Jesus rest by casting away our fears and our agitations?

All: My Mama, with Your Maternal hands remove from my heart all that may prevent Jesus from resting in me.

¹ The earth shook, the rocks cracked, the tombs opened, the dead arose and the curtain of the temple was torn.

Sacrifice and Thanksgiving

Sources:

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