Sacred Heart
Even though we cannot gather physically this year, we have a wonderful opportunity to remain close in heart and prayer. I warmly invite you to experience a novena together in preparation for Good Friday from April 10th to 18th so that, despite distances and borders, we may remain united in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Each day, we will take a special moment to meditate on the beautiful reflections offered by Sister Marie du Sacré Cœur Bernaud. We will mark our communion with the sign of the cross, the Creed, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary, and will conclude with confidence with these words: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, we trust in You.” Through this novena, let us reaffirm our joy in being a Guard of Honor, aware that we form a vast chain of prayer across the planet. On Good Friday, we invite you to gather together spiritually at 4 p.m., the hour when the Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ was pierced by the lance. Please share this novena with as many of your members involved in your parish, diocesan, or national centers as possible. Glory, love, and honor to the Sacred Heart!
With all my friendship and in communion of prayer,
Fr. Christian Catayée, Director General of the Honor Guard
Novena Day 1 (April 10): “Who has watched with more faithful love over His sweet, wounded and desolate Heart, to heal His wounds, to compensate Him for the ingratitude of others and the defections of almost everyone? Our heavenly Mother is the most perfect model of the consolers of the wounded Heart of Jesus. Guardian of the treasure that Heaven and earth cannot contain, sentinel of her Son, She alone can teach us how we can love Him, console Him, and glorify Him. We wish to walk only by holding the blessed hand of this good Mother, to act only under her divine gaze: what surer way to reach Jesus, to console and delight His Heart!”
Day 2: “‘He has done all things well,’ cried the crowds of Judea who pressed forward at the Savior’s feet. And Jesus Christ, speaking, acting before the crowds eager to see and hear Him, seemed to say to all: “Look and do likewise.” Now all the beauties with which the Savior’s life shone, all the goodness that exhaled from His adorable person, all the perfections that radiated from His holy humanity, emanated from His most sweet and most noble Heart: as a flower springs from its stem; as a flame escapes from its hearth.
Day 3: “Each of us, upon entering life, finds our cross ready; it is tailored to our measure, it is imposed on us by God, it grows with us, it identifies with our being, it will not leave us even in the midst of glory where, transfigured and luminous, as we ourselves will then be, it will be the subject of our eternal thanksgiving. »
Day 4: “The Holy Church, despite sorrows and trials, unites herself each day with the hymns sung to the glory of her Divine Spouse. At each dawn, she intones her Gloria in excelsis Deo. And the faithful continue with their mother: we praise you, Lord, we bless you, we give you thanks for your great glory! It is the hymn of the earth uniting with the hymn of heaven in the beautiful worship of divine praise. Let us soar toward the Lord, delight in his joy, and thus we will share in the happiness of the elect!”
Day 5: “Queen of the Sacred Heart! Nothing better expresses the power exerted over the Heart of Jesus by his most sweet Mother. If God the Father conferred upon the Incarnate Word, His Only Son, the principality over all creation, Mary, by her divine motherhood and the privileges that flow from it, is invested with a suppliant power over the Heart of her Son. As good as she is powerful, she constantly extends her arms to her children on earth to help them, her hands open to shower them with blessings, her heart inclined toward the poor, the little ones, and the weak to assist them in all their needs.
Day 6: “After having made us with His divine hands, after having made each of us a masterpiece, the Heart of Jesus offers to remake us as many times as, by yielding to the grip of evil, the lusts of the world, the seductions that surround us, and our own weakness, we have damaged this masterpiece of His love. Having become a ruin through sin, we would be totally powerless to restore ourselves if His Heart did not take pity on us and come running to reconstitute us and restore us to a state of grace.”
Day 7: “We need varied knowledge for our intelligence, delicate and profound emotions for our heart, dreams for our imagination, satisfactions for all our senses; in a word, we want everything and to enjoy life! It’s normal that most people of our time speak this way, since they lack faith! But among souls, others arise who seek, recognize, and accept God’s will alone as sons. This is the only thing necessary. Thus freed from earthly things, living by God’s will alone, we would always be in truth, calm, joy, or rather, in the divine! »
Day 8: “Who has not met and admired some elite souls who have reached the pinnacle of holiness? What clarity in their gaze, what sweetness in their words, what kindness in their welcome, what unalterable serenity in the midst of the most diverse and even the most painful events? These noble and great souls give peace, radiate it around them. They are the most beautiful manifestation of the reign of God in his creatures. Let us sow peace, give peace, let us be angels of peace! In doing so, we will glorify our beloved King who proclaimed himself the “Prince of Peace”!”
Day 9 (April 18): “When slander reaches us, suffering breaks us, disappointments follow one another, losses ruin us… our nature rebels against so much pain. But grace is there, and soon the blessed word, the “yes” of filial acceptance, reaches our lips, bringing us into God’s plans and sanctifying us at the same time. How this disposition pleases our Divine Father. Once again, let us say it again, our salvation is contained in this simple little word: Yes! Yes to the calls of grace, yes to the providential events revealing His Will to us; yes, always yes.”
To conclude, let us gather before our crucifix at 4 p.m. and pray this prayer:
Most Precious Offering Holy Father! Receive as a sacrifice for the needs of the Church, and in reparation for the sins of men, the Precious Blood and Water flowing from the Wounded Heart of Jesus, and have mercy on us. O Jesus, deign to apply this Blood and Water to all souls, especially to those of poor sinners and to mine. Purify and save all men by the help of your merits, and finally, grant us to enter into your most loving Heart and dwell there forever. Renew in us the grace of fidelity to our commitment to the Guard of Honor. Amen.