Good and merciful Jesus —my blessed Savior!— what marvelous virtue Thou dost display in the flood of sorrows, sufferings, and humiliations, which overwhelmed Thy Sacred Heart in Thy passion from Gethsemane to Calvary!  What humility, what meekness, what resignation to the divine will, what patience, what charity!  Thou dost pray for those who outrage Thee.  Thou offerest Thy sufferings for those who persecute and afflict Thee.  How unlike I am to Thee, my divine Model!  How great is the change that must be effected in me, if I wish to be Thy true disciple and to bear a resemblance to Thee!  In all sincerity, however, I pray:  “Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.”  

How different a rule of life, how great a reform of conduct is required of me before I shall be able to say with the Apostle:  “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal 2:20).  How unwilling I am to bear the slightest pain!  How I shrink from the lightest cross!  How impatient I am in sufferings, disappointments, and contradictions!  And yet the Holy Ghost tells us, “Jesus Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps” (1 Pt 2:21); and again, “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer” (2 Tim 3:12).

By the merits of Thy most blessed passion and death, I shall henceforth look upon pains and sufferings and humiliations as blessings sent me from Heaven as a means to make me become more Christ-like, to atone for my sins, to wean me from the love of self and the gratification of my passions, to teach me the vanities of the world, to lead me to greater perfection —in a word, to make me a saint.  I shall remember my Savior’s words, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Lk 9:23).

O Jesus, loving King, we beg of Thee through the intercession of Thy holy and sorrowful Mother, the penitential spirit, the spirit of humility, obedience, and sacrifice, the grace of mortifying our pride and self-love. Sweet Heart of Jesus, so terribly pierced and afflicted in Thy passion and death, be my Love!  Thy kingdom come!  May I live henceforth only to love Thee, to follow Thee, and to serve Thee!  Amen.