ACTS OF ADORATION +

0 most adorable Jesus, dwelling in the tabernacle! prostrate before the throne of Thy veiled majesty, I, Thy unworthy servant, beseech Thee to receive my profound adoration. I firmly believe that Thou art really present in the Holy Eucharist, as powerful, as amiable, and as adorable as Thou art in heaven.

With the angels of heaven I adore Thee. Thou hast mercifully hidden the splendor of Thy majesty, lest it should deter us from approaching Thy sanctuary; I believe that Thou dwellest on our altars not only to receive our adoration, but to listen to our petitions, to remedy our evils, to be the strength and nourishment of our souls, our powerful Helper, our Refuge, and our Sacrifice.

I hope in that boundless mercy which detains Thee a Prisoner of love in the tabernacle. I love that infinite goodness which induced Thee to institute this Holy Sacrament of the Altar, in which Thou dost communicate Thyself so liberally and so wonderfully to Thy creatures.

I thank Thee for so convincing a proof of Thy love and ardently wish that I could worthily acknowledge all the blessings I have ever received from this fountain of grace and mercy.

I sincerely regret that this precious pledge of Thy love is received by many Christians with so much coldness and indifference. I wish to make amends for my own ingratitude and for all those sinful acts of my life, by which 1 have wounded Thy loving sacred heart.

I adore Thee, 0 my God, present in the Holy Eucharist, as my Creator, my Preserver, and my Redeemer. I recognize Thee as my only Master; I offer Thee all that I have, all that I am, all that depends on me; I offer Thee my mind to think of Thee, my will to serve Thee, my body to labor and to suffer for Thy love.

I am Thine; I give myself to Thee; I consecrate myself to Thee; I abandon myself to Thee; I wish to live and to die for love of Thee.

Amen

ACTS OF THANKSGIVING +

We adore Thee, Christ, and we bless Thee.
Because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

I adore Thee, eternal Father, and I give Thee thanks for the infinite love with which Thou didst deign to send Thy only-begotten Son to redeem me. and to become the food of my soul.

I offer Thee all the acts of adoration and thanksgiving that are offered to Thee by the angels and saints in heaven, and by the just on earth.

I praise, love, and thank Thee with all the praise, love, and thanksgiving that are offered to Thee by Thine own Son in the Blessed Sacrament; and I beg Thee to grant that He may be known, loved, honored, praised, and worthily received by all, in this Most Divine Sacrament.

I adore Thee, eternal Son, and I thank Thee for the infinite love which caused Thee to become man for me, to be born in a stable, to live in poverty, to suffer hunger, thirst, heat, cold, fatigue, hardships, contempt, persecutions, the scourging, the crowing with thorns, and a cruel death upon the hard wood of the cross.

I thank Thee, with the Church militant and triumphant, for the infinite love with which Thou didst institute the Most Blessed Sacrament to be the food of my soul. I adore Thee in all the consecrated hosts throughout the whole world, and I return thanks for those who know Thee not, and who do not thank Thee.

Would that I were able to give my life to make Thee known, loved, and honored by all in this sacrament of love, and to prevent the irreverence and sacrileges that are committed against Thee!

I love Thee, divine Jesus and I desire to receive Thee with all the purity, love, and affection of Thy blessed Mother, and with the love and affection of Thy own most pure heart. Grant, 0 most amiable Spouse of my soul! in coming to me in this Most Holy Sacrament, that I may receive all the graces and blessings which Thou dost come to bestow on us, and let me rather die than receive Thee unworthily.

I adore Thee, eternal Holy Ghost, and I give Thee thanks for the infinite love with which Thou didst work the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation, and for the infinite love with which Thou didst form the sacred body of Our Lord Jesus Christ out of the most pure blood of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to become in this sacrament the food of my soul. I beg Thee to enlighten my mind, and to purify my heart and the hearts of all men, that all may know the benefit of Thy love, and receive worthily this Most Blessed Sacrament.
Amen

ACTS OF REPARATION +

Most adorable Saviour, by the most wonderful prodigy of Thy love for us, Thou dost shut Thyself up in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, in order to be the perpetual Sacrifice of the New Law, the innocent Victim of our sins, the celestial Food of our souls, our kind Physician, our good Master, our powerful Mediator, and our loving Father.

But, alas! with what ingratitude on our part Thine infinite kindness is repaid. Prostrate before Thine altar, where Thou art as really present as in the highest heavens, we come to make reparation for all the injuries and for all the ingratitude inflicted on Thy loving heart in this sacrament.

0 divine Jesus, grant us to make a fitting reparation for all blasphemies, for all profanations, and all sacrileges ever committed; for the want of devotion and neglect of preparation for holy communion, for the little fruit we have drawn from it.

Pardon, 0 Lord, pardon for so many Christians who know Thee not, and who offend. Thee; for so many heretics who insult Thee; for so many impious men and apostates who persecute Thee. By the fervor of our love, we would wish to make amends to Thee for all their contempt, and for all their sacrileges.

How happy should we be, 0 Jesus, could we but make reparation to Thy glory, by our respect, by our zeal, aye, even, by the shedding of our blood. At least, most adorable Saviour, grant us the grace to love Thee in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, with the most tender, the most generous, the most perfect, the most constant love.

Virgin most holy, by thy holy and immaculate heart, make, us enter into the adorable heart of thy divine Son, Jesus Christ.

0 sweet St. Joseph! obtain for me the gift of prayer and of perpetual union with Jesus and Mary.

Amen.

ACTS OF PETITION +

0 my God, how shall I contain my astonishment when I meditate on what Thou hast done for me in this sacrament. Thou, my Redeemer, Christ Jesus, art content to descend from heaven, to place Thyself within the consecrated Host, and to dwell within the tabernacle day and night, solely to exercise Thy love towards me, and to communicate to me the abundance of Thy graces.

Oh, what bounty, what mercy! There appears to me, that in the Divine Sacrament, wherein dwells the Author and Giver of all good, I behold the King of glory, Who, with gentle courtesy, calls me, and invites me, and expects me, that I may go to receive His graces, and be consoled.

Courage, then, my soul; come, let us beg for blessings, and not be weary, but be confident that we shall receive them. “Let us go, therefore, with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid” (Heb. ii. 10).

If I look into my own heart, to discover its needs, that they may be supplied, I find that I am in want of all; for all fails me, and I have no sound virtue, for vice alone predominates in me. My wants are without end, and Thou, my God, discerns them far more clearly than I can do.

I am blind, and without light, and this is the first grace I implore from Thee: “Lord, that I may see” (Luke xviii. 41). Illuminate me, 0 true Eternal Light, Who didst come into the world to enlighten every man; make me to see and to know my vileness, my poverty, my extreme misery, that knowing myself, I may learn humility. Want of humility is the great cause of my evil; I esteem myself too highly, and aspire to be highly esteemed by others; and hence I fall, and fall at every little occasion, without ever amending my faults. All my sins are the effects, the punishment of my pride.

Oh, if I were but humble of heart, as I am under obligation to be! 0 my Jesus, Thou Who hast so abased Thyself in the Blessed Sacrament, almost to nothing, and dwells there, hiding within the sacred Host all Thy glorious gifts, I ask of Thee a true and holy humility, for without this I have neither capacity nor disposition to receive any of Thy graces, and this alone can fit me for them. I know not even what humility is, but I well know that I greatly need it. I ask it of Thee by that stupendous humility which brings Thee to dwell within the Blessed Sacrament. 0 God of all greatness, and of all humility, humble my pride, and give me a humble and contrite heart.

With the grace of humility I also ask of Thee ever to increase in me the graces of faith, hope, and charity. These virtues are of necessity for my salvation, and yet how negligently does my heart make acts of them! How often do I allow a long time to pass without making so much as one act of faith, of hope, or of charity!

0 my Lord Jesus Christ! Who, in the Blessed Sacrament, hast deigned to leave us a mystery of faith, a pledge of hope, a bond of love, give me grace to acquire the good habit of frequently practicing these virtues during my life, that they may avail me in the hour of my death. Make me worthy to live and die in Thy faith, with the firm hope of living and dying in Thy love.

Give me, 0 Lord Jesus! an increase of faith, hope, and charity. But, besides all this, 0 my God! I beseech Thee to give me grace to live in holy charity with all my neighbors. Thou hast commanded me to love them, but I am neglectful in observing this law; some among them I love from inclination, some from interest, and scarcely any purely for Thy love. I love him who treats me kindly, but I do not love him who offends me. Sometimes I intend to love all men, but I have too much reason to fear that in truth I do not love them with that Christian charity which is my duty.

But Thou, in the institution of the Blessed Sacrament, Thou hast left me a model, an example of charity; grant that by Thy grace I may holily imitate Thee. I resolve now to love all men sincerely and cordially for Thy sake, and particularly those who in any way have offended or injured me. All that I most desire for myself, I pray Thee to bestow on them, and to unite this my petition with Thine own prayer upon the cross, when Thou didst intercede for Thy enemies.

Grant, dear Lord, that I may ever live in charity with all, that I may so live as never by any act of mine to break the bond of charity; that I may ever love my neighbor as Thou dost love me. Above all, I humbly beg of Thee the grace to live, in all and through all, resigned to Thy all-holy will.

I accept whatever Thy divine providence shall appoint in my life and in my death; may Thy will in all things alone be done, not mine, 0 Lord! I desire all that Thou wills, and because Thou wills it; and in all circumstances I unite my will with Thine. Therefore, 0 my dear Redeemer, to Thine I now and forever unite my will to that adorable will which in the garden Thou didst, in perfect submission, offer to Thy eternal Father; and I beseech Thee ever so to retain my will in unison with Thine, that nothing shall again disjoin them.

Thou Thyself hast taught me to say, in the Pater Noster, "Thy will be done’ and daily I repeat it, but too often I say the words only with my lips; now at least my heart pronounces them for all time, and in all possible occurrences—“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Today, and in all the days of my life, may Thy most holy will be done in me, for me, by me. Teach me to know what pleases Thee, and give me grace to follow it. Grant me, 0 Lord, to discern, to will, to do, that which pleases Thee, as it pleases Thee, and because it pleases Thee.
Amen.

PRELUDE
I. Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is a "consuming fire." His desire is to enkindle this fire within our hearts.

II. But how often we come before Him like those tepid souls that are "neither hot nor cold " (Apoc. iii. IS).

III. Let us adore Jesus in the tabernacle, and beg of Him that we may no longer remain insensible to the ardent flames of His divine love.

CONSIDERATIONS.
Just as selfishness, severs and puts men asunder one from the other, so love is a unitive power which draws and binds them together. Charity is the social bond of the Christian family. Charity towards God and man is a fire that bums brightest on the Eucharistic hearth, and for this reason the Eucharist is called the ‘Bond of Charity’ towards God and man. The Eucharist is the bond of divine charity. How could human love ever have soared up to God, the Infinite Being, unless His divine majesty had first lovingly stooped down to us? This makes the apostle of love, St. John. cry out: "Let us love God, because God first hath loved us" (1 John iv. 19).

This same cry comes to us from the tabernacle. Could God, indeed, have stooped any lower in order to make us love Him? In the beginning, when He created the world, He veiled His likeness under the created glory of the universe; later on, in the Incarnation. He well-nigh disappeared under the obscurity of the human form; last of all He was, as it were, buried out of sight in the Eucharist, under the material and lowly appearances of bread and wine. This self-humiliation of the Godhead is the origin of our greatness and it is also our chief incentive to love God.

The Holy Eucharist is likewise the bond of fraternal charity. It makes all men neighbors, brings them near to one another, or, at any rate, gives them power to become brethren in Jesus Christ, as St. Paul says: "Now, in Christ Jesus, you, who sometime were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ" (Ephes, ii. 13). This fellowship is created by Baptism, but brought to perfection by the Holy Eucharist, in which Christ mingles His sacred flesh with ours and makes us one body with Him.

Wonderful thing! The Divine Word, in becoming incarnate of His virgin Mother, took upon Him only one human body, but in the Eucharistic communion He takes upon Him the flesh of us all, appropriates it, makes it His own, and so draws us near to one another at the Holy Table, more so even than the members of one family, even like the members of one body: "For we being many are one bread, one body, all, who partake of one bread ’" (1 Cor. x. 17). ’ —"The Names of the Eucharist."

0 most sacred Host, wherein I humbly adore the Incarnate Word! from the depth of my nothingness I raise to Thee my vows of gratitude and love. In Thee alone, 0 my God, I acknowledge my life on earth and in heaven. Thou art my nourishment, my preservation, and my comfort. Ah, my heart, how cold art thou beside this furnace of divine love!

Give back, 0 my soul, with thy fullest measure, the affection of thy Lord; turn to Him thy thoughts and thy desires. He is the bread which satisfies; He is the spring which quenches thirst; He is the treasure which forever enriches. Most foolish art thou if thou sufferest thy love to rest on any other object.

0 my Jesus! I will indeed greatly love Thee; I will love Thee with my whole heart, because Thou art the Infinite Good; I will love Thee with my whole soul, because Thou art the true God; I will love Thee with all my strength, because to Thee I owe all that I have. Jesus, my Love, my Lord, my God, and my All!

Our Lady of the Most Holy Sacrament, Mother and model of adorers, pray for us, who have recourse to thee.

St. Joseph, pray for us, that like thee, we may die in the arms of Jesus and Mary.


PRAYER TO THE HOLY GHOST
0 Holy Ghost, Thou Teacher and Sanctifier, Who givest light and strength to my soul, bless me that I may be more faithful to Jesus, my Savior and my God, Who is hidden in the Blessed Sacrament, and that I may love Him more and more. In the light of the tabernacle I ask of Thee, 0 Holy Spirit, to fill my heart with pure desire for Jesus, the Living Bread. Give me grace to adore Him with the zeal and humble ven­eration of the holy angels; grant that His will may be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that His will be done in my soul. Help me to thank Him for all His gifts, and, most of all, for Himself. By this Holy Sacrament He strengthens souls on earth, gives rest to souls in purgatory, and gladdens souls in heaven. He is the hidden manna, promised by Himself to all who overcome them­selves and love Him. May I taste the sweetness of Jesus! Set up more and more Thy kingdom in my soul, that I may keep my body under and bring it to subjection, lest I should be a castaway from Jesus and from Thee.

SPIRTUAL COMMUNION
0 Jesus, my Savior, Who art truly present in the Blessed Sacrament for the nourishment of our souls! since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, I humbly and earnestly beseech Thee to re­fresh me spiritually. I love Thee above all things and I desire to possess Thee within my soul. Come into my mind to illumine it with the light of heaven; come into my heart to enkindle therein the fire of Thy love. Unite me so intimately with Thee, that it may be no more I that live, but Thou that livest and reigneth in me forever.



FRUIT OF THE VISIT.
I. Behold Christ seated in thy heart, and giving thee food which endureth to everlasting life; regard thyself as satisfied with this most sweet food, and yet out of love hungering for more (Luke xii. 37; John vi. 27; Ecclus. xxiv. 29).

II. Love Him more than all sweetness, more than all pleasant foods; that so, restraining thyself from all excess, thou mayest begin to taste and see how sweet the Lord is (Ps. xxxiii. 9).

III. Ask Him for the gift of most fervent "Love," that God only may be sweet to thee, and that everything which is not God may be distasteful.

Aspiration.
Who am I, thy servant, that Thou hast regarded such a dead dog as I am, and set me amongst the guests at Thy table? (2 Kings ix. 8; xix. 28.)

EUCHARISTIC GEMS.
No tongue can express the greatness of the love which Jesus Christ bears to our souls. Hence that His absence from us might not be an occasion of forgetting Him, before His departure from the world He left us, as a memorial of love, this Most Holy Sacrament in which He Himself has remained.—St. Peter of Alcantara.

Four Visions of St. Mechtilde.
 (About a.d. 1300.)
One day when St. Mechtilde had received holy communion, after contemplating the Sacred Passion of Our Lord, He said to her: "Wouldst thou see in what manner I am in thee and thou in Me?" But she held her peace, considering herself unworthy. In the same moment she saw the Lord under the form of a transparent crystal and her own soul like clear, sparkling water flowing through the body of Christ. As she marveled greatly at the unspeakable goodness of God towards her, the Lord said: "Remember that which the Apostle Paul hath written: ‘I am the least of the apostles . . . but through the grace of God I am what I am’ (1 Cor. xv. 9). Thou also in thyself art nothing, but whatsoever thou art, that through My grace art thou in Me."

Another time when St. Mechtilde, after holy communion, desired to know what God would have of her, she received the following reply: "Let us go out into the fields." And it seemed to her as though she were in a great field in which many plants were to be seen, roses, lilies, violets, and others. By roses were to be understood the martyrs; by lilies, the virgins; widows and the test of the saints were represented by violets and other flowers. In this field sat the Lord, as it were, surrounded on all sides with wheat heaped up; and it was revealed to her that the field represented all those fruits which the Church gathers in out of the Incarnation of Christ. Nightingales and larks also flew around the Lord, singing incessantly with sweet, glad voices. Now the nightingales signified the loving holy souls, while the larks were a figure of those who perform good works with gladness and singleness of heart.

Once, when about to go to holy communion, St. Mechtilde said to the Lord: "My sweetest Lord, write my name upon Thy heart." Then said the Lord to her: "If thou wiliest to communicate, receive Me with such intention as though thou hadst all the fervor and all the love by which a human heart was ever inflamed, and so wilt thou offer Me the highest love which it is possible for a human heart to give. This love will I accept from thee, not as it is in thee, but as thou desirest it should be in thee."

On another occasion when about to communicate she said again: " Write my name in Thy heart;" and thereupon it seemed to her as though the Lord bore certain golden letters on His breast, which were adorned with seven precious stones; and she saw the first letter of her name, and understood the signification thereof. After which when she sought for the names of some whom she had recommended in her prayers, she found the first letter of their names also, adorned with the seven precious stones. The first of these represented purity of heart; the second, steady contemplation of the Consecration; the third, humility; the fourth, increase in good works; the fifth, patience; the sixth, hope; and the seventh, divine charity. She understood therefore that one who would worthily communicate must be adorned with these seven jewels.

My soul, what dost thou? Answer me,
 Love God, Who loves thee well,
Love only doth He ask of thee,
Canst thou His love repel?

See how on earth, for love of thee,
In lowly form of Bread,
The Sovereign Good and Majesty
His dwelling-place hath made.

He aids thee now, His friendship prove,
And at His table eat;
To share the Bread of Life and Love,
His own true flesh thy meat.

What other gifts so great, so high,
Could God Himself impart?
Could Love Divine do more, to buy
The love of thy poor heart?

Though once in agonies of pain
Upon the cross He died,
A love so great not even then
Was wholly satisfied.

Not till the hour when He had found
The sweet mysterious way,
To join His heart in closest bond
To thy poor heart of clay.

How then, amid such ardent flame,
My soul, dost thou not burn?
Canst thou refuse, for very shame,
A loving heart’s return?

Then yield thy heart at length to love
That God of charity,
Who gives His very self to prove
The love He bears to thee.
                       St. Alphonsus.