Hidden Prayers of Jesus

Of the prayers of Christ our Lord on this occasion (after the Transfiguration) I will record as far as I can the following one: 

"My eternal Father, in compliance with Thy will I gladly haste to satisfy Thy justice by suffering even unto death. Thus shall I reconcile to Thee all the children of Adam, paying their debts and opening to them the gates of heaven which have been closed against them. I shall seek those who have turned away and lost themselves, so that they may be restored by the force of My love. I shall find and gather together the lost of the house of Jacob (Is. 56,8), raise up the fallen, enrich the poor, refresh the thirsty, cast down the haughty and exalt the humble. I wish to vanquish hell and enhance the glories of the triumph over Lucifer (I John 3, 8), and over the vices which he has sown into the world. I wish to raise up the standard of the Cross, beneath which virtue, and all those that put themselves under its protection, are to fight their battles. I wish to satiate My heart with insults and affronts, which are so estimable in Thy eyes. I wish to humiliate Myself even to death at the hands of Mv enemies, in order that our chosen friends may be consoled in their tribulations and that they may be honored by high rewards, whenever they choose to humiliate themselves in suffering the same persecutions. 0 beloved Cross! When shalt thou receive Me in thy arms? 0 sweet ignominies and affronts! When shalt thou bear Me on to overcome death through the sufferings of My entirely guiltless flesh? Ye pains, affronts, ignominies, scourges, thorns, torments, death, come to Me, who wish to embrace you, yield yourselves to My welcome, since I well understand your value. If the world abhors you, I long for you. If the world, in its ignorance, despises you, I, who am truth and wisdom, love and embrace you. Come then to Me, for in welcoming you as man, I exalt you as the true God and am ready to efface the touch of sin from you and from all that will embrace you. Come to Me, ye pains, and disappoint Me not; heed not My Omnipotence, for I shall permit you to exert your full force upon My humanity. You shall not be rejected and abhorred by Me as you are by mortals. The deceitful fascination of the children of Adam in vainly judging the poor and the afflicted of this world as unhappy, shall now disappear; for if they see their true God, their Creator, Master and Father, suffering horrible insults, scourging’s, the ignominious torment and destitution of the Cross, they will understand their error and esteem it as an honor to follow their crucified God."    (Vol3 Bk2 Chap6) 

  On this occasion (Holy Thursday in the Cenacle) the Redeemer composed a new canticle by which He exalted the eternal Father for having in His Son fulfilled the figures of the old Law and for thus advancing the glory of His holy name. Prostrate upon the earth, He humiliated himself in His humanity before God, confessing, adoring and praising the Divinity as infinitely superior to His humanity. Then addressing the eternal Father, He gave vent to the burning affection of His heart in the following sublime prayer. 

"My eternal Father and infinite God, Thy Divine and eternal will resolved to create this My human nature in order that I may be the head of all those that are predestined for Thy glory and happiness and who are to attain their true blessedness by availing themselves of My works. 

For this purpose, and in order to redeem them from the fall of Adam, I have lived with them thirty-three years. Now, My Lord and Father, the opportune and acceptable hour for fulfilling Thy eternal will has arrived, the greatness of Thy holy name is about to be revealed to men and Thy incomprehensible Divinity, through holy faith, is to be made known and exalted among all nations. It is time that the seven sealed book be opened as Thou hast commissioned Me to do, and that the figures of old come to a happy solution (Apoc. 5, 7). 

The ancient sacrifices of animals, which prefigured the one I am now voluntarily to make of Myself for the children of Adam, for the members of My mystical body, for the sheep of Thy flock, must now come to an end, and I beseech Thee in this hour to look down with an eye of mercy. If in the past Thy anger has been placated by these ancient figures and sacrifices which I am now about to abrogate, let it now, My Father, be entirely extinguished, since I am ready to offer Myself in voluntary sacrifice to die for men on the Cross and give Myself as a holocaust of My love (Eph. 5,2). 

Therefore, Lord, let the rigor of Thy justice be relaxed and look upon the human race with eyes of mercy. Let Us institute a new law for men, by which they may throw down the bars of their disobedience and open for themselves the gates of heaven. Let them now find a free road and open portals for entering with Me upon the vision of Thy Divinity, as many of them as will follow My footsteps and obey My law." 

The eternal Father graciously received this prayer of our Redeemer and sent innumerable hosts of His angelic courtiers to assist at the wonderful works, which Christ was to perform in that place.

Read: Volume III Book II Chapter X 

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At the Last Supper the entire heaven was transplanted to the Cenacle of Jerusalem; for of such great importance was the magnificence of this work, by which the new Church was founded, the law of grace established and eternal salvation made secure. 

For a better understanding of the doings of the incarnate Word, I must remind the reader, that He possessed two natures in one Person, the Divine and the human nature united in one Divine Person of the Word; hence the proper activities of both natures are rightly attributed to one and the same Person, just as the same Person is called both God and man. Consequently, when I say that the Incarnate Work spoke and prayed to the eternal Father, it must not be interpreted as meaning, that He prayed or spoke in as far as He was Divine, since in Divinity He was equal to the Father; but in as far as He was human, inferior and composed of body and soul as we ourselves are. 

This prayer Christ our Redeemer made in the presence of the Apostles, but without any exterior manifestation. The most Blessed Mother, who from Her retreat observed and followed Him, prostrated Herself upon the floor and, as His Mother, offered to the eternal Father the same petitions as her Son. 

"My Father and eternal God, I confess, praise and exalt Thy infinite essence and incomprehensible Deity, in which I am one with Thee and the Holy Ghost, engendered from all eternity by Thy intellect, as the figure of Thy substance and the image of Thy individual nature (John 10, 30; Ps. 119, 3; Heb. 1, 3). In the same nature, which I have assumed in the virginal womb of My Mother, I wish to accomplish the Redemption of the human race with which Thou hast charged Me." 

"I wish to restore to this human nature the highest perfection and the plenitude of Thy Divine complaisance; and then I wish to pass from this world to Thy right hand, bearing with Me all those whom Thou hast given Me without losing a single one of them, for want of willingness on Our part to help them (John 17, 12)." 

"My delight is to be with the children of men (Prov. 8, 31) and as, in My absence, they will be left orphans, if I do not give them assistance, I wish, My Father, to furnish them with a sure and unfailing token of My inextinguishable love and a pledge of the eternal rewards, which Thou holdest in reserve for them."

"I desire that they find in My merits an easy and powerful remedy for the effects of sin, to which they are subject on account of the disobedience of the first man, and I wish to restore copiously their right to the eternal happiness for which they are created." 

"But since there will be few who will preserve themselves in this justice, they will need other assistance, so that they may reinstate themselves and strengthen themselves in the way of justification and sanctification by being continually furnished with new and exalted gifts and favors of Thy clemency in their dangerous pilgrimage through life." 

"It was Our eternal decree, that they should have created existence and participate in Our Divine perfections and happiness for all eternity; and Thy love, which caused Me to assume a nature able to suffer and welcome the humiliation of the cross (Philip 2, 8), would not rest satisfied, until it invented new means of communicating itself to men according to their capacity and Our wisdom and power." 

"These means shall consist in visible and sensible signs adapted to their condition as sentient beings and causing invisible effects in the spiritual and immaterial part of their natures. To advance these high ends for Thy exaltation and glory, eternal Lord and Father, in My name and in that of all the poor and afflicted children of Adam, I ask the fiat of Thy eternal will. If their sins call out for Thy justice, their neediness and misery appeal to Thy infinite mercy. At the same time I, on My part, interpose all the works of My humanity, which is indissolubly bound to My Divinity."

"I offer my obedience in accepting suffering unto death; My humility, in subjecting Myself to the depraved judgment of men; the poverty and labors of My life, the insults of My Passion and Death, and the love, which urges Me to undergo all this for the advance of Thy glory and for the spreading of Thy knowledge and adoration among all creatures capable of Thy grace and happiness." 

"Thou, O eternal Lord and My Father, hast made Me the Brother and the Chief of men, and hast destined them to partake eternally of the joys of our Divinity (Colos. 1, 18). As Thy children, they are to be heirs with Me of Thy everlasting blessings (Rom. 8, 17), and as members of My body, they are to participate in the effects of My brotherly love (I Cor. 6,15)." 

"Therefore, as far as depends upon Me, I desire to draw them on toward My friendship and to see them share in the goods of the Divinity, to which they were destined in their origin from their natural head, the first man."

"Impelled by this boundless love, Lord and Father, I ordain, that from now on men may reenter into Thy full friendship and grace through the sacrament of Baptism, and that they may do so as soon as they shall be born to daylight; and their desire of renascence into grace, which they cannot in their infancy manifest on their own account, shall, with Thy permission, be manifested for them by their elders." 

"Let them become immediate heirs of Thy glory; let them be interiorly and indelibly marked as children of My Church; let them be freed from the stain of original sin; let them receive the gifts of faith, hope and charity, by which they may perform the works of Thy children: knowing Thee, trusting in Thee, and loving Thee for Thy own Self. 

Let them also receive the virtues by which they restrain and govern disorderly inclinations and be able to distinguish, without fail, the good from the evil. Let this Sacrament be the portal of My Church, and the one which makes men capable of receiving all the other favors and disposes them to new gifts and blessings of grace."

"I ordain also, that besides this Sacrament, they may receive another, in which they shall be confirmed and rooted in the holy faith they have accepted, and become courageous in its defense as soon as they shall arrive at the use of reason." 

"And because human frailty easily falls away from the observance of My law and since My charity will not permit me to leave them without an easy and opportune remedy, I wish to provide the Sacrament of Penance. Through it men, by acknowledging their faults and confessing them with sorrow, may be reinstated in justice and in the merits of glory promised to them. Thus shall Lucifer and his followers be prevented from boasting of having so soon deprived them of advantages of Baptism." 

 
"By the justification of these Sacraments men shall become fit to share in the highest token of My love in the exile of this their mortal life; namely, to receive Me sacramentally under the species of bread and wine in an ineffable manner. Under the species of bread I shall leave My body, and under the species of wine, My blood. In each one of them I shall be present really and truly and I institute this mysterious Sacrament of the Eucharist as a heavenly nourishment proportioned to their condition as wayfaring men; for their sake shall I work these miracles and remain with them until the end of the coming ages." (Matth. 28, 20). 

"For the strengthening and defense of those, who approach the end of their lives, I moreover appoint the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, which shall at the same time be a certain pledge of the bodily resurrection of those thus anointed." 

"In order that all may contribute proportionately to the sanctification of the members of the mystical body of the Church, in which by the most harmonious and orderly cooperation all must have their proper position, I Institute the Sacrament of Ordination to distinguish and mark some of its members by a special degree of holiness and place them above the other faithful as fit ministers of the Sacraments and as My chosen priests. Although they derive all their powers from Me, I nevertheless wish that it should flow from Me through one of their number, who shall be My Vicar and the Chief, representing My Person and act as My high priest. Into his keeping I deposit the keys of heaven and him all upon earth shall obey. "

"For the further perfection of My Church I also establish the last of the Sacraments, Matrimony, to sanctify the natural union of man and wife for the propagation of the human race. "

"Thus shall all the grades of My Church be enriched and adorned by My infinite merits. This, eternal Father, is My last will, whereby I make all the mortals inheritors of My merits in the great storehouse of grace, My new Church." 

Read: Volume III Book II Chapter II

Then the Master of life, leaving the band of eight Apostles at that place and taking with Him saint Peter, saint John, and saint James, retired to another place, where they could neither be seen nor heard by the rest (Mark 14, 33). Being with the three Apostles He raised His eyes up to the eternal Father confessing and praising Him as was His custom; while interiorly He prayed in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zacharias, permitting death to approach the most innocent of men and commanding the sword of Divine justice to be unsheathed over the Shepherd and descend upon the Godman with all its deathly force. 

In this prayer Christ our Lord offered Himself anew to the eternal Father in satisfaction of His justice for the rescue of the human race; and He gave consent, that all the torments of His Passion and Death be let loose over that part of His human being, which was capable of suffering. From that moment He suspended and restrained whatever consolation or relief would otherwise overflow from the impassible to the passible part of His being, so that in this dereliction His passion and sufferings might reach the highest degree possible. The eternal Father granted these petitions and approved this total sacrifice of the sacred humanity. 

The Lord permitted this sorrow to reach the highest degree both naturally and miraculously possible in His sacred humanity. This sorrow penetrated not only all the lower faculties of His human life in so far as His natural appetites were concerned; but also all the highest faculties of His body and soul, by which He perceived the inscrutable judgments and decrees of the Divine justice, and the reprobation of so many, for whom He was to die. This was indeed by far the greater source of His sorrow, as we shall see farther on. He did not say that He was sorrowful on account of His death, but unto death; for the sorrow naturally arising from the repugnance to the death He was about to undergo, was a minor fear. The sacrifice of His natural life, besides being necessary for our Redemption, was also demanded as a return for the joy of having in His human body experienced the glory of the Transfiguration. glorious as of the sorrowful mystery. This they themselves now understood, being informed thereof by an especial enlightenment.

..The Lord separated Himself a short distance from the three Apostles. He threw Himself with His Divine face upon the ground and prayed to the eternal Father: "Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from Me" (Matth. 26, 38). 

This prayer Christ our Lord uttered, though He had come down from heaven with the express purpose of really suffering and dying for men; though He had counted as naught the shame of His Passion, had willingly embraced it and rejected all human consolation; though He was hastening with most ardent love into the jaws of death, to affronts, sorrows and afflictions; though He had set such a high price upon men, that He determined to redeem them at the shedding of His lifeblood.

.. Jesus treated with the eternal Father about an affair, which was by far the most important of all, namely, in how far the Redemption gained by His Passion and Death should affect the hidden predestination of the saints. In this prayer Christ offered, on His part, to the eternal Father His torments, His precious blood and His Death for all men as an abundant price for all the mortals and for each one of the human born till that time and yet to be born to the end of the world; and, on the part of mankind, He presented the infidelity, ingratitude and contempt with which sinful man was to respond to His frightful Passion and Death; He presented also the loss which He was to sustain from those who would not profit by His clemency and condemn themselves to eternal woe. Though to die for His friends and for the predestined was pleasing to Him and longingly desired by our Savior; yet to die for the reprobate was indeed bitter and painful; for with regard to them the impelling motive for accepting the pains of death was wanting. This sorrow was what the Lord called a chalice, for the Hebrews were accustomed to use this word for signifying anything that implied great labor and pain.

This chalice then was so bitter for Christ our Lord, because He knew that His drinking it would not only be without fruit for the reprobate, but would be a scandal to them and redound to their greater chastisement and pain on account of their despising it (I Cor. 1, 23).

I understood therefore that in this prayer Christ besought His Father to let this chalice of dying for the reprobate pass from Him. Since now His Death was not to be evaded, He asked that none, if possible, should be lost; He pleaded, that as His Redemption would be superabundant for all, that therefore it should be applied to all in such a way as to make all, if possible, profit by it in an efficacious manner.

This agony of Christ our Savior grew in proportion to the greatness of His charity and the certainty of His knowledge, that men would persist in neglecting to profit by His Passion and Death (Luke 22, 44). His agony increased to such an extent, that great drops of bloody sweat were pressed from Him, which flowed to the very earth. Although this prayer was uttered subject to a condition and failed in regard to the reprobate who fell under this condition; yet He gained thereby a greater abundance and secured a greater frequency of favors for mortals. Through it the blessings were multiplied for those who placed no obstacles, the fruits of the Redemption were applied to the saints and to the just more abundantly, and many gifts and graces, of which the reprobates made themselves unworthy, were diverted to the elect. The human will of Christ, conforming itself to that of the Divinity, then accepted suffering for each respectively: for the reprobate, as sufficient to procure them the necessary help, if they would make use of its merits, and for the predestined, as an efficacious means, of which they would avail themselves to secure their salvation by cooperating with grace. Thus was set in order, and as it were realized, the salvation of the mystical body of His holy Church, of which Christ the Lord was the Creator and Head.

Read: Volume III Book II Chapter XII