Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Meditating on Our Lord's Passion and Death

In my admittedly biased view, there is no greater, more inspirational, more fruitful, more important way to meditate on Our Lord's Passion during Lent than by reading Luisa Piccarreta's Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord told Luisa: “Oh, how I would love that even one single soul for each town did these Hours of my Passion! I would hear Myself in each town, and my Justice, greatly indignant during these times, would be placated in part.”

At the age of 17, Our Lord invited the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta to meditate continuously on the last 24 hours that He suffered during the course of His Passion, beginning with the moment when He said good-bye to His Mother (that is, before instituting the Eucharist) and ending with the moment when He was buried.

After Luisa Piccarreta had been living continuously the Hours of the Passion for over thirty years, Saint Hannibal Maria Di Francia, who had been appointed as the Ecclesiastical Censor for all her writings, commanded her under Holy Obedience to put them into writing. Seeing the wealth of its content and glimpsing all the good that they would do to our souls, Saint Hannibal began having the Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ printed. One chapter is devoted to each of the 24 hours (events) of His Passion in chronological order.

This book has Church approval and in fact received the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat six separate times between 1915 and 1938, in both Italian and German editions.

Luisa wrote in 1914:

Another time I was lamenting to Jesus, because after so many sacrifices to write these Hours of the Passion, very few were the souls who were doing them. And He: “My daughter, do not lament - even if there were only one, you should be content. Would I not have suffered my whole Passion even if one soul alone were to be saved? The same for you. One should never omit good because few avail themselves of it; all the harm is for those who do not take advantage of it. And just as my Passion made my Humanity acquire the merit as if all were saved, even though not all are saved, because my Will was to save everyone, and I received merit according to what I wanted, not according to the profit which creatures would draw; the same for you: you will be rewarded depending on whether your will was identified with my Will in wanting to do good to all. All the harm is for those who, though being able to, do not do them. These Hours are the most precious of all, because they are nothing less than the repetition of what I did in the course of my mortal life, and what I continue to do in the Most Holy Sacrament. When I hear these Hours of my Passion, I hear my own voice, my own prayers. In that soul I see my Will - that is, wanting the good of all and repairing for all - and I feel drawn to dwell in her, to be able to do what she herself does within her. Oh, how I would love that even one single soul for each town did these Hours of my Passion! I would hear Myself in each town, and my Justice, greatly indignant during these times, would be placated in part.” Oct. 1914, vol 11.

Some of the above information came from this web site: http://www.passioiesus.org/en/horasdelapasion/que_son.htm

Online versions of the Hours are available at the above website and also at http://catholicdivinewill.blogspot.com/2008/06/twenty-four-hours-of-passion.html
Check Amazon.com for printed copies. 

Nota Bene: I have been informed that an authoritative source states that the Hours of the Passion are not included in the so-called moratorium on publishing Luisa's writings. The Archbishop responsible for the Cause of the Beatification of Luisa Piccarreta has issued the moratorium, pending final Church approval of her books and the appearance of an official translation. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzO24tYoe_9TLW1QZUsxN21rVWc/edit?pli=1

Posted on Ash Wednesday, Feb 18, 2015 by Frank Rega, www.lifeofluisa.com



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