The Twenty-Four Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The 24 Hours of the Bitter Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Luisa Piccarreta, the Little Daughter of the Divine Will

† Fifth Hour: From 9 to 10 PM †

First Hour of Jesus' Agony on the Mount of Olives

Preparation before Each Hour

Preparation for the Three Hours of the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane

My sorrowful Jesus! Attracted by Your love, I come to keep You company in the Garden of Olives. I know that You are calling me, but I ask myself: Why these impulses of love? Is my Jesus, persecuted by His enemies, perhaps in such a state of affliction that He desires my company? I hurry along on wings of love, but I shudder as I enter the Garden of Olives in the darkness of the night. It has become cold. The leaves of the trees move softly, as if whispering in a dream, announcing sorrow, sadness and death for the man of sorrows.

The stars in their mild glow are intent on looking at Jesus, as it were, with weeping eyes. As the tears move them to deep compassion, they reproach me for my ingratitude. I tremble. Groping my way forward in the dark, I seek the Master with the cry: “Jesus, where are You? Are You drawing me to You and not letting me see You? Are You calling me and hiding Yourself?" But no echo answers my voice, terror everywhere, horror and deep silence. I listen and hear a shuddering breath - I have really found Jesus. But what a sad change! This is no longer Jesus, whose face shone with ravishing beauty at the Eucharistic Supper. Now He is afflicted with a deadly sadness that distorts the natural beauty of His features. I become agitated at the thought that I may no longer hear His voice. So I clasp His feet, become bolder, embrace Him, place my hand on His forehead to hold Him upright, and call out softly, “Jesus, Jesus!” And He, struck by my voice, looks at me and speaks:

"My soul, you here? I was waiting for you, because the sadness that everyone is leaving Me alone has weighed Me down deeply.

I was waiting for you to be a spectator of My sufferings and to drink with Me the cup that My heavenly Father has prepared for Me. We will drink it together, but it will not be a cup of refreshment but of unspeakable bitterness. I felt the need for a loving soul to sip at least a few drops of it, so I have called you. So accept it, share My sorrow with Me and give Me the assurance that You will not leave Me alone in this hour of abandonment." Well then, my Jesus, immersed in sadness, we drink the cup of Your suffering together. I will never leave Your side.

Meanwhile, Jesus enters the agony of death and endures torments as horrible as never seen.

Jesus, my love! Tell me, why are You so sad, so sorrowful, alone in this garden and on this night? I know it is the last of Your mortal life. Only a few hours, then Your Passion will begin. I thought I would meet Your mother, Magdalene and Your faithful apostles here. Instead, I find You alone and in an agony that appears like a cruel death without letting You die.

My greatest good and my everything! Do You give me no answer? O speak to me! ...But it seems that Your voice fails You, so great is Your sadness; even Your vision, otherwise full of light, is so sad. It seems to me that You are looking for comfort and help. Your pale face, Your lips, parched with the fire of love, Your trembling form, Your violently beating heart, which is searching for souls, give You an expression that one might think You wanted to pass away from one moment to the next. Everything tells me that You feel alone and desire my company.

Now I am close to You, my Jesus. But my heart fails when I see You lying on the ground. I take You in my arms and press You to my heart. I want to count all Your torments, one after the other, all the hardships inflicted on You, in order to offer You consolation and compassion in the name of all people. My Jesus! While I hold You in my arms, Your sufferings increase.

I feel that a stream of fire is circulating in Your veins. The blood is boiling in them, it seems as if it wants to burst the veins and pour out of them. Tell me, my dear, what is wrong with You? I see no scourges, no thorns, no nails, no cross. Yet, when I lay my head against Your Heart, I feel thorns piercing it and merciless scourges sparing no part of Your divine person, inside or out. I see Your hands contracted even more convulsively than nails could have done. Tell me, my sweet good, who wields such power within You, too, that makes You suffer death as many times as it allows torment?

Now it seems to me that my blessed Jesus opened His lips and spoke to me in a weak and dead voice: "Daughter, do you want to know who torments Me more than the executioners? And why the torments they inflict on Me are almost nothing compared to what I am suffering now? It is love, eternal love, that makes Me suffer all the pain to the marrow in its entirety, which the executioners make My person endure little by little. Yes, it is love that reigns over Me and in Me. Love becomes a nail for Me, love becomes a scourge, love becomes a crown of thorns. Love is everything to Me, love is My everlasting suffering, while what I suffer in My humanity is only temporary. Child, enter into My Heart, lose yourself in My Love. Only in it will you understand what I have suffered for you and how much I have loved you. In this way you will learn to love Me too and to suffer for love alone."

My Jesus! Since You invite me into Your heart to let me see Your love, I come. But what do I see? The wonders of love, which crowns You not with natural thorns but with thorns of fire; does not torment Your adorable body with scourges of cords but with scourges of fire; does not pierce Your hands and feet with nails of iron but with nails of fire. Everything is fire. It penetrates You to the very marrow of Your bones, transforms Your whole humanity into fire, and causes You unspeakable and deadly sufferings even more bitter than those of Your Passion. It prepares in Your Blood a bath of Love for all souls who want to wash themselves clean of every stain and acquire the right to be children of Love.

O Love without limits! I feel overwhelmed in the face of Your immensity. I realize that I would have to be all love in order to enter into Your love and understand it. But I am not, my Jesus. Since You nevertheless desire my company, I ask You to fill me completely with love, to crown my head and my every thought with the crown of love.

Make also, infinite Love, that there be nothing in me that is not animated by the life of love. I also ask You to nail my hands and feet with the nails of love, so that everything in me may become love and strive for love; that I, clothed by love, nourished by love, may be nailed to You by love and that nothing in and outside of me may dare to separate me from love.

Reflections and Practices

by St. Fr. Annibale Di Francia

In this hour, abandoned by His Eternal Father, Jesus Christ suffered such a Burning Fire of Love as to be able to destroy all possible and imaginable sins, and to Enflame with His Love all creatures, even from millions and millions of worlds, and all the lost souls of hell if they were not eternally obstinate in their evil. Let us enter into Jesus, and after we have penetrated into His whole Interior, in His most intimate Fibers, in those Heartbeats of Fire, in His Intelligence which was as though Enflamed, let us take this Love and clothe ourselves inside and out with the Fire that Burned Jesus. Then, coming out of Him and pouring ourselves into His Will, we will find there all the creatures. Let us give the Love of Jesus to each one of them, and touching their hearts and minds with this Love let us try to transform them completely into Love. Then, with the Desires, with the Heartbeats, with the Thoughts of Jesus, let us form Jesus in every creature’s heart. And then we will bring to Him all the creatures who have Jesus in their heart, and we will place them around Him, saying to Him, “O Jesus, we bring You all creatures with as many Jesuses in their hearts to give You relief and comfort.

We have no other way to give relief to Your Love other than to bring every creature into Your Heart!” By doing this, we will give true relief to Jesus, since the Flames that Burn Him are such that He keeps repeating, “I Burn, and there is nobody who takes My Love. O please, give Me relief, take My Love and give Me love!”¹

In order to conform to Jesus in everything, we must go back into ourselves, applying these reflections to ourselves: in all that we do, can we say that there is a continuous flow of Love running between us and God? Our life is a continuous flow of Love that we receive from God; if we think, there is a flow of Love; if we work, there is a flow of Love. The word is Love, the heartbeat is Love; we receive everything from God. But do all these actions run toward God with Love? Does Jesus find in us the sweet enchantment of His Love running toward Him, so that, enraptured by this enchantment, He may overflow with us with more Abundant Love?

If we have not placed the intention of running together in the Love of Jesus in all that we have done, we will enter into ourselves and ask Him forgiveness for causing Him the loss of the sweet enchantment of His Love toward us.

Do we let ourselves be worked by the Divine Hands, as the Humanity of Jesus Christ let Itself be worked? We must take everything that happens within ourselves, which is not sin, as a Divine Crafting. If we do not do so, we deny the glory to the Father, we make Divine Life escape, and we lose sanctity. Everything we feel within ourselves—Inspirations, mortifications, Graces—is nothing other than a Crafting of Love. And do we take those things as God wants? Do we give Jesus the freedom to work, or by taking everything in a human manner and as meaningless, do we rather reject the Divine Crafting, forcing Him to fold His Arms? Do we abandon ourselves in His Arms as though we were dead in order to receive all the blows that the Lord will dispose for our sanctification?

My Love and my All, may Your Love inundate me everywhere, and Burn all that is not Yours. And may my love run always toward You, to burn away all that could sadden Your Heart.

¹ How sublime is the thought: Jesus is so inflamed by love that it becomes a fire of love in Him, overwhelming and consuming Him. He now goes around looking for souls who relieve Him of this fire that makes Him suffer so much by absorbing His flames. They refresh Him by sharing the embers of love with Him. How true it is that the heart of Jesus is the thorn bush that burns without being consumed. The thorn bush itself, however, is a collection of thorns that are on fire. My God! If Jesus so eagerly desires to be loved by us, how easy it would be for us to be inflamed by His love if we actively set about dying to ourselves!

Prayer of Thanksgiving after each Holy Hour on the Mount of Olives

Sacrifice and Thanksgiving