Dr. Wojciech Kosek
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Meditations led by four people:
B, D – women; P, Z – men.
This translation was published here on 13 Dec 2023.
To see the original Polish text ← click, please!
(Duration of meditations and songs: about 22 min.)
Full text of St. Faustina’s Diary at ← click, please!
Introduction
Z Immediately after the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, we lead a prayer in which we adore the Lord Jesus in the mystery of His Most Holy Body and Blood, a mystery into which He has introduced us during Holy Mass through the gift of Holy Communion. This prayer is at the same time the fulfillment of one of the elements of the first Saturday devotion – a meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary – since it is a meditation on the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God, contained in the first four joyful mysteries of the Holy Rosary. (1:00)
Prayer of praise to the Lord Jesus
Z In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. O Jesus, Holy Host! In this hour of our first Saturday adoration, we wish especially to make reparation for the pain that afflicts Your Heart, O Jesus, and the Heart of Your Immaculate Mother. Today, we do not want to think about our own needs, but above all, we want to make reparation with this prayerful presence for the insults that cause the pain of Your Hearts. Jesus! Mary! We ask for such mature love that we think of You – of You, Jesus; of You, Mary… (0:59)
B In the first part of our prayer vigil, we wish, by the power of Your grace, Jesus, to contemplate the mystery of Your Incarnation and Birth from the Immaculate Virgin Mary, a mystery that opens before our hearts in every sacramental Holy Communion. We believe You will bring us into the depths of this mystery by the power of the grace You have given us with the Holy Communion at the Holy Mass. We confess with deepest reverence that in the Blessed Sacrament, we have received You, the true Incarnate God, the God who willed to enter our world as a man, as one of us. A LONG MOMENT OF SILENCE (1:05)
P Now let us tell Jesus in silence the words of love coming from the heart… and words of faith that He is here. He is physically… in His flesh. He is and loves… He is because loves… A LONG MOMENT OF SILENCE (0:23)
P You are already with me, my beloved Jesus. I greet You, I adore You, Lord of lords, and on my knees, I worship You in humility. I give You thanks, my good God! Thank You for this happiness without measure, that You gave me this grace of faith, that You created for me heaven with stars, that You remained here on earth, with us! What, o Dear Jesus, will I give You for this? – A heart clothed in a robe of innocence. Look, Your child gives You everything, offers himself to You. And now, Jesus, listen, please, to the requests I make to You: I want to love You like Your Mother: when she gave birth to You, she stayed with You, oh, yes… gazing at Your Divine Face. She stayed in awe… she stayed in awe… (1:17)
D Immaculate Mary! Fulfilling Your request from Fatima to consecrate the First Saturdays of the month to the devotion of Your Immaculate Heart, today we – the prayer community of the Parish of Divine Providence in Bielsko-Biała – wish to abide with our priests in another prayer vigil. Just now, Jesus, Your Son, came to each of us under the species of the Most Holy Host. We know that it is your desire, O Mary, that on First Saturdays, we receive Jesus in Holy Communion to make reparation to God for all the evils that grievously wound the Divine Heart of Jesus and your Immaculate Heart. (1:05)
Z We do not want to fulfill Your request in a minimalistic way: we desire to receive Jesus in such a way as perhaps never before. We desire to open our hearts and our time to Jesus now. We desire to consciously, in prayerful concentration, stay with Him longer than usual. In this, we desire to imitate you, Mary: behold, in the mystery of Christmas, we see you gazing with rapture at the Child you have just borne in the grotto of Bethlehem. You do not depart from the grotto. You do not leave Jesus alone, but you are with Him… You are, and with your presence, you love Him… You enter into an ordinary, human, bodily relationship with the ineffable God. You know that He, God, is really there with you bodily – He is like every human being… We look at you, O Mary, gazing at Jesus, and we realize that now, thanks to Holy Communion – thanks to this Divine Gift of Body and Blood – Jesus is also in the same way, viz bodily, with us here… He is so here and desires such a fully human, bodily presence with Him and for Him… (1:51)
Z Song: God is Born – 1st stanza (0:28)
B Dearest Jesus, hidden under the whiteness of the Most Holy Host! It is a marvelous gift that on this first Saturday of the New Year, in the communion of faith with Mary Immaculate and communion with all the saints, we can abide in love before Your Divine Majesty! Though our eyes do not see Your loving eyes, though the word spoken by Your mouth does not reach our ears, though we do not smell the fragrance of Your garments which Your Immaculate Mother wove for You… (0:51)
P Though we cannot feel the beating of your loving Heart, as it was able to Apostle John at the Last Supper, nor experience the warmth of the touch of Your hands with which You so generously blessed Your sisters and brothers… Though You do not make Your presence known in any way, we, thanks to Your grace, accept with profound reverence from the Church the astonishing teaching of Your real bodily presence under the robe of the Most Holy Host. We know that You are here… we know that You are here as any human being… You are and love with Your human Heart by the power of God… (1:03)
D St. Sister Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament recorded in her Diary (No. 1419-1420), “Today there was Night Adoration. I couldn’t attend because of poor health, but before I fell asleep I united in spirit with the sisters at Adoration. … When I immersed in prayer, I was transported in spirit to the chapel, and I saw Jesus in the monstrance, but instead of the monstrance, I saw the glorious face of the Lord, Who said to me, (0:47)
Z ‘What you are seeing in reality, these souls see through faith. O, how pleasing I find their great faith. You see that, although ostensibly there is no trace of life in Me, yet in reality the fullness of that life is there, contained in every Host; but if I am to work in a soul, it must have faith. O, how pleasing a strong faith is to Me.’” (0:38)
B I believe, o Jesus hidden under the covering of the Most Holy Host, I deeply believe that You are here with me. I believe that You are not only spiritually but also in the flesh, that is, in the same physical, bodily, human way as You were in the Promised Land two thousand years ago when You were conceived of the Holy Spirit in the Immaculate Womb of the Virgin Mary, to live as a man, as one of us, for the glory of the Father, and as a man, as one of us, to die out of love for Him and us… You are here as we are here: not only spiritually, but physically, bodily in the same Upper Room gathered together… You are here as God, who is a man, a man of about 33 years old… (1:14)
P You are here… you desire my love… Do I love You as You desire? Is the response to Your presence for me, Your loving presence, my love for You…? As I look now at the white Host in the monstrance, do I know that hidden in the whiteness of the Host is Someone who has a name… who has the name Jesus that is dearest to me… that means “God is Salvation,” who has the name Emmanuel… that means “With us is God”?… (0:45)
P Song: The Hidden Jesus – 1st stanza (0:53)
D I believe that just as You, o Jesus, are hidden under the veil of the Most Holy Host which I see on the altar in a golden monstrance, so You are also hidden in this Host which I can no longer see because since Holy Communion it has been hidden under my heart…Under my heart, You are hidden who love… You love me…You love us… I know You desire to love me… and You desire my loving… (0:42)
Z Jesus, Almighty God, do You really care about my love? I know that You care about it and that the immensity of Your love consists in it that You want me to be able to love You with the same love! O God, You really want me to be like You in love! And I know that You do not require of me any extraordinary effort, an effort beyond my human capabilities… (0:39)
B Jesus, it is not so much that You want me to begin exerting myself in acquiring love but not exerting myself in resisting the Holy Spirit when now, after Holy Communion, He descends and leads me into greater intimacy with You! He, the Holy Spirit, now in prayer after Holy Communion, enables me to love You as You desire from me. He will gradually lead me to the profound conviction that You are here now, just as You were two thousand years ago in the Holy Land… (0:51)
P The Holy Father John Paul II, in his encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem, No. 55, showed how important it is “to know and feel vividly the strength of the tension and struggle going on in man between openness to the action of the Holy Spirit and resistance and opposition to him, to his saving gift. The terms or poles of contrast are, on man’s part, his limitation and sinfulness, which are essential elements of his psychological and ethical reality; and on God’s part, the mystery of the gift, that unceasing self-giving of divine life in the Holy Spirit. – Who will win? The one who welcomes the gift.” (1:06)
P Song: Jesus, Veiled in the Sacred Host – 1st stanza (0:41)
D To accept the Gift… – this is the task set clearly! So, Jesus, do I already know what is worth doing when You, God, come to change bread into Body, wine into Blood, and ordinary time into extraordinary? Do I know what Gift I received a few minutes ago when I received Holy Communion? (0:32)
Z I believe, Jesus, that your presence under the covering of the Most Holy Host, Your sacramental presence, is unique. What does “unique presence” mean to me? I believe that although You give Your graces to me constantly and especially during every prayer, nevertheless, You give them exceedingly abundantly through the sacraments and primarily through the Blessed Sacrament. I believe that during the Holy Mass, You give graces most abundantly – You give here the greatest graces. (0:53)
B Moreover: I believe that the union of love that I receive in Holy Communion is Your greatest gift… I believe, and I thank You with emotion for this greatest gift – union in Holy Communion. (0:21)
P O Jesus! Coming to me in Holy Communion, You – God and Man in one Person – ask me with love thirsting for reciprocity: do you recognize the particular significance of the minutes that flow from the moment when you received Me under the species of the Sacred Host? That is: do you see your Lord and Spouse under the whiteness of the Host, its shape, its fragrance, its taste…? Do you see Me, your Jesus? Are you gifted with the spiritual seeing of the Invisible God who for you became the suffering Servant of Yahweh, the Man rejected by His own? Do you know that I am really here in My wounded body… that I am here bodily, bodily just like you… that I am right beside you, very close to you… that I am for you… with love for you? (1:20)
D You ask me, O Jesus, whether in Holy Communion I perceive an extraordinary time, a time burning with the immensity of Your love… do I appreciate this extraordinary time, hidden under the flowing seconds of time measured by the ordinary clock… do I perceive that the time of Holy Communion is the time of our love… (0:35)
Z You ask me, O Jesus: Do you have good eyesight, and does your heart have the gift of kindness for Me – that gift for which My Heart thirsts? Do you have time for Me after the Holy Mass… time for us to meet in sacramental union… one-on-one… time for spousal love… do you have time-love for Me for which I am thirsting… (0:35)