Dr. Wojciech Kosek
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Meditations led by four people:
B, D – women; L, W – men.
This translation was published here on 24 Nov 2023.
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(Duration of meditations with songs: about 40 min.)
(Duration with praying the Holy Rosary: about 70 min.)
Prayer before the beginning of the Holy Rosary
(Duration of this prayer: about 6 min.)
D Dearest Savior! Behold, You have given me the grace to kneel before Your Divine Majesty, hidden under the cover of Your human body, while it hides under the whiteness of the Most Holy Host, under its shape, its smell, its taste… (0:21)
L With deep reverence, I bow in adoration before You, Creator of the Universe, hidden and yet present just as I am here now… You are here physically, in the flesh, bodily as every human being living on Earth. (0:27)
B Though my eyes are incapable of perceiving Your loving eyes, though my ears will not supply me with the sweetness of Your speech, though my hands will not give me the warmth of Your hands… though none of my senses can give me the certainty that “here the Lord Jesus is in a physical manner,” my heart beats strongly from the first moments of my being here with You, who are present here where the species of the Sacred Host are! (0:43)
W My heart, rejoice, for here is the Lord… here is my Savior… here is my Love! I love You, Jesus! I love You, Jesus! I thank You that You remain in the miracle above miracles, hiding under the species of the Sacred Host! You are here as I am here… You are here physically, in the flesh! We are here together, close to each other, looking into each other’s eyes, trying to contain the emotion from so much of our intimacy. (0:45)
W Song: O the Silent White Host – 1st stanza (0:59)
D Welcome, Jesus, Son of Mary! You are the true God, hidden under the species of the Sacred Host, hidden under its whiteness, shape, smell, taste… I know, O Jesus, and I confess with faith, instructed by the Roman Catholic Church, that here, where I see the white, round, unleavened Bread, there is no bread, but You are here, though invisible! You are Jesus, the Son of the Living God, present here in His human body. (0:53)
L I believe profoundly and confess with a heart filled with wisdom derived from the teaching of the Church, that here under the white color, under the round shape, under the sweet taste of the Host, You are hidden, whom my heart loves… You are here invisibly, but really, as I am really here. (0:37)
B You are here, Jesus Christ, Son of Mary, Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, True God, God who took on body and blood and all human nature through the ‘Yes’ of the Immaculate Mary at the Annunciation. You became human, one of us, to make Yourself known and loved by all of us in a human way… and to love us in our human way…, to love and to speak of Your love in human words and deeds. (0:51)
W Welcome, the Lamb of God! Welcome, Lover of me! Welcome, Unmatched in conquering my love for You! Welcome, welcome, welcome, I love You, I love You, I love You! You are here, O Jesus, You are here, O Jesus! I raise my hands, worshipping Your name. You are here, O Jesus, You are here, O Jesus! I love You, Jesus; I love You, Jesus; I love You, Jesus! Amen. (0:40)
Meditation 1.
Lord Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 6 min.)
W Then going out he went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. When he arrived at the place he said to them, “Pray that you may not undergo the test.” After withdrawing about a stone’s throw from them and kneeling, he prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.” (And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him. He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.) When he rose from prayer and returned to his disciples, he found them sleeping from grief. He said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not undergo the test.” (Luke 22:39–45) (1:12)
B O Jesus, drenched in bloody sweat! Behold, an Angel appears to You, an Angel of consolation… He desires to strengthen You, O Jesus, suffering actually in the reality of Your and our human nature. You, Almighty God, have embraced the realism of the Incarnation to the end. You suffer… You suffer indeed… You do not pretend. You are weakened by the enormity of the pain… this pain that crushes Your entire humanity. (0:48)
L What harm! The One who worked miracles so that people would believe…, the One who healed to relieve sisters and brothers who were so afflicted…, is now to be killed! It is the gratitude of our hearts?… Such is the gratitude of our hearts? (0:30)
D In this hour, when You suffer immeasurably, O Jesus abiding in prayer in the Garden…, Jesus, accept the consolation that comes from my decision, which I make now, for the love of You: I will always be grateful to every person who has been willing to bestow even the slightest good on me. I love You, Jesus Christ, God, Master, Teacher of true love… Teacher of true loving. (0:46)
D Song: Your Heart, Jesus, is Burning with Love – 1st stanza (0:43)
W St. John Chrysostom, the Church father, who died at the beginning of the fifth century, teaches about the necessity of prayer after the Holy Mass in this way: [1] “If you want, I can show you whose footsteps follow those who leave before the end of the Holy Banquet and do not pray thanksgivings after it. I must say something that may be unpleasant for you to hear, but I have to do so because of the negligence arising in the behavior of many of you. Judas walked away and went out just after participating in the Last Supper that night when all of them were still seated at the table. He is imitated by those who go out before the last thanksgiving. If he had not gone out, he would not have committed treason; if he had not left table companions, he would not have been killed; if he had not found himself outside the sheep-fold, the wolf would not devour him; if he had not gone away from the Shepherd, he would not have become the prey of wild beasts. Judas went to the Jews earlier, whereas apostles, together with the Lord, left after singing the psalms. You see, it is what happened then that happens every time here during the last prayer after the Holy Sacrifice.”
B Now, let us think about this; let us consider this for fear of punishment. Christ gives you His own Body, but you do not want to express Him your gratitude with any words? Don’t you thank Him for what you have received? When you have eaten the usual food, you pray thanksgiving, having got up from the table. However, when the spiritual food is given to you, which much surpasses all visible and invisible creations, though you are a man who is a poor creature, you do not want to express Him your gratitude with any words and act? It deserves a heavy penalty. (0:50)
Meditation 2.
Scourging of the Lord Jesus
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 6 min.)
D So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified. The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort. They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him. They began to salute him with, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him out to crucify him. (Mar 15:15–20) (0:47)
L Dear Lord Jesus! Here is the next stage of Your way from the Upper Room to Golgotha: You are at the moment when Pilate holds judgment on You. I know this was a long time ago, two thousand years ago. However, I believe that through the power of the Blessed Sacrament with which You fed me during the Holy Mass, You are carrying me to Your time and place above time and space from my parish church – the church of Divine Providence – from the twenty-first century. (0:40)
B Yes, with Your divine right hand, You bring me and all of us into Your time, to the place where Pilate judges You, where Pilate passes the most unjust sentence of scourging You… Beloved Jesus! Behold, the wondrous power of the Sacrament of Communion, or the Sacrament of our union: I can genuinely be now with You where the cruel scourging begins. O Jesus, O Dearest Friend, I want to be a source of consolation for You, a counterbalance to the violence of the blows inflicted on You by Your torturers. What a heartbreaking experience it is, this unjust judgment on You, the Truth and Love Eternal! How not to reflect on the frailty of our human nature, tainted by sin, capable of passing unjust judgments… What a gulf separates us from You, O Jesus, the Man of God, and from Your Immaculate Mother Mary… (1:24)
W You know I love You, Jesus, but I lack the strength to become like You, O Beloved. I love You, and I am sure that You, in Your love for me, can and want to give me this coveted likeness… Do it now… now… now, in this hour of grace… Do it by the power of Your preternatural presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Make it, please, by the power of our union, by the power of my participation in those minutes of Your silence in the face of the hostility of Pilate’s soldiers scourging You… (0:50)
B Song: Your Heart, Jesus, is Burning with Love – 2nd stanza (0:43)
W Thanksgiving after receiving Holy Communion has an exceptional value. The teaching about it was given by the Congregation for the Clergy in the document “The Priest and the Third Christian Millennium Teacher of the Word, Minister of the Sacraments and Leader of the Community, 19 March 1999, No. III. 2. e: In this respect, the example of the priest-celebrant is fundamentally important: “celebrating the Eucharist well is an important form of primary catechesis on the Holy Sacrifice” (Congregation for the Clergy, Directory for the Ministry and Life of Priests, Tota Ecclesia, 49). While this is not the immediate intention of the priest, it is important for the faithful to see him prepare well by recollecting himself before celebrating the Holy Sacrifice. They should be able to witness the love and devotion that he has for the Eucharist and, following his example, they should learn to remain, for a while, in thanksgiving after Holy Communion.” (0:47)
D O Jesus! In this mystery, I now ask myself: do I respect the priest’s prayer time after Mass? Is it not because of me that the priest has departed more than once from praying with You to me because I was in a hurry to get something from him? Do I treasure the gift of the time of sacramental union that You, O Jesus, give to Your beloved priests and the faithful? Do I desire to imitate the shepherds who pray in recollection after the Mass is over? (0:37)
Meditation 3.
The crowning of the Lord Jesus with thorns
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 5 min.)
W And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, and they came to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly. Once more Pilate went out and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. And he said to them, “Behold, the man!” (John 19:2–5) (0:41)
B Dear Jesus! I trust that by the power of sacramental union with You, You are now transforming all of us who abide in prayer after the Holy Mass. O Jesus, silent in the face of the aggression of the accusers! I want our transformed hearts to be a source of such consolation for You that You need and expect now – You need it as much as any person who has been harmed… O Jesus, pained in this hour of crowning with thorns! Let the new life of our hearts be like a source from which flows in Your Heart the sense of the reasonableness of this immense suffering which, by the Will of the Father, You accept in expectation of love for You, O Supreme Good, O my only Love! (0:59)
L Drogi Panie Jezu! Patrzę na Ciebie z największym podziwem. Ty, Jezu, będąc Bogiem Wszechmogącym, mógłbyś przecież rozbić wrogich Tobie braci, a jednak tego nie robisz… Składasz ofiarę Ojcu jako źródło mojej przemiany… Kocham Cię, Jezus (0,26). (0:26)
D Beloved Jesus! I thank You with all my heart for this sacrifice now, in this hour of grace, when by the power of the received Holy Communion I am with You in the hour of the crowning with thorns, and when You imperceptibly create in me a new heart – a heart like Your Heart. I love You, Jesus! O Mary, Mother of Jesus, Your son, so unjustly judged through our fault! O Mother, pained by the iniquity of our hearts, pray for us in this hour! Pray that we may be transformed into love by the power of God… With all my heart, I ask this of you, Mary! Amen. (0:53)
D Song: I Want to Give You Everything – 1st stanza (0:47)
W St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori taught this about thanksgiving after Holy Communion, “There is no prayer more agreeable to God, or more profitable to the soul, than that which is made during the thanksgiving after Communion. It is the opinion of many grave writers …, that the Holy Communion, so long as the sacramental species lasts, constantly produces greater and greater graces in the soul, provided the soul is then constant in disposing itself by new acts of virtue. … For this reason, holy souls endeavour to remain as long as possible in prayer after Communion. The Venerable Father Avila, even when he was giving his missions, used to remain for at least two hours in prayer. Father Balthazar Alvarez used to say, that we should make great account of the time after Communion, imagining that we hear from the lips of Jesus Christ Himself the words which He addressed to His disciples: ‘But Me you have not always with you’ (Mt 26:11).” [2] (1:01)
Meditation 4.
The Way of the Cross of the Lord Jesus
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 7 min.)
D “As they led Him away they took hold of a certain Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country; and after laying the cross on him, they made him carry it behind Jesus. A large crowd of people followed Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him. Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ At that time people will say to the mountains, ‘Fall upon us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:26-31). (1:01)
L By the power of the received Blessed Sacrament, You take me, O Jesus, into Your time, into the time of carrying the cross. With deep emotion and poignancy, I thank You from the bottom of my heart for this opportunity! I can be with You; I can relieve You with my presence at least a little, together with Simon carrying Your cross. The cross is Yours…, though it should be a mine cross. You have nothing to repent for, whereas I have. You carry my entanglement in evil. It, at the end of this way, will be nailed to Your cross along with You, with Your body. I will be free from this evil. (1:07)
B I will be free if I now gratefully accept the grace of the transformation of my heart, if I accept from You, O Savior, the grace that You desire to give me right now. I will be free insofar as I am with You now, in this hour of grace… insofar as I believe that the Blessed Sacrament unites me with You being in that difficult hour of Your emaciating out of love for me. Jesus, help me to believe and love You through deep faith… to love You, who are marking successive spans of the earth with the bloody footprints of Your feet… to love You, who are going on the way towards death on the Hill of the Skull – here in the Holy Land, just outside the walls of Jerusalem. (1:19)
W O Jesus! Out of love for me, You took up this path of the Man scorned, the Man cast outside the community, outside the walls of the human family. You, Eternal Holiness, go out outside the walls of the holy city of Jerusalem with the verdict “not fit for the holy people of God.” I go with You – I do not have to be fit either… As long as I remain faithful to You, as long as I fit for the People of the New Covenant… for the People of the Slain Lamb… for the People of Jesus, who, in its faithfulness to God, has no equal… Jesus! May You be strengthened on the way to Golgotha by the awareness of my heart’s gratitude for the gift of Your ministry that I receive in this hour of grace from You – the ministry of freeing me from the iniquity of my heart, from the fear that leads me to utter a lie in defense of my weakness.
D Song: O the Silent White Host – 2nd stanza (1:05)
D We believe, O Beloved Jesus, that the love that we want to show You during this adoration is the fulfillment of the very touching longing of Your Sacred Heart, which You expressed during the apparition to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: [3] (0:22)
L “I thirst with such a terrible thirst to be loved by men in the Blessed Sacrament that this thirst consumes Me. Yet I find no one trying to quench it according to My desire by some return of My love.” (0:27)
Meditation 5.
The death of the Lord Jesus on the cross
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 8 min.)
W When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left. (Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”) They divided his garments by casting lots. … It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun. Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and when he had said this he breathed his last. (Luke 23:33–34, 44–46) (0:56)
B Golgotha, the Hill of the Skull… You were nailed, O Jesus, to a cross firmly fixed in the ground, nailed between two other crosses – two other of our brothers are hung on them. You are dying to give life – the Father will respond to Your Sacrifice with the gift of new life for You and us, Your sisters and brothers. I am here with You, O Jesus, hung between heaven and earth as payment for my sins… I am here with You, O Mary, so pained by my guilt… The Divine power of Holy Communion carries me above time and space and brings me into the most challenging and painful hour of all the hours of Your life… (1:20)
L The power of the Blessed Sacrament carries me to You, O Jesus… to You, O Mary… to be with You… to repent with tears in my eyes for my evil… to comfort Your hearts through my humble presence… to love You with our close mutual relationship here, at Your nailed feet, O Jesus – at Golgotha, at Your cross. (0:36)
D O Dearest Jesus, hanging on the beam of the cross! In this hour, Your mercy transforms me with great power; it transforms everyone who, after receiving You in Holy Communion, abides on the adoration filled with prayer… it transforms everyone who abides with You and Mary in contemplation of the mystery of Your love and Mary’s love… the mystery of the infinite love of Your Divine Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary united to it… (0:51)
W O Jesus! Now is the Eucharistic hour of mercy, an hour similar and partly different from the ‘third hour’ that You revealed to St. Sister Faustina. It is the hour of sacramental, real, genuine presence in Your time of life, at Your feet, nailed to the wood of the cross. This Eucharistic hour of mercy strikes on the clock of eternity, regardless of the position of the hands of the clock measuring the time of human history. This hour always strikes in connection with Holy Communion, received by a person in a state of sanctifying grace. (1:04)
W Song: I Greet You – 1st stanza (0:30)
D St. Teresa of Jesus taught her Carmelite nuns, her sisters, this way, [4]“You may be in the habit of praying while looking at a picture of Christ, but at a time like this it seems foolish to me to turn away from the living image – the Person Himself – to look at His picture. Would it not be foolish if we had a portrait of someone whom we dearly loved and, when the person himself came to see us, we refused to talk with him and carried on our entire conversation with the portrait? Do you know when I find the use of a picture an excellent thing, and take great pleasure in it? When the person is absent and we are made to feel his loss by our great aridity, it is then that we find it a great comfort to look at the picture of Him Whom we have such reason to love.” (0:46)
L O Lord Jesus! Each of us now looks into his heart and asks: Do I trust You? Do I sincerely and earnestly strive to have time for You when I receive You in Holy Communion? Don’t I constantly justify my weaknesses by the lack of time? Is it not possible for me to organize my daily schedule in such a way that I could spend at least fifteen minutes on prayer talk with You after the Holy Mass? (0:43)
B St. Teresa of Jesus also taught her sisters this way, [5] “12. When you have received the Lord, and are in His very presence, try to shut the bodily eyes and to open the eyes of the soul and to look into your own hearts. […] 13. But if we pay no heed to Him save when we have received Him, and go away from Him in search of other and baser things, what can He do? Will He have to drag us by force to look at Him and be with Him because He desires to reveal Himself to us? No; for when He revealed Himself to all men plainly, and told them clearly who He was, they did not treat Him at all well—very few of them, indeed, even believed Him. So He grants us an exceeding great favour when He is pleased to show us that it is He Who is in the Most Holy Sacrament.” (1:38)
Completion of the Holy Rosary
D Beloved Jesus! Behold, we have come with You to the end of the way You passed from the Upper Room to Golgotha two thousand years ago. We believe that the power of the Blessed Sacrament, which we have eaten during the Holy Mass, has genuinely moved us back to the time of Your life, to the Upper Room. Following St. John Paul II, we believe that when You celebrated the Last Supper in the Upper Room, You simultaneously, in some mysterious way, celebrated every Holy Mass Your priests celebrate during their earthly life. [6] (0:48)
W Today, once again in our life, we have received from You the grace to participate in that celebration because every Holy Mass is always that Last Supper You celebrated on the night before Your way to death. In our adoration after the Holy Mass today, we also received the grace to accompany You on this saving path. From the height of the Cross, You descend, our Savior, into the Abyss, into the land of the dead, to come out from there after three days on the morning of Resurrection. (0:40)
B We believe, O Jesus descending into the Abyss, that You descend in this hour of grace also into the Abyss of our souls. With profound devotion, we will now abide in prayerful silence until the end of this adoration in order to open ourselves to Your voice – the voice of the Good Shepherd (cf. John 10:1-18; Heb 13:20), who calls His sheep by name, lovingly addresses each of us, and leads us out of the shackles of the Abyss, and leads us towards the Resurrection. Jesus, the Beloved Shepherd, we now await Your word in the depths of our souls. We await for the Holy Spirit. Amen. (0:45)