Dr. Wojciech Kosek
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Meditations led by six people:
L, P, W, Z – men; B, D – women.
This translation was published here on 11 Jan 2024.
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(Duration of meditations with songs: about 41 min.)
(Duration with praying the Holy Rosary: about 70 min.)
Meditation 1.
Lord Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 8 min.)
Z Song: Garden of Olives – 1-2 stanza (1:20)
B O Beloved Lord Jesus! Behold, You enter the Garden at the moment when You are filled with the bitter awareness of the impending betrayal of Judas. Trying to cope with the pain filling Your Sacred Heart, You move away from the Apostles, fall to Your knees, and persist in prayerful agony. The bloody sweat slowly begins to appear on Your temples… oozes onto the dry ground…, moistens it with the redness of Your struggle… (0:41)
P It is a revelation of Your immense tension, a visible sign of how much You now need co-presence and a silent word of unconditional acceptance…, deep comfort in Your hour of trial…, the hand of a friend placed on Your shoulder, powerful with the ability to sustain You, the Incarnate Almighty God, spiritually… (0:35)
D You are praying to the Father. You are entirely focused on Him, on His fatherly, all-powerful love for You. You trust Him implicitly… You make an enormous effort to cling completely to Him, to His Holy Will. You know that He will lead You through a dark valley, at the end of which is the light of new life. (0:37)
L You must endure this tension; You must – despite the trembling of all dimensions of Your humanity, Your human nature. I know that You will endure… Yes, You have the power to survive in the dark valley of trial, to pass it from one end to the other, not to get stuck halfway… (0:31)
B Yes, You have the power to pass from death to life… You have power in Your Heart because You have love in it. You have power because You love… Therefore, You abide in this hour of the triumph of darkness with poignancy. You abide and entrust yourself to the Father. You know that He now desires to bestow upon You the strength necessary to walk unwearyingly up to the summit, up to death,… up to love…, up to the love of unconditional trust in God with Your whole self, totally, without making any exception… (0:54)
W Your love for the Father is more powerful than death, which tries to capture Your Heart. However, it will not succeed in capturing Your Heart. Yes, death will not succeed in knocking down Your love for the Father. It will not prevail! Moreover, behold, the Father sends an Angel to strengthen You. How does the Angel do this? Does he say something to You? Does he show something before the eyes of Your anguished soul? Or does he also show You our prayer community, which, out of love for You, abide in adoration after the Mass, i.e., the Last Supper? (0:50)
D Yes, the angel shows You all the faithful who, having received Holy Communion, abide in prayer of sacramental union with You. Holy Communion is the sacrament of communion, i.e., union. Its divine power unites us with You; that is, it makes us participants in Your dying in Gethsemane, Your saving burning with love. (0:38)
Z I look at the whiteness of the Sacred Host and ask You: What kind of love is the flame of love burning in Your Heart in the Garden, O Jesus? I look at the whiteness of the Most Holy Host, and I see that it is a flame of love thirsting to give Divine life to us, Your brothers and sisters, and, simultaneously, it is a flame of love thirsting for reciprocation, love expecting reciprocation… (0:39)
B Love for love, gift for gift, presence for presence. It is so few, yet so much: the mutual presence of people who love each other. You for us, we for You. It is so few, yet so much. Love, simply love. Love for You has led us here – to adoration. That is why we are here now with You… That is why we are with faith overflowing with love right next to You, Jesus remaining on our knees during prayer after the Mass. (0:50)
P Jesus the afflicted! From the bottom of our hearts, we give thanks for the grace we were given today to participate in the Holy Mass, during which You came into our hearts in the gift of the Word and the miracle of the Holy Communion. Today, we also gratefully give thanks for this grace of participating in Your prayer in the Garden after the Mass is over. Now, when the Eucharistic species of the Most Holy Host abide in our bowels, You make us real participants in Your giving of Yourself to death, Your way towards death, which leads through the Garden. (0:53)
Meditation 2.
Scourging of the Lord Jesus
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 6 min.)
D Song: Your Heart, Jesus, is Burning with Love – 1-2 stanza (1:26)
L Beloved Jesus! You have stood in the center of praetorium – here, where there is a stone pillar. You are tied to this pillar – like every man to whom they are about to inflict the cruel punishment of scourging. You silently receive this violence. You silently offer Your suffering for those who scourge You. I love You, Jesus. (0:36)
B Here are the Roman soldiers, Your brothers, right now beginning their task. They are hitting, hitting, hitting with power… The first wound, the second wound, blood, wound, blood… More and more blood gushes out from the wounds inflicted by the hooks mounted at the ends of their scourges. The blood of the Savior flows… Here, at this stone pillar, the source of life begins to beat, the source of the river of Divine life… (0:35)
W I am close beside You, O Jesus; I am with You and for You. The blood of God, sentenced for love, stirs my heart to its depths… How do You endure this? From where does this poignant humility in You, which submits without complaint to unjust punishment? Are You not afraid that with these dozen hours of life that are now beginning, You will compromise what You, as a Teacher of Divine truth, have revealed in three years of preaching, often in searing heat days? Are You not troubled by the fear that when You are shown to the world as a convict, You will question the truth for which You came into the world and for which You lived? (1:00)
D Jesus, cruelly scourged! I look at You… I look through the whiteness of the Most Holy Host. I know that You trust the Father implicitly… trust in the logic of His Divine Wisdom. You have confidence that He knows the meaning of what humanly seems a disgrace. God knows the truth about You. He will, in due time, testify to You, who have loved without limit, loved without limiting Yourself to what, according to human thinking, should gain You a multitude of followers. (0:51)
Z Jesus, I admire this determination to fulfill in obedience what God the Father expects of You… I know that I also should trust in a situation where the world tempts me to enlist the followers with a cheap truth quickly. Divine Truth must come at a cost. Divine Truth must go through the whipping test. Only it is capable of doing so. Hence, this ability distinguishes it from the cheap truths of the world. (0:41)
B Jesus! I love You! From the bottom of my heart, I thank You for this Divine teaching that the teacher of God’s truth is the one who, in the footsteps of You, does not hesitate to proclaim it even though He has to go through a time of disgrace, a time of being thrown outside the human community. Jesus, I trust You implicitly! I trust in You! Amen. (0:32)
Meditation 3.
The crowning of the Lord Jesus with thorns
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 6 min.)
P Song: I Want to Give You Everything – 1-2 stanza (1:34)
D I love You, O Jesus, receiving the crown of thorns in meekness. By the grace of Holy Communion, I am here with You, to be for You, to love You. I am and love You with my presence. I lovingly watch with what humility You accept the sharp thorns. It hurts, how it hurts… And You do not complain, but suffer in submission, with love for the Father, in complete trust in His eternal judgments… (0:37)
L Dear Jesus, how many human thoughts every day, almost every hour, painfully wound You like these thorns… Forgive, please, my sinful thoughts – thoughts that stood at the beginning of actions incompatible with the attitude of fully following You. It is from the heart of man that evil thoughts come… What is my heart? (0:35)
B What like is my heart? Is it more thirsty for justice for itself or, instead, for others; more involved in caring not to lose anything itself or, instead, in caring for the weaker? Is my heart capable of accepting harm calmly and understanding, or does it vehemently demand that he is right? (0:34)
W I look at You, O Jesus crowned with thorns, and ask: what is my heart, what is my love, what is my likeness to You? Can I risk losing my material possessions, my job, my friendships – in a situation where I have to take a stand for someone who is wronged, who is denied the right to life, health, or respect? (0:41)
D Lord Jesus! In this hour of grace, I humbly ask that You transform now my heart and make it like Your Heart. Jesus, meek and humble, make my heart like Your Heart… Jesus, meek and humble, make my heart like Your Heart… Jesus, meek and humble, make my heart like Your Heart… (0:38)
Z 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 Roman soldiers! 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)
Meditation 4.
The Way of the Cross of the Lord Jesus
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 8 min.)
B Song: You Go Through the Ages – 1-3 stanza (2:23)
P Surrounded by a crowd, You go upwards with the beam of the cross. It is not easy, however, because You have already endured a cruel scourging, You have not eaten anything, You do not have much strength. I come, Jesus, to support You. I come thanks to it that You have established a sacramental way of passing from my earthly time into Your time of two thousand years ago, into the time of the salvation performed by You, and therefore into the time of carrying the cross. (0:44)
D God Incarnate! Behold, You show us a mountain, and, on it, You Himself, bearing the cross. You reveal to us that thanks to Holy Communion, we can assist You, even though this event, from our point of view, has long already passed into history, which once and for all has been finished. (0:35)
L I believe, Dearest Jesus, that it is given to me to support You not only through the help given to sisters and brothers in need – I can also do so towards You Yourself, bearing the beam of the cross two thousand years ago on the way to Golgotha. (0:20)
B Jesus! I believe that You desire my presence… I know that You, being in the Upper Room, see me right next to Yourself whenever I am at the Holy Mass. And then, when You set out from the Cenacle, when You pass through the Garden, the court at Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, the condemnation to death, when You finally ascend with difficulty to the top of Calvary, then You look around… then You await Me – You desire me to be here with You too. Am I? Am I able to be after the Mass at least some of the time, not limited to a few seconds; do I have a heart for You when You, in a humanly distant time, traverse the earth on Your way to the Hill of the Skull, marking it with the bloody footprints of Your wounded feet? (1:18)
W Jesus beloved! Your love is not easy for me to full read. You hid all that is most important under the cover of the signs of the Eucharistic liturgy. Wouldn’t it be easier for me to experience Your death during the Transubstantiation and Holy Communion if You visibly made the participants of the Mass feel that they are then participating in the event of Calvary? Likewise, would anyone doubt the necessity of prayer after the Mass if we could see through some veil unveiled that You are coming now out of the Upper Room among the Apostles towards the Garden and then on towards Golgotha? (1:07)
D I believe, O Jesus, that You have chosen the best way to arouse love for You in my heart. I believe that the simple logic of the dogmas of the Catholic Church’s faith should be enough for me to participate with a poignancy in Your death during the Eucharist and the prayerful being with You after it. (0:33)
Z I believe that it is not so much the lack of sensory impressions to testify to the moment of Your dying at the Eucharist but the lack of my commitment to the love, which seeks to understand, is reason that prevents me from participating more fully in the liturgy. I believe that, similarly, I need to gain a greater commitment to loving You to see that, after Mass, You give us time to love You – to accompany You on the way from the Upper Room to Golgotha. (0:46)
Meditation 5.
The death of the Lord Jesus on the cross
(Duration of meditations in this decade: about 8 min.)
W Song: I Greet You – 1-2 stanza (1:00)
D Beloved Jesus! Here we are at the end of an extremely painful stage of the path we travel with You after the Last Supper. We are here where people especially loving You have gathered together with Mary. (0:21)
L Golgotha, the hill of corpse skulls, the hill of death… Today, three crosses have been hammered into the rock of Golgotha. You are hanging on the middle one of them. You do not complain about Your fate, about the ingratitude of people. You look at this painful event with the eyes of faith: above all, the Will of the Father is being fulfilled. This Will is difficult for Your human nature, but love for the Father gives You the strength to fulfill it. (0:40)
B With submission to the saving Will of the Father, You accept this human, unjust judgment. This near-fulfillment of the judgment brought relief to those who condemned You and freed them from the feeling of being threatened. Yes, they perceive You as someone to be freed from, someone who threatens their peace. They are convinced that otherwise, the Romans will come and destroy their nation. (0:38)
P Yes, they are sure that if they leave You alone and allow You to continue this activity of the self-proclaimed teacher of the multitudes, as they see You, they will not properly fulfill their function as fathers of the nation. They see that the reason why they must kill You is that one man should die rather than the entire nation. They are convinced that they are right… (0:35)
D In this hour of grace, as I stand right next to Mary at Your nailed feet, I look at Your face, radiant with forgiving love toward us all. I gaze at You and look into my heart. Have I the spiritual power to fully follow You, the Master of the life devoted above all to God? Am I able to make persistent demands for the values violated by those who, by the Father’s Will, go next to me on the way to heaven? (0:47)
Z Through the whiteness of the Sacred Host, I look at You, Savior, hanging on the tree of the cross. I look and ask about my likeness to You… Have I spiritual determination to be a threat to the wickedness of my fellow men? Have I spiritual power to demand to preserve God’s order, violated so often by those around me? Do I believe that I am not Your disciple if I am not reached by unjust punishments at the hands of those whom, in the sense of duty, I should admonish in God’s name? (0:43)
B Jesus, You die outside the walls of Jerusalem, cast outside the human religious community. You die because this community has lost the essential dimension of religion, namely the desire to love God above all else. You are dying because, in Your desire to restore the love of their hearts, You have encountered the resistance of their formalized ritualization. The ones who substituted the love for God with a soullessly fulfilled ritual now became angry with You. They became angry at the love of Your Heart, of which it is written: “Zeal for Your house consumes Me!” (0:55)
W Jesus beloved! What like is my religiousness? Do I love God above all else? Do I find participation in religious rituals a source of joy in my encounter with God? Do I long to attend Mass? Do I long to meet You in Holy Communion? Do I plan my day to have plenty of time for You when You come to me in the miracle of Holy Communion? During the day, do I practice the love meetings with You hidden in the Most Holy Host in the Tabernacle? (0:46)
D O Jesus, dying on a cross fixed in the rock of Golgotha! I beg You to be willing to transform the hearts of each of us, participants in today’s adoration, into hearts on fire with love for You. Make the flame of new love burst forth in our hearts. Make the flame of new life burst forth in our hearts in awe of You – so close in the miracle of Your Body and Blood! (0:42)
L Make us understand the gift of the Eucharist as profoundly as possible. Do it now, in this hour of grace, do it now, please… Convince our hearts to marvel at the uniqueness of the time of Eucharistic union with You, to marvel at a time that has no equal… Jesus, do it now! Jesus, do it now, I humbly beg You… (0:34)
B Jesus, do it now, in this hour of grace, in this hour of sacramental union with You… Make us see the difference between the time opened by You in Holy Communion and any other time of encounter with You. Jesus, make this miracle now, please make this miracle now by the power of the Blood gushing forth from Your Sacred Heart. Amen. (0:35)
Completion of the Holy Rosary
(Duration of meditations here: about 4 min.)
L Song: Here in this Sacrament – 1-2 stanza (1:44)
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. (0:24)
P Dearest Jesus! Obedient to the teaching of the Holy Father 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. [1] (0:24)
B 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 of accompanying You on the path You passed from the Cenacle to the Hill of the Skull. (0:35)
W So now here we are, on the Hill of the Skull, with Mary filled with pain, when You, our beloved Savior, are descending from the height of the Cross into the Abyss, into the land of the dead, to come out from there after three days on the morning of Resurrection. (0:22)
D We believe, O Jesus descending into the Abyss, that in this hour of grace, You descend also into the Abyss of our souls. To You, we sing a song. 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) (0:22)
Z O Jesus descending into the Abyss, we believe that You call us, Your sheep, by name, lovingly addressing each of us to lead us out of the nooses with which we have tied our souls. Jesus, Beloved Shepherd, we now await Your word of love in the depths of our souls. Amen. (0:32)