O Jesus, my adorable Savior,
I seek Your forgiveness and mercy for myself and for my loved ones,
for those hardened by sin,
and all the faithful departed.
Wash away my sins and those of the whole world
through the infinite merits of Your Passion.

Give me the grace to enter more deeply into the mystery of Your Cross,
so that sharing in Your suffering and death,
I may experience a deep sorrow for my sins
and be ready to embrace willingly,
even with joy, all the sufferings and humiliations of this life and pilgrimage. 

Amen. 

An Excerpt from the Book of Fr Michael Gaitley:

“Consoling the Heart of Jesus” 

“There’s nothing more in human than hardheartedness, nothing more against human nature than to be without a shred of compassion… There is a bit of a monster in all of us. Unless we’re already soaring on the heights of holiness, we all have at least some hardheartedness… all of us have at lease some place in our hearts that’s already turned into stone. This is simply one of the sad facts of sin in our lives; it hardens our hearts.

…We live under the influence of a culture that’s extremely successful at hardening peoples’ hearts.

…The culture of death in which we live is expert in killing not just babies but hearts, and it wants to kill ours… the influence of the culture of death will kill that spiritual center we call ‘the heart’. This kind of heart attack makes us incapable of true love and causes spiritual death. Such is the high-stakes battle we’re in: The culture of death threatens to kill our hearts, to kill our ability to love, to kill our true humanity.

Now, here’s some good news. There’s hope for our hearts. The culture of death doesn’t have to win; our hearts don’t have to die… The heart-hardening process can be reversed… we can get ‘new hearts’ (Ez 36:26), hearts that feel true love and compassion, hearts that are sensitive to the suffering of others. We don’t have to give in to the culture of death. We can be countercultural. We can help build up what Pope John Paul II called the ‘culture of life’ and the ‘civilization of love’.

Jesus sees so many people dying spiritual death of hardheartedness, and he calls out to them because he loves them and has the power to save them. Unfortunately, so many of them don’t come. Jesus desperately wants them to come so he can save them, but such a great number of them don’t even know they need saving. Moreover, many of them don’t want anything to do with Jesus. They think he’s the ‘Jansenist Jesus,’ the one who just wants to ruin their fun. Thus, they scorn him, run away, and harden their hearts to the God who is Love – and then they die (spiritually). This tragic reality breaks Jesus’ Heart; it’s why he needs us to console Him” (131-132).