First Friday Devotions

 
Hello Everyone:
Today is the First Friday of June and we are also in the Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for His feast which is next Friday, June 8th. June is also the month of the Sacred Heart. This makes today a special day of prayer and reparation. It was the special desire of our Lord Jesus Christ, revealed to Saint Margaret Mary, that the first Friday of each month be consecrated to the devotion to and adoration of His most Sacred Heart. 

“I promise you, in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the first Friday for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance; they shall not die in my disgrace nor without receiving the sacraments; my divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in that last moment.”  — Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary
 
How to complete the First Friday’s Devotion:

1. Receive Confession and Holy Communion on each First Friday;
2. The nine Fridays must be consecutive;
3. Offer prayers of reparation to His Sacred Heart.

 
In order to make our prayers of reparation fruitful, it is always good to turn to Our Lady. No one has loved the Heart of Jesus more than His Mother and She was the first to offer Him this love and reparation. Jesus made it known to St. Margaret Mary that we are to especially show Him our love because many are not giving Him love – especially those consecrated to Him; namely, his priests and religious. The enemy of our souls can lead them to grow complacent and cold if their prayer life is lacking. We need to be attentive to Our Lord’s requests.

In the 4th Chapter of the City of God – The Incarnation by Mother Mary Agreda, Our Lady has stated in the instructions that this coldness of hearts toward God is what brought Her so much sorrow:
 
“When I turned from the consideration of this most liberal condescension of the Most High, to the perception and understanding of the foolish hard-heartedness of the sinners, my soul was pierced with an arrow of mortal anguish – which remained for life. Many times the Most High in order to heal the affliction and consternation of my heart in this sorrow, sought to console me by saying, “Accept Thou, my Spouse, the gifts which the blind and ignorant world in its unworthiness despises and is incapable of receiving and understanding.”
 
Be now my companion in the sorrow which I suffered and which is so little noticed by the living. In order to imitate me, you must deny yourself, forget yourself entirely and crown your heart with the thorns of sorrow at the behavior of mortals. Weep in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation, for such weeping is the most legitimate occupation of the true sorrow of my Most Holy Son.
 
Words from Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary:
 
“And He showed me that it was His great desire of being loved by men and of withdrawing them from the path of ruin into which Satan hurls such crowds of them, that made Him form the design of manifesting His Heart to men, with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, of sanctification and salvation which it contains, in order that those who desire to render Him and procure for Him all the honor and love possible, might themselves be abundantly enriched with those divine treasures of which this Heart is the source. He should be honored under the figure of this Heart of flesh, and its image should be exposed…He promised me that wherever this image should be exposed with a view to showing It special honor, He would pour forth His blessings and graces. This devotion was the last effort of His love that He would grant to men in these latter ages, in order to withdraw them from the empire of Satan which He desired to destroy, and thus to introduce them into the sweet liberty of the rule of His love, which He wished to restore in the hearts of all those who should embrace this devotion.”
 
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Therefore let us be true companions of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Let us, like the Apostle St. John, rest our head upon His Most Sacred Heart and pray the Fatima Reparation Prayer:

“O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly. I offer You the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles throughout the world, in reparation for the offenses, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And through the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of poor sinners.”