NINTH HOUR

My beloved Goodness, my poor mind, on the border between sleep and wakefulness, follows You. How can I fall asleep when I see that everyone is abandoning You and fleeing from You? Even the apostles, zealous Peter, who recently declared that he would give his life for You, and Your beloved disciple, whom You allowed to rest on Your Heart with such love. Ah, everyone is abandoning You and leaving You at the mercy of cruel enemies!

My Jesus, you are alone! Your purest eyes look around to see if even one of those to whom you have done so much good is following you to prove their love and defend you. When you see that absolutely no one has remained faithful to you, your heart breaks and you shed a flood of tears, because you suffer more from the abandonment of your most faithful than from what your enemies are doing to you... My Jesus, do not cry! Let me cry with you!

 But my beloved Jesus seems to say: Ah, my daughter, let us weep together over the fate of so many souls consecrated to Me who, because of small trials or accidents in life, cease to care for Me and leave Me alone. Let us weep over many others, timid and cowardly, who abandon Me for lack of courage and trust. Let us weep over so many priests who, finding no profit in sacred things and in administering the sacraments, do not care about Me; over others who teach, celebrate, and hear confessions out of a desire for profit and for their own glory. And although it seems that they are around Me, I always remain alone... Ah, my daughter, how hard this abandonment is for Me! Not only do My eyes weep, but My Heart bleeds! Ah, I beg you, compensate for My bitter pain by promising Me that you will never leave Me alone.

 Yes, my Jesus, I promise You, aided by Your grace and the constancy of Your divine Will!

 But, oh Jesus, when you weep over the abandonment of your loved ones, your enemies spare you no possible insult. Bound and restrained, O my Goodness, so that you cannot even take a step on your own, they trample you and drag you along a road full of stones and thorns, so that there is no movement in which they do not knock you, and to such an extent that you bump into stones and are pricked by thorns... Ah, my Jesus, I see that as they drag you along, you leave behind your precious Blood and golden hair, which they tear from your head. My Life and my All, let me gather them up to bind the steps of the creatures who do not spare you even at night. What is more, they use the night to insult You even more. Some use the night for meetings, others for pleasure, still others for entertainment, and yet others even for sacrilegious theft. My Jesus, I unite myself with You to make amends for all these insults.

 Oh my Jesus, we are already at the Cedron stream, and the wicked Jews are pushing You into it. As they push You, they cause You to hit a rock with such force that Your Most Holy Blood flows from Your mouth and stains the rock. Then, dragging You, they push You deeper into this foul-smelling water, so that it penetrates Your ears, mouth, and nostrils... O incomparable Love, You are flooded and as if covered with this foul-smelling, disgusting, and cold water. In this state, you realistically represent the deplorable condition in which creatures find themselves when they commit sin. Oh, what a layer of filth covers them both inside and out, so that it arouses the disgust of Heaven and of everyone who looks at them, to such an extent that they bring down upon themselves the thunderbolts of God's justice!

 Oh Jesus, Life of my Life, could there be any greater love? To remove this layer of filth from us, you allow your enemies to throw you into this stream. And to make amends for the sacrilege and coldness of souls who receive You sacrilegiously and force You to enter their hearts (where You feel even greater disgust than when You fall into the stream), you allow these waters to penetrate even your bowels, so that your enemies, fearing that you might drown and wanting to keep you for greater torture, pull you out of it. But you inspire such disgust that when they touch you, they themselves feel nauseous.

 My tender Jesus, they have already pulled You out of the stream... My heart aches when I see You soaked in this disgusting water. I see You shivering from head to toe and looking around, asking with Your eyes (not Your voice) for at least one person to dry You, clean You, and warm You. But in vain, no one takes pity on You. Your enemies mock and ridicule You, Your loved ones have abandoned You, and Your beloved Mother is far away, because that is what the Father has decided.

 I am here, Jesus, come into my arms. I want to cry so much that I could form a pool and wash and cleanse you, and with my hands I would tidy your tousled hair. My love, I want to lock you in my heart to warm you with the heat of my feelings. I want to cover you with the fragrance of my constant desires. I want to make amends for all these insults and unite my life with Yours to save all souls. I want to offer You my heart as a place of rest to compensate You in some way for the pain You have endured so far. Then, together, we will return to the path of Your Passion.