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Level III · Sacred Time · practice 7 of 7

Lenten meditations on the Passion

Read and meditate the Passion of Christ during Lent with attention to His Heart.

Why this practice

Lent is the Church's annual retreat into the Passion. To pass through Lent meditating on the Passion through the lens of the Sacred Heart is to read the same familiar narrative with new eyes: every betrayal, every blow, every silence is received by His Heart.

The pierced Heart of John 19 is the climax of the Passion — the moment from which the whole Sacred Heart devotion historically flows. Lent walks the soul there.

How to begin

1Choose a Passion text — one of the four Gospels' Passion narratives, or a classical meditation (St. Alphonsus, Anne Catherine Emmerich, the Stations of the Cross).
2Read a small portion daily through Lent. Slow rather than long.
3After reading, ask one question: "What did His Heart feel here?"
4On Good Friday, attend the liturgy and meditate especially on the piercing of the Heart by the lance.

When you look upon the Heart pierced by the lance, you see the depth from which our salvation flowed.

— After St. Bonaventure

A prayer for this practice

O Heart of Jesus, pierced for love of me, let me not pass through this Lent without entering Thy wound. There alone is my salvation; there alone is my rest.

Amen.

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