The Twenty-Four Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The 24 Hours of the Bitter Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Luisa Piccarreta, the Little Daughter of the Divine Will

† Twenty-Fourth Hour
From 4 to 5 PM †

Burial of Jesus. Mary’s Bitter Desolation

Preparation before Each Hour

My Jesus! The first to take You on Her lap after taking You down from the cross is Your sorrowful Mother. In Her arms rests Your head pierced with thorns. My most gracious Mother! Do not consider it beneath Your dignity to tolerate me in Your company. Make it possible for me, in union with You, to pay my last respects to my beloved Jesus.

Yes, it is true, You surpass me in love and in tenderness to touch my Jesus. But I will endeavor to imitate You as perfectly as possible in order to earn His pleasure in everything.

With Your hands and mine, let us pull out the thorns that surround his adorable head. With Your adoration, which You offer in the deepest humility and devotion, let me unite mine.

Heavenly Mother, You are already preparing to wash away with Your hands the blood from those eyes which once gave light of the spirit to the whole world, but are now darkened and extinguished. O Mother, in union with You I want to make atonement for all the sins that mankind has committed through lust of the eyes.

Sweet Mother, I see you contemplating the face of your martyred Jesus in tears and pain. I unite my pain and my tears with Yours. Let us together cleanse His most holy face from defilement. Let us adore that face full of divine majesty, which raptures heaven and earth, but now gives no sign of life.

Let us adore, my Mother, His holy, divine mouth, which has drawn so many hearts to itself with the melodious sound of His words. Mother, press your lips to those pale and bloodless lips of your Son, which death has closed forever.

Mother, let us also kiss those creative hands that have worked so many miracles for us, those pierced hands that are already cold and gripped by rigor mortis. Let us seal the fate of all souls in these holy wounds. Jesus will find them again at the resurrection, and since You have closed them in His stigmata, no soul will ever be lost again. Mother, let us adore these deep stigmata in the name of all people and for all people.

Heavenly Mother, You are already preparing to kiss the feet of Your poor Jesus. How shuddering are their stigmata! The nails have torn away parts of the flesh and skin, and the weight of the holy body has widened them. Let us venerate these stigmata together and worship them with the deepest humility. Let us seal all the steps of sinners in them, so that as they walk they may perceive Jesus walking beside them, and so that they may no longer dare to offend him.

I see, sorrowful Mother, how your gaze is fixed on the heart opened by the lance. O close and bury me in it. If you keep my heart and my life in this way, then I will remain hidden in it for eternity. Give me Your love, Mother, to love Jesus, give me Your heart to be able to pray for all people, to suffer and to atone for every offense inflicted on this heart.

Do not forget, Mother, that just as You consign my Jesus to the tomb, I too want to be buried with Him by Your hands, so that I may one day rise again with Him and all that is His.

Now I also want to pay you, most loving mother, the tribute of my filial love. I am deeply sorry for you. If it were possible, I would unite every heartbeat, every desire, every creaturely life and lay it down at your feet as proof of my participation in Your suffering and Your love. I feel compassion for You because of the immense pain You endured when You saw Jesus: dead, crowned with thorns, torn by the blows and the nails; when You saw those eyes that no longer looked at You, those ears that no longer heard Your voice, those mouths that no longer spoke to You, those hands that no longer blessed You and those feet that no longer followed You. If it were possible, I would give You the heart of Your Jesus, overflowing with love. I would give it to You to show You my compassion, as You deserve it, and to console You in the extreme bitterness of Your pain.

"Oh, how dear souls are to me! They cost Me the life of My Son, who is also God. And I, His Mother and Co-Redemptrix of the human race, bequeath the souls to you as an inheritance, O holy Cross."

Sorrowful Mother! You are already preparing to make the last sacrifice and bury Your divine Son. Entirely devoted to the will of Heaven, You give Him the last escort and lay Him in the grave with Your own hands. As You lay the body in the grave, bid Him farewell and kiss Him for the last time, You are overwhelmed by pain that makes Your heart want to burst. Love and pain bind You to the lifeless corpse, and both are as great as if they wanted to extinguish the flame of Your life like that of Your son.

Poor mother! How will You cope without Your son, who was Your everything, Your life? But such is the counsel of the eternal will. You have to fight two indomitable forces: love and the divine will. Love holds You to the grave and wants to prevent the separation, the divine will is against it and demands its sacrifice. Lamentable mother! What to do? How much I pity You. You angels, come and carry Her away from the limbs of Jesus' body, frozen in death, otherwise She too will pass away.

But, oh wonder! While You, my Mother, appear extinguished with Jesus, I hear Your voice, trembling with pain and interrupted by sighs, speaking:

"My beloved son! There is still one consolation left to Me which has alleviated My suffering: I could weep out My pain over the wounds of Your most sacred humanity, adore and kiss them. Now this consolation has also been taken from Me. The divine will has decreed it so, and I surrender. But know, My son, that although I want to, I cannot. The very thought of separating Myself from You drains My strength. The breath of life seems to escape from Me. O let Me, in order to be strong enough for this bitter separation, be completely buried in You and absorb Your life, Your sufferings, Your acts of atonement and all that You are into Me. Only an exchange of life between You and Me can give Me the strength to make the sacrifice of separating Myself from You."

Sorrowful mother! You are already bowing Your head towards the head of Jesus, kissing it and closing Your thoughts in the thoughts of Jesus. Oh, how You would like to breathe Your soul into Him in order to be able to give life for life.

Sorrowful mother! I see You kissing the extinguished eyes of Jesus. How You suffer because they no longer look at You! Oh, how often those divine eyes, when they looked at You, transported You into the joys of paradise and made life arise from death!¹ But now that they no longer give You a look, You believe You must die. You deepen Your eyes into His and take His eyes, His tears and the bitter pain that the sight of so many insults, so much abuse and contempt from the creatures caused Him. Mother pierced with pain! You call and call for Jesus and speak:

"My son, is it possible that You no longer listen to Me, who came in haste at the slightest hint I gave You? I call You in tears and You do not listen to Me? O the love that is strongly felt causes greater torment than a cruel tyrant. You were more to Me than My own life. How could I survive this pain? So I leave My hearing in Yours and claim for Myself what Your ears had to listen to in Your Passion. Only Your suffering and Your pain can give Me life."

As You speak thus, my Mother, the pain You feel in Your heart is so great that Your voice fails You and You remain motionless. My poor, poor mother, how I pity you! What a cruel death You have to suffer again and again!

Sorrowful mother! The divine will takes effect and sets You in motion. But once again You look into the face of the dead and cry out:

"My adorable son, how disfigured You are! If love did not tell Me that You are My Son, My Life, My All, I would no longer recognize You. Your natural beauty has faded, Your rosy cheeks have turned pale, the light and grace that shone from Your fair face and enchanted everyone who looked at You have turned into the pallor of death. Beloved son, how badly You have been beaten! What horrible work sinners have done on Your holy limbs! How your Mother, who is inseparable from You, would like to restore Your former beauty! I would like to bury My face in Yours and accept Yours in return, even the cheek strokes, the defilements, the contemptuous treatment and all that Your most holy face has suffered. My son, if you want Me to stay alive, then give Me your sufferings, otherwise I will die."

Your pain, Mother, is so great that it threatens to overwhelm You. It robs You of Your speech. You are devastated when You stand before the corpse of Your son. How much I pity you! You angels of heaven, come and raise my mother up! Her suffering is immeasurable, the waters of affliction are flooding Her, indeed, they want to bury Her in their waves so that She has hardly any vitality left. Only the divine will breaks these waves and gives You new vitality.

Once again You kiss the lips of Your departed Son, feel the bitterness of the bile of which the lips of Jesus tasted, and sobbing You depart:

"My son, give your mother one more word! Is it possible that she no longer hears Your voice? All the words you spoke to Me in life were arrows that wounded My heart with pain and love. But now that I see you dead, these arrows start to move and make Me die again and again, as if they wanted to say:

'You will no longer hear Your Son, no longer hear the sweet sound of His voice, the melodiousness of His Creative Word that made Your heart a paradise every time He spoke it.

Now My paradise is gone, and I have nothing left but the bitterness of pain. O My son! I want to give you My tongue to enliven Yours, that You may tell Me what You have suffered in Your ardent thirst and through the bitterness of gall; that You may teach Me what works of atonement You have undertaken, what prayers You have performed. If I hear Your voice in My prayers and acts of reparation, then My pain will be more bearable and Your poor mother will be able to live through Your sufferings."

My painful mother! Now I see that You are in a hurry, because those around You want to close the grave. Once again You take Jesus' hands in Your own, press them to Your heart and make their wounds and the pain they have suffered Your own. Then You take a look at the feet of Jesus, contemplate the cruel wounds inflicted by the nails, and make these wounds, yes, the feet themselves, Your own, so to speak, in order to follow the sinners with the feet of Jesus and snatch them from hell.

Anxious mother! Now I see You taking leave of the pierced Heart of Jesus. Here You pause. This is the last blow Your mother's heart will receive. While it wants to leap out of its chest at the intensity of the love and the pain, it feels the need to make the most sacred Heart of Your Jesus its own and with it His love spurned by so many people, His ardent desires to which human ingratitude does not correspond, His pain and His piercing. You see the deep and wide wound in His heart and press Your lips to the blood gushing from it. As if You had gained life from Him, You now feel the strength within You for the painful separation. After embracing Your Jesus once more, You allow a large stone to close the grave.

But I beg You, my Mother, with tears, do not allow Jesus to be removed from our sight for a moment yet. Wait until I have closed myself in Jesus, to take His life into me. Can You not live without Jesus, You, the Immaculate One, the Holy One, full of grace, much less I, the weakness, the misery itself, an abyss of sinfulness. O sorrowful Mother, do not leave me alone! Take me with You, but first empty me of myself so that I can keep Jesus completely within me, just as You took Him into Yourself. Take up with me Your office as Mother, which Jesus bestowed on You on the cross. Let my extreme poverty make a breach in Your motherly heart. Enclose me completely in Jesus and enclose Jesus completely in me.

Close in my mind the thoughts of Jesus, so that no other thought may find entrance into me. Lock Jesus' eyes in mine, that He may never again escape my gaze; His hearing in mine, that I may always listen to Him and fulfill His most holy will in everything; His face in mine, that when I look at His face, disfigured out of love for me, I may have compassion on Him and make atonement; His tongue in mine, that I may speak, pray and teach with the tongue of Jesus. Close His hands in mine, that every move I make and every work I do may have life from the works and movements of Jesus; His feet in mine, that every step I take may bring life, strength and salvation to all men.

Keep also His heart in mine and make me live from His love, His holy desires and His sufferings. Take the frozen right hand of Your Jesus, give me the last blessing with it and only then allow His body to be sealed in the tomb. The tomb is sealed.

You start to walk away, but stand still, as if petrified, to say goodbye with one last look. My mother, pierced by pain, with You I also say goodbye to Jesus. Weeping, I suffer with You and keep You company in Your bitter desolation. I want to stay by Your side to offer You a word of comfort and a look of compassion with every painful sigh that escapes Your breast. I want to dry all Your tears, and when I see that Your strength is leaving You, I will hold You in my arms.

Now, with superhuman strength, You detach Yourself from Your Son's tomb and return to Jerusalem the same way You came. But no sooner have You taken a few steps than You rush to the cross on which Jesus suffered and died so much. You embrace it, and as You see it still reddened with blood, all the pain that Jesus endured on it is renewed in Your heart. Because You can no longer hold back Your suffering, You cry out in Your unspeakable pain:

"O Cross, why have you been so cruel to My Son? In nothing have you spared Him, in everything have you been unyielding. You did not allow me, the pain-stricken Mother, to give Him even a sip of water when He wanted to drink, and only vinegar and gall were served to His thirsty mouth. Oh, my heart, pierced with pain, languishes! How I would have loved to turn My Heart into a refreshing drink to wet His lips and quench His thirst, but to My sorrow I had to learn that I was rejected. O cruel but holy Cross, for you are sanctified, even deified by the touch of My Son! Transform that cruelty with which you treated Him into compassion for poor mortals. For the sake of the sufferings that My Son endured on you, implore mercy and strength for all suffering people, that none may be lost in their crosses and tribulations.² Oh, how dear souls are to Me! They cost Me the life of My Son, Who is also God. And I, His Mother and Co-Redemptrix of the human race, bequeath the souls to you as an inheritance, O holy Cross! Now I kiss you before I part."

Poor mother, how much pity I have for You! At every step You encounter new sufferings. As they increase immeasurably, their waves become ever more bitter, flood You, submerge You in them, and every moment You think You must die. Now you have come to the place where You encountered Jesus under the heavy burden of the cross, exhausted, dripping with blood, with a bunch of thorns on His head, which, as they hit the cross, dug deeper and deeper and caused His bearer agony. Here in this place, the eyes of Jesus sought Your compassion as they met Yours. But the soldiers drove Him forward to deprive Him and You of this comfort. They let Him fall, and with every fall He shed new blood. You still see, Mother, these places wet with blood, and prostrating Yourself to the earth to kiss the blood-reddened ground, I hear You say: “My angels, come and keep this blood, that not a drop may be trampled underfoot and profaned!”

Sorrowful mother! Let me reach out my hand to You, to lift You up, and remember that other pains await You. Wherever Your foot treads, there are traces of blood and reminders of Jesus' suffering. Now You quicken Your steps and lock Yourself in the Upper Room. I also lock myself in there, for my cenacle is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In this heart, where You also dwell, I want to stand by You in this hour of bitterest desolation, for I cannot bring myself to leave You alone in such suffering.

Desolate mother! I too am Your child who cannot live alone, who does not want to live alone. Take me into Your motherly arms, show Yourself as a mother, for I need guidance, help and strength. Look at my poverty and shed at least one tear over my wounds.³ If You see me even just scattered, then press me to Your motherly heart and call the life of Jesus back to me.

Desolate Mother, how deeply I pity You, for Your pain is unspeakable! I would like to transform my whole being into tongues, into voices, to make my sympathy known to You. But alas, my compassion is meaningless in the face of such suffering. So I call upon the angels, I invoke the Most Holy Trinity and implore them to surround You with their celestial harmonies, their celestial joys and their celestial beauty, to show You their compassion and to alleviate Your intense pain; that they carry You into the arms of God and transform all Your sufferings into love.

Desolate Mother, now one more request on behalf of all people and for the sake of the sufferings You have endured, especially in Your bitter abandonment: Help me at the moment of my death, when my poor soul, alone, abandoned by all and afflicted by a thousand fears and anxieties. Then come and repay me for the company I have kept You so often in my life. Come to my aid in this hour, stand by my side and drive the evil enemy to flight. Wash my soul with Your tears, cover me with the blood of Jesus, clothe me with His merits, adorn me with His pains and with all His works and sufferings. Let all my sins be blotted out by the power of Christ's suffering and Your pains and let me be completely forgiven. When I then breathe my last breath, wrap me in Your arms, take me under Your protective mantle, hide me from the gaze of the evil enemy, carry me in flight to heaven and place me in the arms of Jesus. Do You agree with this, my mother?

I also ask You to repay the company I have given You today to all those who are dying. Show Yourself as a mother to all of them, for they are in danger and in need of great help. O do not deny anyone Your motherly love and care!

One more word of farewell: As I leave You, I ask You to enclose me in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As I kiss Your motherly hands, give me Your blessing. Amen.

Mary with the child so sweet, To us all Your blessing give!

Reflections and Practices

by St. Fr. Annibale Di Francia

After His death, Jesus wanted to be wounded by a lance for Love of us. And we—do we let ourselves be wounded in everything by the Love of Jesus; or do we rather let ourselves be wounded by the love of creatures, by pleasures, and by attachment to ourselves? Also coldness, obscurity and mortifications, both interior and external, are wounds that the Lord makes to the soul. If we do not take them from the Hands of God, we wound ourselves, and our wounds increase passions, weaknesses, self-esteem—in a word, every evil. On the other hand, if we take them as wounds made by Jesus, He will place His Love, His Virtues and His Likeness in these wounds, which will make us deserve His Kisses, His Caresses and all the stratagems of a Divine Love. These wounds will be continuous voices that will call Him and force Him to dwell with us continuously.

O my Jesus, may Your lance be my guard that defends me from any wound of creatures.

Jesus allows Himself to be deposed from the Cross into the arms of His Mama. And we—do we deposit all of our fears, our doubts and our anxieties in the hands of our Mama? Jesus rested on the lap of His Divine Mother. And do we let Jesus rest by casting away our fears and our agitations?

¹ When Mary, overwhelmed by pain, seemed close to death, a look from Her Son gave Her the strength to live again.

² This petition is justified because some people blaspheme God in the cross and suffering, despair and take their own lives.

³ Wounds of the body and wounds of the soul, for the hermit has been confined to her sickbed for decades and has shared in the Savior's passion for about sixty years.

Sacrifice and Thanksgiving