First Friday may 3, 2024 

Guards of Honor 1st Friday / May 2024 Fr. David Bellusci, OP 

“My Heart has expected reproach and misery and I looked for one who would grieve together with Me, but there was none; and for one that would comfort me, and I found none!” (Ps. 68)

“BEHOLD THE HEART WHICH HAS SUFFERED SO MUCH!”

Preparing Ourselves for the Sacred Heart of Jesus

We are the Guards of Honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The month May prepares us for the Sacred Heart in the month of June. We can ask the Immaculate Heart of Mary to help us in our spiritual preparation to unite us with her Son.

So, we should take a moment to reflect, “What does it mean to be a Guard of Honour?” “How do we prepare our hearts for the Sacred Heart?”

As Guards of Honour we all have our scheduled day and time to unite ourselves with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Even when we are engaged in some other activity at our scheduled time, we remain spiritually one with the Sacred Heart if that is our intention. Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart Bernaud tells us, “The zeal that consumes the Heart of Jesus must pass on to the hearts of His friends. The most humble “Guard of Honour” can and must be apostle and saviour with Jesus Christ.” So, we “make an offering of [our] day-to-day work, during the course of [our] privileged hour…” (Manual of the Association of the Guard of Honour of Jesus, Hour of Presence, pp. 31, 41). The hour is offered in a “spirit of praise and reparation.” This is why we have the symbolic enrollment of the members on the dial.

Repeatedly, we hear, “reparation.” What does this mean? We only need to look at the cross where Jesus gives us His heart. A soldier’s lance pierces the flesh of Jesus; blood pours from his side where his heart is wounded. This is all we need to know, stated clearly in St. John’s Gospel , “[O]ne of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out” (19:33-34). The condition of Jesus is conveyed in Psalm 69, “insult has broken my heart and I despair; I looked for compassion, but there was none, for comforters, but found none.” Jesus gives us His body and blood in the Holy Eucharist.

And so, reparation is for insults, indifference, blasphemies towards the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

In this month of May, let us ask the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to help prepare us to be one with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Amen.

Most Adorable Sacred Heart, unite my heart with yours.

Prayer to Renew Our Fidelity and Devotion 

Divine Jesus, my Saviour and my King, with all my heart I renew the promise which I have made to love, to glorify and to console Your adorable Heart as a member of the Guard of Honor. Grant O good Master, to make me daily more loving, more devoted and more faithful. I ask this same grace for all the Associates through the Immaculate Heart of Your Mother. AMEN