Day 3: Reparation

The third day of the Sacred Heart Novena turns to one of the central themes of the devotion as it was given to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque: the work of reparation. The Lord Jesus complained to her in the apparitions of the indifference, ingratitude, and outright hostility with which the human family had received His love, and He asked her to undertake works of reparation in the name of those who had not responded with love. The Catholic devotion of reparation is the practical response to this request.

Today's invocation

O most Holy Heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing... (the full opening prayer)

Today's meditation

The Catholic theology of reparation rests on three principles. First, that sin really wounds the Heart of God in His Sacred Humanity (the Lord Jesus suffered in His Body and in His Heart for our sins). Second, that the love of Christ for souls is so great that He is genuinely grieved by the indifference of those He came to redeem. Third, that the baptized Christian, as a member of the mystical Body of Christ, can join Christ in His grief over sin and offer acts of reparation in union with His Heart.

The traditional Catholic acts of reparation include: the making of a spiritual bouquet of prayers offered specifically in reparation; the keeping of First Fridays of nine consecutive months in honor of the Sacred Heart; the keeping of First Saturdays of five consecutive months in honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the making of holy hours of Eucharistic adoration in reparation; and the offering of one's own daily sufferings as small acts of reparation joined to the Cross.

Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (1928), formally articulated the Catholic theology of reparation and prescribed for the universal Church the Act of Reparation (Iesu dulcissime, redemptor humani generis) to be prayed publicly each year on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.¹

Today's intention

Today, in addition to your principal intention, name to the Sacred Heart the specific sins (your own and those of others around you) for which you wish to make reparation today. Be specific. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I offer You today's prayers, sufferings, and works in reparation for the sins of indifference and ingratitude in my own life and in the world around me.

A traditional Catholic Act of Reparation:

O sweet Jesus, Whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt; behold us prostrate before Thee, eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries to which Thy loving Heart is everywhere subject.

Reflection

The Catholic devotion of reparation is sometimes misunderstood as a kind of vicarious self-punishment. The Catholic theology is more precise. Reparation is not the substitution of our suffering for Christ's (His suffering is sufficient and superabundant for the redemption of the world). Reparation is the loving union of our smallness with His infinite act of love, by which we participate in His redemptive work in the form proper to members of His Body. "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Colossians 1:24). What is lacking in Christ's afflictions is not the value of His suffering but our participation in it.

The practical effect of the devotion of reparation in the Catholic life is profound. The soul that offers small daily acts of reparation begins to see its own ordinary life (the work commute, the difficult conversation at home, the persistent low-grade health complaint) as part of the redemptive work of Christ. The dignity of even the most ordinary Catholic life is, in this view, immense.

Closing prayers

Pray three times each: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in You. Have mercy on us, who have so often offended You.

Footnotes

1. Pope Pius XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor (encyclical, 8 May 1928). Available at vatican.va. ↩