THIRD HOUR (From 7 to 8 PM) The Legal Supper

O Jesus, You now arrive at the cenacle together with your beloved
disciples and You begin your supper with them. How much sweetness,
how much affability You show through all your person, as You lower
Yourself to taking material food for the last time! Everything is love in
You; also in this, You not only repair for the sins of gluttony, but You
impetrate the sanctification of food.

Jesus, my life, your sweet and penetrating gaze seems to search all of the
Apostles; and also in this act of taking food your Heart remains pierced in
seeing your dear Apostles still weak and listless, especially the perfidious
Judas, who has already put a foot in hell. And You, from the bottom of your
Heart, say bitterly: “What is the utility of my Blood? Here is a soul so
favored by Me – yet, he is lost!”

And You look at him with your eyes refulgent with light and love, as
though wanting to make him understand the great evil he is about to
commit. But your supreme charity makes You bear this sorrow and You
do not make it manifest even to your beloved disciples.

And while You grieve for Judas, your Heart is filled with joy in seeing, on
your left, your beloved disciple John; so much so, that unable to contain
your love any longer, drawing him sweetly to Yourself, You let him place
his head upon your Heart, letting him experience paradise in advance.
It is in this solemn hour that the two peoples, the reprobate and the elect,
are portrayed by the two disciples: the reprobate in Judas, who already
feels hell in his heart; the elect in John, who rests and delights in You.
O my sweet Good, I too place myself near You, and together with your
beloved disciple I want to place my weary head upon your adorable Heart,
praying You to let me experience the delights of Heaven, also on this
earth; so that, enraptured by the sweet harmonies of your Heart, the earth
may no longer be earth for me, but Heaven.

But in the midst of those most sweet and divine harmonies, I hear sorrowful
heartbeats escaping You: these are for lost souls! O Jesus, o please, do not
allow any more souls to be lost. Let your heartbeat, flowing through them,
make them feel the heartbeats of the life of Heaven, just as your beloved
disciple John felt them; so that, attracted by the gentleness and sweetness of
your love, they may all surrender to You.

O Jesus, as I remain upon your Heart, give food also to me, as You gave it to
the Apostles: the food of love, the food of the divine word, the food of your
Divine Will. O my Jesus, do not deny me this food, which You so much
desire to give me so that your very Life may be formed in me.
My sweet Good, while I remain close to You, I see that the food You are
taking together with your dear disciples is nothing but a lamb. This is a
figurative lamb: just as this lamb has no vital humor left by force of fire, so
You, mystical Lamb, having to consume Yourself completely for creatures
by force of love, will keep not even a drop of blood for Yourself, but will
pour it all out for love of us.

O Jesus, there is nothing You do which does not portray vividly your most
sorrowful Passion, which You keep always present in your mind, in your
Heart - in everything. And this teaches me that if I too had the thought of
your Passion before my mind and in my heart, You would never deny me
the food of your love. How much I thank You!

O my Jesus, not one act escapes You which does not keep me present and
which does not intend to do me a special good. So I pray You that your
Passion be always in my mind, in my heart, in my gazes, in my steps and in
my pains, so that, wherever I turn, inside and outside of myself, I may
always find You present in me. And You, give me the grace never to forget
what You have borne and suffered for me. May this be the magnet which,
drawing my whole being into You, will never again allow me to go far
away from You.

Reflections and Practices

Before taking food, let us unite our intentions to those of our lovable and
good Jesus, imagining having the mouth of Jesus in our mouths, and
moving our tongues and cheeks together with His. By doing this, we will
not only draw the life of Jesus Christ into ourselves, but we will unite to
Him in order to give to the Father complete glory, praise, love,
thanksgiving and reparation owed by creatures, which Jesus Himself
offered in the act of taking food. Let us also imagine being at the table near
Jesus Christ, now looking at Him, now praying Him to share a bite with us,
now kissing the hem of His mantle, now contemplating the movements of
His lips and of His celestial eyes, now noticing the sudden clouding of His
most lovable Face in foreseeing so much human ingratitude!

Just as loving Jesus spoke about His Passion during supper, as we take our
food, we will make some reflections on how we meditated the Hours of the
Passion. The Angels hang on our words, to gather our prayers, our
reparations, and take them before the Father in order to somehow mitigate
the just indignation for the so many offenses received from creatures - just
as they carried them when Jesus was on earth. And when we pray, can we
say that the Angels were pleased; that we have been recollected and
reverent, in such a way that they were able to joyously carry our prayers to
Heaven, just as they carried those of our Jesus? Or did they rather remain
saddened?

While afflicted Jesus was taking food, He remained transfixed at the sight of
the loss of Judas; and in Judas He saw all the souls who were going to be
lost. Since the loss of souls is the greatest of His pains, unable to contain it,
He drew John to Himself in order to find relief. In the same way, we will
remain always close to Him like John, compassionating Him in His pains,
relieving Him, and giving Him rest in our hearts. We will make His pain
our own, we will identify ourselves with Him, to feel the heartbeats of that
Divine Heart, pierced by the loss of souls. We will give Him our own
heartbeats in order to remove those wounds; and in the place of those
wounds we will put the souls who want to be lost, so that they may convert
and be saved.

Every beat of the Heart of Jesus is one ‘I love you’ which resounds in all the
heartbeats of creatures, wanting to enclose all of them in His Heart in order
to receive their heartbeats in return. But loving Jesus does not receive it
from many, and therefore His heartbeat remains as though suffocated and
embittered. Let us pray Jesus to seal our heartbeat with His ‘I love you’, so
that our hearts too may live the life of His Heart and, resounding in the
heartbeats of creatures, may force them to say, ‘I love You, Jesus!’ Even
more, we will fuse ourselves in Him, and loving Jesus will let us hear His
‘I love you’ which fills Heaven and earth, circulates through the Saints,
and descends into Purgatory. All the hearts of creatures are touched by
this ‘I love you’; even the elements feel new life, and all feel its effects. In
His breathing too, Jesus feels as though suffocating for the loss of souls.
And we will give Him our breath of love for His relief; and, taking His
breath, we will touch the souls who detach themselves from His arms in
order to give them the life of the divine breath, so that, instead of running
away, they may return to Him, and cling more tightly to Him.

When we are in pain and almost feel that our breath cannot come out
freely, let us think of Jesus, who contains the breath of creatures in His
own breath. He too, as souls become lost, feels His breath being taken
away. So, let us place our sorrowful and labored breath in the breath of
Jesus in order to relieve Him; and let us run after the sinner with our pain,
so as to force him to enclose himself in the Heart of Jesus.
My beloved Good, may my breath be a continuous cry at every creature’s
breath, forcing her to enclose herself in your breath.

The first word which loving Jesus pronounced on the Cross was a word of
forgiveness, to justify all souls before the Father, and turn justice into
mercy. We will give Him our acts to excuse the sinner, so that, moved by
our apologies, He may not allow any soul to go to hell. We will unite with
Him as sentries of the hearts of creatures, so that nobody may offend Him.
We will let Him pour out His love, willingly accepting all that He may
dispose for us - coldness, hardness, darkness, oppressions, temptations,
distractions, slanders, illnesses and other things, so as to relieve Him from
all that He receives from creatures. It is not by love alone that Jesus pours
Himself out to souls. Many times, when He feels the coldness of other
creatures, He goes to the soul and makes her feel His cold, to release
Himself through her. If the soul accepts it, He will feel relieved from all the
coldness of creatures, and this cold will be the sentry to someone else’s
heart, to make loving Jesus loved.

Other times, Jesus feels the hardness of hearts in His own, and unable to
contain it, He wants to pour Himself out, and comes to us. He touches our
hearts with His Heart, making us share in His pain. Making His pain our
own, we will place it around the heart of the sinner in order to melt his
hardness, and take him back to Him.

My beloved Good, You suffer greatly because of the loss of souls; and out of
compassion I place my being at your disposal. I will take your pains and
the pains of the sinners upon myself, leaving You relieved, and the sinner
clinging to You.

O my Jesus, please, let my whole being be melted in love, so that I may be
of continuous relief, to soothe all your bitternesses.