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

† Twelfth Hour: From 4 to 5 AM †

Jesus Exposed to the Mockery of the Soldiers, Heaped with Abuse and Insults

Preparation before Each Hour

Jesus, my sweet life! As I rest against Your Heart, I feel the thorns that wound it. You want to have a soul that loves You near. Behold, I pay attention to all Your sufferings and feel compassion for You. Oh, how I would like to hold You close to my heart, to expose myself in Your place to the adversities and let those insults, torments and unspeakable humiliations befall me. Only Your love is able to endure such abuse. What can you expect from such an inhuman people?

My most patient Jesus! Your enemies are mocking You. They spit in Your face. The light of Your beautiful eyes is obscured while You weep rivers of tears for our salvation. But they cannot dim the expression of Your divine majesty coupled with infinite gentleness. They themselves shudder at their iniquities and are ashamed. However, in order to treat Your adorable person with greater arbitrariness and to let their shameful activities take the reins, they blindfold You with a dirty cloth, beat You mercilessly, drag You back and forth, trample You underfoot and repeatedly give You new punches and cheek strokes. They pull out the hair from Your head and beard and throw You there and then.

Jesus, my love! My heart wants to stand still. I shudder and want to cover my eyes so that I don't have to look at You in such suffering and such painful scenes. But You want me to pay attention to everything, and love forces me to look at You. Jesus, what is happening to You? You do not speak a word in Your defense. You are at the mercy of these soldiers, a plaything of their crude arbitrariness. They hurl You to the ground and kick You with a devilish fury that I fear You might die under their feet.

My only good and my everything! The pain I feel at the sight of your suffering is so great! I want to cry out to heaven to call upon the Father, the Holy Spirit and all the angels to come to Your aid and comfort You. I would also like to call upon Your kind Mother on earth and all souls who love You. Let them rally around You and prevent these shameless soldiers from continuing to insult and torment You.

With You, O Jesus, I want to atone for all sins committed at night. I especially want to make satisfaction for those committed by the secret sects¹ against You in the Blessed Sacrament. I will atone for all the weaknesses of those souls who do not remain faithful to You in the night of trial.

My insulted Jesus, the soldiers, tired and partly intoxicated, want to abandon themselves to sleep. My poor, dejected heart, torn by the sight of Your torments, does not want to remain alone with You and is looking for another company.

My sweet mother Mary, let me also remain inseparably with You. I hold Your motherly hands tightly and kiss them with reverence. But strengthen me with Your blessing. Let us embrace Jesus and lay our heads on His adorable heart to console it.

Jesus, with Your mother I caress You. With Your Mother, I will surrender to the slumber of love in Your adorable heart.

Reflections and Practices

by St. Fr. Annibale Di Francia

In this hour Jesus is in the midst of the soldiers with imperturbable courage and iron constancy. God as He is, He suffers all the strains which the soldiers inflict upon Him, and looks at them with so much Love that He seems to invite them to give Him more pains. And we—are we constant during repeated sufferings, or do we lament, get irritated and lose peace; that peace of the heart which is necessary to allow Jesus to find a happy dwelling within us?

Firmness is that virtue which makes us know whether God really reigns in us. If ours is true virtue, we will be firm in

trial, with a firmness that is not inconstant, but always balanced. And it is this sole firmness that gives us peace. The more we become firm in good, in suffering, and in working, the more we enlarge the field around us, in which Jesus will expand His graces. Therefore, if we are inconstant, our field will be small, and Jesus will have little or no space. But if we are firm and constant, as Jesus finds a very extensive field, He will find in us His shelf and support, and the place in which to extend His graces.

If we want our beloved Jesus to rest in us, let us surround Him with His own firmness, with which He operated for the salvation of our souls. Being sheltered, He will remain in our heart in sweet rest. Jesus looked with Love at those who mistreated Him, and do we look at those who offend us with the same Love? And is the love we show to them so great as to be a voice for their hearts—so powerful as to convert them to Jesus?

My Jesus, boundless Love, give me this Love and let each pain of mine call souls to You.

¹ It is assumed here that in Masonic lodges the worst sacrilegious sacrileges are committed with consecrated hosts.

Sacrifice and Thanksgiving