The Sacred Heart and the Divine Office

A Prayer to the Angels through the Heart of Jesus, before the Divine Office

Angels of Heaven, let us praise the Lord together and glorify His Most Holy Name! Help us to recite our Office with attention, reverence, devotion and fervor. Unite with us when we pray, and with your golden censers in your hands, draw near to the altar of our hearts. Take burning coals from the altar of the Divine Heart of Jesus, and cast them into our hearts. Receive in your golden censers the incense of our prayers, and unite to them your prayers and praises. Supply all that is wanting, blot out what is defective, offer our homage to the Lord, and obtain for us the graces we have need of, in order that the good odor of our prayers may ascend like a sweet perfume, borne by your hands to the sublime altar of the Heart of Jesus, to that Heart Which lives in the divine presence. May we enter happily into this Divine Heart, now and at the hour of our death. It is in the Heart of Jesus that we shall find grace and glory. It is through the Heart of Jesus that we can praise and glorify the Most Holy Trinity to all eternity. Amen.

Dom John Michael de Vesly, General of the Carthusian Order from 1594 to 1600


After the Divine Office

Most merciful Father, through the most gentle Heart of Jesus, I, a poor unworthy sinner, offer Thee my prayers and praises. I implore Thy mercy for those who are redeemed by the Blood of Thy Son. Give grace to the just, pardon to sinners, comfort to the afflicted, and eternal rest to the dead. Most merciful God, knowing what I am and what I owe to Thee, I acknowledge that I can do nothing of myself. I therefore offer Thee the works and the sufferings, the sorrows and the tears, the wounds and the humiliations, the Passion and the death, the merits and virtues of Thy only Son. I offer them to Thee in expiation of my sins of commission and of omission, and those of the whole world, and above all to expiate my ingratitude and sloth, which cause me to serve Thee so negligently, notwithstanding the many great benefits I have received from Thee. Through the Blood of Thy Son, cast, I beseech Thee, all our transgressions into the abyss of Thy mercy. Deliver us all from sin. Guide and keep us forever. Amen.

Denys the Carthusian