At the school of Jesus to learn how to love

In this month particularly dedicated to the Sacred Heart, the holy hour wants to enter into its most profound teaching: humility and meekness. Therefore we can set, as usual, our prayer time, which will coincide with Thursday evening-night, in memory of the agony in Gethsemane. We enter into prayer, at the school of Saint Ignatius, first of all by mentally detaching ourselves from our usual occupations, and considering Who we are going to speak to and what we want to ask him: thus, we physically enter our room where we want to pray, or the chapel.

Here, standing, we are silent for a few moments, offering Jesus our prayer in reparation for our sins and that of the whole world, joining his prayer in the garden of olive trees, welcoming with love his invitation to keep vigil and pray. So we can sit and imagine that we have Christ himself in front of us as a most loving teacher who invites us to listen to him, and all men with us. We can imagine the place or environment into which He invites us, whether standing or sitting, and us next to Him, almost trying to enter a scene from the Gospel, as if we were there in front of Him, because praying in the mystery of done we dive. I will listen to how Christ the Lord says to me in a particular way: «Come to me, all you who are weary and oppressed, and I will give you relief. Learn from me who am meek and humble of heart and you will find refreshment for your souls." We listen to his word and repeat it, even many times, letting it sink into the depths of our heart. Many situations, many people or facts will come to mind: let the word we hear enter into all of this. At that point we can start to ask ourselves: what is bothering me? What makes me tired? What oppresses me? Let us go to Jesus with these burdens and place them at his feet: let us speak about these with Him, as a friend speaks to a friend, now asking for advice, now begging for help, now asking for forgiveness. Let's think about the life of Jesus: what would he tell us if he saw us in our condition? What does the Passion tell us about him? What do his words teach us? We ask the light of the Holy Spirit to remind us of the words of Jesus and make us feel them intimately, as the answer to our problems. We remain there, feeling and tasting intimately. Let us then listen to the word that most of all reflects his Heart: humility. He who forgives is humble, he who renounces revenge, he who responds to evil with good, that is, he who is meek. We can also repeat at length the well-known prayer "Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart similar to yours". We repeat it for a long time, like a sort of litany, always placing these words in the concrete situation that weighs me down or oppresses me. I will remain in this condition for an hour, letting myself be guided by the Spirit, and I will linger more where I have felt intimate consolation. At the end, I will leave the prayer by reciting an Our Father.