Act of Love and Perfect Contrition

Act of Love and Perfect Contrition

Humbly prostrate before Thee, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I adore Thee, I praise Thee, I bless Thee, and I love Thee with all my strength and all the love of which my heart is capable; but do Thou extend its capacity and increase my love, in order that I may love Thee more, and that this love may make me belong completely to Thee forever. This is a grace which I ask for myself and for all hearts capable of loving, and especially for my own rebellious, hardened, unfaithful heart, which has so long abused Thy graces, resisted Thee and continued to offend Thee. I lead a life so cowardly in Thy service that, were it not for the excess of Thy mercy, Thou wouldst have long ago vomited me out of Thy mouth and rejected me as an object of horror and abomination which merits only to suffer eternally all the rigors of Thy just anger. But I implore Thee, O Sacred Heart of my adorable Jesus, by that ardent love and suffering on the tree of the Cross, and which will keep Thee in this state on our altars until the end of time, to grant me, poor, miserable sinner, pardon for all the sins that I have committed: my ingratitude, forgetfulness and infidelity, and the other insults that I have offered to Thee of which I repent with my whole heart. I ask Thy pardon  with all the sorrow  and regret of which I am capable, and I protest that I wish I could shed all my blood by all the torments imaginable, in order to satisfy Divine Justice and to repair the outrages which I have done to Thee. I accept in advance all the pains by which it may please Thee to chastise me in this life, and I beseech Thee not abandon me to myself and to sin, and thus deprive me of Thy love. O Divine and most amiable Heart, do not condemn me to so horrible a torment as not to love Thee. Rather let all the pains of Hell come and torment me, than that I should be for a single moment without loving Thee! O DIvine Heart, Source of love and goodness, how couldst Thou forget Thy mercies and condemn to eternal privation of Thy love a heart which wishes henceforth in time and in eternity to live only to love Thee and to inhale and exhale breath only by this love. 

Listen, then, O most amiable Heart of my Lord Jesus Christ, to the prayer which I make and to the request which I present in my favor, wretched and unworthy sinner that I am; it is, that Thou wouldst grant me true conversion of heart. I detest all my past sins and I hold them in such horror, that I would choose rather to be sunk in the abyss of Hell than relapse again in the future; and if Thou wishest to condemn me to flames, let it be to those of Thy pure love. Cast me into the abyss of this ardent furnace in punishment for all my perfidy. And when the excess of Thy goodness urges Thee to confer still further graces on me, I ask for no other than that of the sweet punishment of love. But grant, I implore Thee, that I may be consumed in this love and transformed into Thee. And in order to avenge Thyself on me for not loving Thee and for loving myself inordinately, pierce and transfix, a thousand thousand times my ungrateful heart with the dart of Thy pure love, that it may no longer be able to contain earthly and human love, but only the plenitude of Thy pure love, which will leave me no other liberty but that of loving Thee, while suffering and accomplishing in everything Thy holy will. These are the graces that I ask of Thee, O Sacred and most amiable Heart, and I implore Thee to grant them to me and to all hearts capable of loving Thee, and for them I ask Thee that they may live and die in this same love. Amen.

by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque 

Image Credit Waiting for the Word