MIRACULOUS MIRACLES™

Prayer — Prayers of the Saints

Prayer of St. Gertrude to the Sacred Heart

by St. Gertrude the Great

'Consume my heart in that burning fire in which Thine is inflamed' — the prayer of the first great mystic of the Heart of Jesus, four centuries before Paray-le-Monial.

The Prayer · Multiple Versions
English · Original
Hail, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, living and quickening source of eternal life, infinite treasury of the divinity, burning furnace of divine love! Thou art my refuge and my sanctuary. O my amiable Saviour, consume my heart in that burning fire in which Thine is inflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Thy love, and let my heart be so united with Thine that our wills may be one, and mine in all things conformed with Thine. May Thine be the standard and rule of my desires and of my actions. Amen.
English (morning resolution)
O Lord, my God, for Thy sake I resolve to perform all my actions, whether outward or inward, purely for Thy glory, and for the salvation of the whole world, with such intention and in such manner as Thou dost desire and enjoin, and in union with that love wherewith Thy Son came down from heaven and wrought out the whole work of our salvation, especially during His Passion. Wherefore I entirely disclaim all merit, all reward and grace which I might otherwise hope to obtain by these actions, that I may offer to Thee, my God, a pure sacrifice of praise and give Thee a proof of my love.
When the Prayer is Said

In the month of June; on First Fridays; on 16 November; the resolution in the morning.

History & Background

Before Margaret Mary, before the feast, there was Gertrude of Helfta, who in the thirteenth century laid her head on the breast of Christ in vision and heard the beating of His Heart — and asked St. John why he had said nothing of it in his Gospel. The devotion to the Sacred Heart counts her its first great voice, and this prayer, which asks that her heart be so united with His 'that our wills may be one', is the whole of her teaching in five sentences.

It is printed in Our Favorite Novenas (1897) among the prayers of the novena to the Sacred Heart, and the text is taken from there. With it, from the same source, is her morning resolution, given below as a second text.

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