TO THE READER.
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We offer tins little book to your pious consideration, hoping that you will kindly receive it with the same good will as its pre- decessors. It is the companion to the "Perpetual Supplication to the Compas- sionate Heart of Mary," which we published last year. Read and distribute them both, and remember that the zeal of the Christian ought always to be like a spreading flame. Do not content yourself with reading and getting others to read these books; but prac- tise, and get others to practise what they contain. You will thus draw down the blessing of God on yourselves and your fami- lies, you will give glory to Jesus and Mary, you will promote the salvation of the dying, you will raise a barrier against the invasion of the Solidaires, that wicked band, whose mission it is to make men die as reprobates;*
* This sect arose in Belgium a few years ago, and has already gained a footing in many French towns. Let us do all we can to arrest its ravages.
TO THE READER.
you will comfort Holy Church, your mother, in her sorrows, and gain for her, from Heaven, fresh strength to conquer her ene- mies. May God, in His infinite mercy, make use of you, dear reader, for these glorious and holy ends, and may these little books help to forward them! We humbly offer them, like our others, to the agonizing Heart of Jesus, to the compassionate Heart of Mary, and to St. Joseph, the patron of a good death. *
According to a revelation made to a pious person, "our Lord looks with great favour on the Confraternity established in honour of His Agonizing Heart; many dying per- sons have already been saved by its interces- sions; and their number will ultimately be counted, not by thousands, but by millions." This is not a matter of faith, but we who know the person to whom, and the circum- stances in which the revelation was made, see no reason for doubt, and find in it great consolation. Glory be to God. Amen.
*We would call particular attention to an article at the end of this book, on "The Simultaneous Exercise of Perpetual Intercession to the Agonizing Heart of Jesus, and Perpetual Supplication to the Compassionate Heart of Mary."
PERPETUAL INTERCESSION
TO
THE AGONIZING HEART OF JESUS,
FOR THE EIGHTY THOUSAND WHO DIE
EACH DAY.
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We hope that the easy method which we are about to lay before the members of the Confrater- nity of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus, may assist them in the profitable employment of their ap- pointed time of intercession for the dying. But we must begin by explaining the nature of the Confraternity.
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CHAPTER I.
The Confraternity of the Agonizing Heart
of Jesus.
The object of this Confraternity is, to honour the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the con- tinual sorrows of His mortal life, especially
PERPETUAL INTERCESSION TO
in His Agony in the Garden of Olives; and, by the merits of that long agony, to obtain the grace of a good death for the eighty thousand who die each day. This number is not exaggerated, it is an ascer- tained fact.
The excellence and advantages of this Confraternity are obvious. Its special object of veneration is among the greatest, the holiest, the most perfect, that can be found in heaven or on earth, for it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, considered in the most touching manifestations of Its love, in all that It has endured for our salvation; it is the Agonizing Heart of the only Son of God, equal to Him from all eternity; of the only Son of the Immaculate Virgin, born of her, in time, by the divine power of the Holy Spirit.
It meets the most urgent and important need of souls; of the countless multitudes who are dying each day. The eternal fate of thousands will be decided within the next twenty-four hours, a few minutes will seal that of a vast number. Alas! how many of them are in a state of mortal sin, and there- fore on the very brink of hell! Can any need be greater than theirs? What can be
THE
