First Sonnet for Thursday

VII - The Washing

At Table: Christ Mandatum Novum do

to us that we in love should brothers hold

as He embodies love for us. Thus bold

in love the nations seeing might him know.

Example: washing feet in servant's mold!

To each apostle come in turn: St Pete

refuses God now kneeling at his feet.

"An not I wash you then be gone" is told.

Yet even strengthen'd well this night unmeet

you will deny me thrice. Belov'd take heart:

you show how human weakness plays its part

til providential saving plan's complete

Reshod thus Peter savéd, wash'd did go

to felling by a maid at sunrise crow.

The Final Sonnets (for now)

V Spy Wednesday - Judas
Now Judas thief & liar, devil, friend
Here come I carefully to you: for pot
& kettle are both black. & we are not
That far I think each from the other's end.

The Priceless One you sold for not a lot:
the price of one escapéd slave. Yet I
just any petty lust or care will buy
with love I owe to him; his love forgot.

Dear Judas, priests through you the Christ did buy
I understand & pity for I fear
That I your course can eas'ly find quite near:
Your steps for hunger's slake I trod & die.

Lord Christ forbid that I my feet will wend
on damning ways that Satan to me sends.

VI Interlude

The actors all are here in place, our play

is set! The curtain ready rises now:

Apostles, Traitor, Priests, & King all bow.

Let us kneel down to watch the passion fray.

Here Pharisees assembled make a vow.

Here Judas strides with kiss through garden's night.

Here Pilot waits for judging by his light.

Here Christ the Lamb of God all disavow.

Foul Clergy here will mock & slay a blight.

Confus'd Apostles here lost to a man.

Great Romans here made tools in God’s own plan.

Poor Women here will, mourning, get it right.

Tiz God's victor'ous Coronation Day

when death itself our God by death shall slay!

Two more Holy Week Sonnets

III Holy Monday - Pharisees

Ye scribes & lawyers, hypocrites ye brood

of vipers: pharisees who twirl the law

to lure a proselyte into your maw

then spit out worse; within your precepts stewed!

The Torah's words from out your crooked craw

draw obligations far too hard to bear.

Our God's Revealéd words for making fair

you twist in ways that Moses never saw.

But turn ye now from that corrupted fare

& belly up to God's reforming grace

Which calls the people of another race

to make both one in his redeeming care

The Jews & Gentiles both hath God pursu'd

Would at his table both by Christ include.

IV Holy Tuesday - the Harlot

When trapp'd in sins the night without a moon

is dark: no hope nor freedom found in lust

that fills this moment's craving only. Trust

Alone in God can make his lovers swoon.

To Christ now so she comes. As come she must

for rest, to whom men come for passions' fall.

So she whose empt'ing man can't fill can call

to him whose emptying salvation thrust

to hell and every time of Terra's ball.

His feet that soundéd first in Eden's glen

she bathes in tears. She dries with hair & then

anointing them: her love repairs her fall.

Yet Judas fails to see this grace who soon

is damnt as dances she to Jesus' tune.

First three sonnets for Holy Week

Prelude

O Lord always majestic is thy name.

No man may sing thy praises worthily

& mould'ring - wanting words to hear & see

is often in believers' hearts thy fame.

Still yet we try with prose & harmony

to render mysteries in physic's space:

depicting love as icons show thy face

to offer latria enfleshedly.

If Donne like saints, though sleeping, lend his grace

unlettered I make bold on pages ink'd

to build in classic form of couplets link'd

& structured verses, thus thy praises trace.

Lest Onan's songs on formless pride I frame

Creator God the Word my words enflame.

I - Lazarus Saturday

Tiz better to have lov'd & lost: so said

the Bard when speaking of the heart's romance.

What would he say of God & man who dance

As friends til mortal man is stoppéd dead?

Then God can weeping fall in mourner's trance

While sisters, neighbors, pharisees, & all

will wonder at his healing advent's stall:

when but one touch restor'd the blind man's glance.

But God has come prophetic'ly to fall

the gates of death. Our Lover's voice will part

hell's ramparts. Raising Laz'rus by God's art:

The tyrant soon will rule an empty hall.

Here he whom four days dead in darkness tread

Rejoices now and rests in his own bed

II - Palm Sunday

All glory laud & honor children sing:

to thee hosanna, Lord, hosanna! Praise

we thee with them, our olive branches raise.

Thy train in triumph through the gate we bring

With garments strewn the road to glory lays:

what ails the crowd that soon they'll turn away?

Here where we hear hosanna cried today

great hearts will fail as darkness on them preys.

O Lord prevent our hearts that make essay

of crowning Thee as Israel's King & God

from dancing to temptation's tunes that prod

like cattle us, thine image thus to slay.

Let us not join them as thy hands they sting

with nails & in our name they kill their king.

The Second Petition - The Jesus Psalter

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help me. (x10)

Jesus help me to overcome all temptation to sin and the malice of my ghostly enemies.
Help me to spend my time in virtue and in labors acceptable to thee, to repress in my flesh the motions of sloth, gluttony, and lust.
Help me to have a heart fully in love with virtue and the holy desire of Thy glorious presence.
Help me through pious and peaceful living with my neighbors to have and to keep a good name, to Thy honor, and to my consolation.

Have mercy on all sinners, O Jesus, I beseech Thee; turn their vices into virtues and, making them true observers of Thy law and lovers of Thee, bring them to bliss in everlasting glory.

Have mercy also on the souls in Purgatory, for Thy bitter passion, I beseech Thee, and for Thy glorious name, Jesus.

O blessed Trinity, one true God, have mercy on me.

Our Father (or Pater Noster). Hail Mary (or Ave Maria)

Here (and in the first petition) we see the general themes laid out, of taking things one has - sloth, gluttony, lust - and exchanging them for things one should have: a love of virtue and a desire for God's presence. In this prayer "a good name" assumes that all one's neighbors are more-pious, holier Christians than oneself and that to have their good judgement is to have become more like them. This is very orthodox thinking in the Christian East as well as the West: I am the only sinner I know. Yes, we have all sinned and fallen short, but I am the only sinner I know. The state of your soul is not for me to judge, but rather something for which I should intercede and always assume the best.

The prayer to "haue my hart enamored of vertue, & the glorious prefence of thee" as it is printed in the 1599 text, is one of a sort that will be seen often: my heart is drawn away from you, God, but give me a heart, rather, that is drawn to you that I can become more like you.

The First Petition - Jesus Psalter

This whole series can be found under Jesus Psalter Series in the sidebar. The reader is referred there for "how to" and any historical notes. To the latter I will add more as I find them. Each petition will be posted in the same format: the petition itself, which is to be said ten times, followed by a collection of prayers compiled from my available sources, including in bold, the ones that see to be "the original" prayers, to differentiate them. (It will be noted that the first prayer is always the Petition plus an embolism which clarifies the intention. Then the closing prayer, Pater Noster, and Ave. 

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, have mercy on me. (x10)

Jesus, have mercy on me, O God of compassion, and forgive the many and great offenses I have committed in Thy sight. 
Many have been the follies of my life, and great are the miseries I have deserved for my ingratitude.
Have mercy on me, dear Jesus, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, who am unable to help myself.
Deliver me from setting my heart upon any of Thy creatures, which may divert my eyes from continually looking up to Thee.
Grant me grace henceforth, for the love of Thee, to hate sin: and out of a just esteem of Thee, to despise worldly vanities.

Have mercy on all sinners, O Jesus, I beseech Thee; turn their vices into virtues and, making them true observers of Thy law and lovers of Thee, bring them to bliss in everlasting glory.
Have mercy also on the souls in Purgatory, for Thy bitter passion, I beseech Thee, and for Thy glorious name, Jesus.

O blessed Trinity, one true God, have mercy on me.

Our Father (or Pater Noster). Hail Mary (or Ave Maria)

A comment on the common concluding prayer, of course, "All Sinners" includes the person praying. The subtext of "change their vices into virtues" is that all vices are only misdirected virtues. There is no positive evil: only a deficiency of good in some area. One fails to love God enough and loves other things instead. But it is still love.

Jesus Psalter - Notes and Practice

Each section of the Psalter (a Section is Five Decades) opens with the recitation of two verses of Scripture, Philippians 2:10-11.

In nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum, Et omnis lingua confiteatur, quia Dominus Jesus Christus in gloria est Dei Patris.
In the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. 

The Psalter of 1599 (above, left) only has two petitions in the first decade while the later edition has many more. The online edition has several petitions of the same sort as the later one.

Jesus, have mercy on me, O God of compassion, and forgive the many and great offenses I have committed in Thy sight. Many have been the follies of my life, and great are the miseries I have deserved for my ingratitude. Have mercy on me, dear Jesus, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, who am unable to help myself. Deliver me from setting my heart upon any of Thy creatures, which may divert my eyes from continually looking up to Thee.  Grant me grace henceforth, for the love of Thee, to hate sin: and out of a just esteem of Thee, to despise worldly vanities. 

Because of this (and other differences between the editions) it seems that the earlier texts of the devotion might have had only one or two petitions - plus the prayer "Have mercy on all sinners" &c., ending in the Pater Noster and the Ave. The whole point was to set up a meditation on the thirty-fold invocation. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus..." a couple of petitions and the meditation (ad hoc by the devotee, or prompted by other materials).  It helps if we think of this like a Rosary. We know an Rosary is supposed to be more than just quickly saying the ten Aves and one Pater Noster, one Gloria, and one O, my Jesus. But most of the time - especially in public recitation - the Rosary gets turned into just that.

When you read a text on how to pary the Rosary there is a complex "Contemplation" included for each decade.  You'll not get it memorized! You're not supposed to: it's intended as a bridge or springboard to your own inner world. I hear advice that people should "say the Rosary while driving" and I think "OMG No!  It's hella more dangerous than cellphones!"  It's a bit more involved: it can take minutes to read, but an hour to pray. I see some advising doing only a decade of the rosary in 15 mins: thus, a properly done one would take almost an hour and a half. That's advanced - very advanced - but not a bad target. Nor is it, in time, a bad target for the Psalter.