The Great Supplica is one of the constitutive elements of the Feast of the Name of Jesus in the Congregation. With the Novena of Reparation to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, before the Blessed Sacrament, the Supplica is Father Founder’s special and unique contribution to the devotion to the Name of Jesus. The genesis of this unique practice may be gleaned from the historical events before 1888, which prompted Father Founder to offer thanksgiving and petitions to God the Father in the Name of Jesus, his Son. The events that prompted the offering of gratitude, seen as God’s loving intervention to the growth of the Institutes, include the initial establishment of the soon Daughters of Divine Zeal, escape from the deadly cholera of 1887, and the institution of the Bread of St. Anthony in the same year. The recourse for petitions may have come from the following events and plans: church approval for sisters’ Congregation, the needed guidance for the Work and Institute after the departure of Gensen Bucca [Fr. Founder’s trusted collaborator], and initial plans for establishing a group of priests.

The ‘Supplica to the Eternal Father in the Most Holy Name of His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ Our Lord’ must be ‘recited in our homes on January 31 as the conclusion of the month consecrated to the Most Holy Name of Jesus and of the solemn Novena celebrated annually in our homes’ says the Founder. The Supplica is the culminating celebration, synthesizing Fr. Founder’s unique and ingenious contribution to the devotion to the Name of Jesus. The prayer of thanksgiving and supplication, which contains the kernel of the prayers offered, is based on Jesus’ words in John 16, 23 - “Amen, Amen I say to you, whatever you ask from the Father he will grant in my name.” The Son’s mediation - through His name, gives hope and prompts petition. The presence of the Eucharist expresses the sacramental element of this Christological mediation. Fr. Founder writes: ‘Look, O Eternal Father, into the face of your divine Son Jesus, who on this altar dwells sacramentally…’ The Most Holy Name of Jesus, in whom we are to pray and in whom we are heard, is the Christ of history who makes himself close and present to us in the Eucharist.

These annual petitions initially did not number 34 and were just manuscripts until we started printing them in 1918. Fr. Founder indicates that they should be kept in the archives. The 34 petitions were later established to remember Jesus’ earthly life and the time he was in his mother’s womb. The 34 petitions also carry the theological value of these prayers: For Fr. Founder, ‘Christ in His flesh is the prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving that ascends to the Father.’ The 34 prayers present and render the whole life of Christ – his incarnation, ministry, passion, and death - the mysteries that Fr. Founder considers present constantly in the Eucharist. ‘The supplication is based on the person of Jesus, the incarnate Word, on the works he accomplished on earth and continually present in the Eucharist.’ In the Supplica, we insert ourselves in the life of the Word made Flesh, present in the Eucharist, for our prayer is made possible in the humanity of the Son.

The core of the actual supplications are thanksgiving and petition. Addressing the first person of the Trinity with the Name that Jesus revealed, the gratitude is rendered to the Father. Before each supplication, there is always an affectionate thanksgiving for the benefits and graces already received. Then follows the Christological mediation, which precedes the actual petitions, which are, in essence, requests and appeals for graces and favors for the Congregation’s spiritual and apostolic life and needs.

The Great Supplica reveals Fr. Founder’s reverence for the Name of Jesus and, more importantly, his hopeful trust in the person of Jesus, who comes to us and pitched his tent among us in the Eucharist. The power of Jesus’ name and the assurance he gives in John 16, 23 is made concrete in the Eucharist. It is of no surprise that Fr. Founder insists: ‘On the day of the Feast [of the Most Holy Name of Jesus], you must present the Supplication before the Blessed Sacrament exposed or with the tabernacle open, where no exposition can be made.’ 

Let us then offer the Great Supplica with hopeful trust like Fr. Founder. As pilgrims of hope, we ought to render our heartfelt gratitude to the anchor of our hope, God himself, and offer our petitions to the Father in the Name of his only begotten Son, Jesus, the name above every other name.

Send O Lord, Holy Apostles into Your Church!

Photo: Nov. Ryan Bongcac

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