Behold This Heart Which Has So Loved Men By Cindy Paslawski

In a world growing cold to the love of God for man, in a world of floundering faith because of the heretical idea that frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist was sinful, Jesus Christ reached out to restore mankind to His Life. He gave the world a chance to experience the fervor of His love. He gave the world His Sacred Heart. Our times are floundering even more than those of the seventeenth century and would that the infrequent reception of the Eucharist be the main problem! In our times, it is lack of belief in the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist that is the root of the disarray in this modern age. It is the lack of belief in the need for God that is destroying souls today. It is time to revisit our saints and devotions and witness our belief in the existence of our loving God in order to reestablish a link to the divine for this age. Things may have been easier to accomplish in the centuries before our times, before minds became littered with electronic distractions, but the methods of the Lord are the same - a divine tap on the shoulder and a radical call to witness to people like Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and St. Gianna Molla who served others in the name of Christ. In the seventeenth century, the agent chosen to make known Christ's great plan for restoring the flame of love within men's hearts was a humble cloistered sister of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Visitation - Margaret Mary Alacoque. Margaret was born July 22, 1647, and with three older brothers, she quickly developed into a tomboy. But there was another side to the lively little girl, a deeply spiritual side, according to the book St. Margaret Mary, Apostle of the Sacred Heart by Ruth Hume. Well before she was eight years old, Margaret consecrated her virginity to God, a hint at the divine Source of her spirituality. Prayer was her delight. In spite of a childhood marred by the death of her father, an illness that kept her bedridden for two years (and cured miraculously by having recourse to the Blessed Virgin), and several years spent in the hostile household of relatives, Margaret grew to become a lovely young woman whose charitable works were widely known. Her family objected to her idea of going into religious life, so she attended parties and balls with the dashing young men of her time. But her heart was unsettled, for she had been granted visions of Christ Himself. Finally, in one vision, Christ reminded her, "We must be faithful to each other, you and I" (p.41). It was not long afterward that at age 23, the gentle Margaret Alacoque entered the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial, France. The year was 1670. The structure of convent life was difficult for Margaret and she herself was difficult for her superiors to understand. The young woman appeared to be incredibly slow at learning convent duties, at mastering the precise order of meditation for each day, and at heeding - even hearing - convent bells summoning the nuns to their daily work. At one point, Margaret's superiors decided they had to deny her time in the chapel in order to help her learn to perform her convent duties properly (p.65). The problem was that Margaret heeded Our Lord's time, not the convent's. "The favors of divine love were so excessive that they often carried me completely outside of myself and made me incapable of doing anything," she wrote (p.65). Margaret was being prepared by Our Lord Himself for a great mission. He spoke to her frequently, the "voice" she could hear so plainly while gardening or sweeping the cloister, and especially before the tabernacle. Just a year after her profession, on December 27, 1673, Sister Margaret was given a reprieve from her duties in the infirmary. She hurried to the chapel. And Our Lord appeared to her, His Heart visible within His side. He told her: "My heart is so inflamed with love for men and for you in particular, that no longer able to contain within itself the flames of Its burning charity, It must spread them abroad by means of you....I have chosen you..." (p.83-84). That was the first great vision Sister Margaret Mary had. The second came soon afterwards. She saw the Heart of Jesus enthroned on a great mass of flames, around it was a crown of thorns and in the center, the wound of the centurion's spear (p. 85). Jesus told her He wished the image of His Sacred Heart to be publicly exposed "to touch the unfeeling hearts of men." He asked her to receive the Holy Eucharist on the First Friday of each month and on each Thursday night, to prostrate herself in her convent cell between 11 o'clock and midnight in remembrance of His Agony in the Garden: "…Not only to appease the divine wrath…but also to lighten in some way the bitterness that I felt in being abandoned by My apostles…" (p.88). At a later apparition, Christ stood before her, "Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It has spared nothing, even to consuming itself to witness its love. And in return, I receive from most of them only ingratitude, from their irreverence and their sacrileges and by the coldness and contempt that they have for Me in this Sacrament of love…" (p. 111). He asked for a feast day in honor of His Sacred Heart to be established and for the faithful to make a communion of reparation on that day. In His communications with St. Margaret Mary, Our Lord also promised blessings to those who honor His Sacred Heart. These became known as the Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart: "I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life. "I will establish peace in their houses. "I will comfort them in all their afflictions. "I will be their secure refuge during life, and above all in death. "I will bestow a large blessing upon all their undertakings. "Sinners shall find in My Heart the source and the infinite ocean of mercy. "Tepid souls shall grow fervent "Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection. "I will bless every place where a picture of My Heart shall be set up and honored. "I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts. "Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be blotted out. "I promise thee in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who communicate on the First Friday in nine consecutive months the grace of final penitence; they shall not die in my disgrace nor without receiving their Sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment." How could promotion of this devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus be accomplished by a cloistered nun? The hand of Providence intervened. Fr. Claude de la Columbiere, S.J., became Sister Margaret's spiritual director and he became an apostle of devotion to the Sacred Heart. In his assignments to England as a chaplain and later as spiritual director at a Jesuit seminary, he taught about the fervent love of God for men in the image of this love, the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A book of Fr. Columbiere's spiritual writings, including an account of Sister Margaret Mary's visions, was published after his death. Those who read it were inspired to keep the Feast of the Sacred Heart during the Octave of Corpus Christi. Soon chapels were built, devotions and prayers were written and pictures were circulated. In the meantime, Sister Margaret Mary, still blessed with divine communications, was appointed novice mistress and used her post to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart among her charges. Sister Margaret Mary never lived to see the Feast of the Sacred Heart officially established. She died October 17, 1690, and the feast day wasn't extended to the entire Church until 1856. The promises of Our Lord are as relevant today as they were in the seventeenth century. He has asked for us to honor a picture of the Sacred heart in our households, for First Friday Communions, and for a Thursday night Holy Hour, and for observation of a Feast in His honor. He has promised countless blessings in return for this show of love and devotion. How can we say no?