The Revelation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Paral-le-Monial, France
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[A sketch by George Pollard of the Revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus]
It was to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a humble nun of the Order
of the Visitation of Our Lady that Our Lord chose to reveal to
the world His Sacred Heart, thus opening a New Era of Grace and
Mercy in the history of the Church and the world. These private
revelations took place during the years 1673-1675, and are drawn
from the diary of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the witness of her
fellow sisters, and that of her spiritual director, St. Claude de
La Colombiere.
The First Apparition: December 27, 1673
On the Feast of St. John the Evangelist Our Lord came to St.
Margaret Mary, while she was in prayer before the Blessed
Sacrament, and granted her the same privilege as He had done to
St. Gertrude. This is how St. Margaret Mary describes the event
in her autobiography:
"One day, having a little more leisure-for occupations
confided to me left me scarcely any-I was praying
before the Blessed Sacrament, when I felt myself wholly
penetrated with that Divine Presence, but to such a
degree that I lost all thought of myself and of the
place where I was, and abandoned myself to this Divine
Spirit, yielding up my heart to the power of His Love.
He made me repose for a long time upon His Sacred
Breast, where He disclosed to me the marvels of His
Love and the inexplicable secrets of His Sacred Heart,
which so far He had concealed from me. Then it was
that, for the first time, He opened to me His Divine
Heart in a manner so real and sensible as to be beyond
all doubt, by reason of the effects which this favor
produced in me, fearful, as I always am, of deceiving
myself in anything that I say of what passes in time.
It seems to me that this is what took place:"
"My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for
men, and for you in particular that, being
unable any longer to contain within Itself
the flames of Its burning Charity, It must
needs spread them abroad by your means, and
manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to
enrich them with the precious graces of
sanctification and salvation necessary to
withdraw them from the abyss of perdition. I
have chosen you as an abyss of unworthiness
and ignorance for the accomplishment of this
great design, in order that everything may be
done by Me."
"After this He asked me for my heart, which I begged
Him to take. He did so and placed it in His own
Adorable Heart where He showed it to me as a little
atom which was being consumed in this great furnace,
and withdrawing it thence as a burning flame in the
form of a heart, He restored it to the place whence He
had taken it saying to me:"
My well-beloved, I give you a precious token of My love, having enclosed within your side a little spark of its glowing flames, that is may serve you for a heart and consume you to the last moment of your life; its ardor will never be exhausted, and you will be able to find some slight relief only by bleeding. Even this remedy I shall so mark with My Cross, that it will bring you more humiliation and suffering than alleviation. Therefore, I will that you ask for it with simplicity, both that you may practice what is ordered you and also to give you the consolation of shedding your blood on the cross of humiliations. As a proof that the great favor I have done to you is not imagination, and that it is the foundation of all those which I intend further to confer upon you, although I have closed the wound in your side, the pain will always remain. If before, you have taken only the name of My slave, I now give you that of the beloved disciple of My Sacred Heart."
"After such a signal favor which lasted for a long
time, during which I knew not whether I was in heaven
or on earth, I remained for several days, as it were,
on fire and inebriated (with divine love) and so
completely out of myself, that I had to do myself
violence in order to utter a single word. The effort I
had to make in order to join in recreation or to take
food was so great that it was all I could do to
overcome myself, which was a cause of considerable
humiliation to me. I was not able to sleep, because of
the pain of the wound, which is so precious to me; it
produces such heat within me that it burns and consumes
me alive. I also felt such a plentitude of God, that I
could not explain myself to my Superioress, as I should
have wished, regardless of any suffering and confusion
which the recital of these favors might cause me. I
would rather have accused myself of my sins before the
whole world than speak of these graces on account of my
extreme unworthiness. It would have been a great
consolation to me had I been permitted to read aloud my
general confession in the refectory, in order thereby
to make known the depth of corruption which is in me,
so that none of the favors I received might be
attributed to me."
Our Lord makes known the Devotion of the First Fridays: June 1674
"On the First Friday of each month, the above-mentioned
grace connected with the pain in my side was renewed in
the following manner: the Sacred Heart was represented
to me as a resplendent sun, the burning rays of which
fell vertically upon my heart, which was inflamed with
a fire so fervid that it seemed as if it would reduce
me to ashes. It was at these times especially that my
Divine Master taught me what He required of me and
disclosed to me the secrets of His loving Heart. On one
occasion, while the Blessed Sacrament was exposed,
feeling wholly withdrawn within myself by an
extraordinary recollection of all my senses and powers,
Jesus Christ, my sweet Master, presented Himself to me,
all resplendent with glory, His Five Wounds shining
like so many suns. Flames issued from every part of His
Sacred Humanity, especially from His Adorable Breast,
which resembled an open furnace and disclosed to me His
most loving and most amiable Heart, which was the
living source of these flames. It was then that He made
known to me the ineffable marvels of His pure love and
showed me to what an excess He had loved men, from whom
He received only ingratitude and contempt.
"I feel this more than all that I suffered
during My Passion. If only they would make Me
some return for My Love, I should think but
little of all I have done for them and would
wish, were it possible, to suffer still more.
But the sole return they make for all My
eagerness to do them good is to reject Me and
treat Me with coldness. Do you at least
console Me by supplying for their
ingratitude, as far as you are able."
"On representing to Him my inability, He replied:"
"Behold, this will supply for all that is
wanting to you."
"And at the same time His Divine Heart being opened,
there issued from It a flame so ardent that I thought I
should be consumed, for I was wholly penetrated with
it, and being no longer able to bear it, I besought Him
to have pity on my weakness."
"I will be your strength. Fear nothing, but
be attentive to My voice and to what I shall
require of you that you may be in the
requisite disposition for the accomplishment
of My designs. In the first place you shall
receive Me in Holy Communion as often as
obedience (to your confessor and superiors)
will permit you, despite the mortification
and humiliation it may cause you, which you
must receive as pledges of My Love. You
shalt, moreover, communicate on the First
Friday of each month. Every night between the
Thursday and the (first) Friday I will make
you share in My mortal sadness which I was
pleased to feel in the Garden of Olives, and
this sadness, without you being able to
understand it, shall reduce you to a kind of
agony harder to endure than death itself. And
in order to bear Me company in the humble
prayer that I then offered to My Father, in
the midst of My anguish, you shall rise
between 11 P.M. and midnight, and remain
prostrate with Me for an hour, not only to
appease the divine anger by begging mercy for
sinners, but also to mitigate in some way the
bitterness which I felt at that time on
finding Myself abandoned by My Apostles,
which obliged Me to reproach them for not
being able to watch one hour with Me. During
that hour you shall do what I shall teach
you. But listen, My daughter, believe not
lightly and trust not every spirit, for Satan
is enraged and will seek to deceive you.
Therefore, do nothing without the approval of
those who guide you; being thus under the
authority of obedience, his efforts against
you will be in vain, for he has no power over
the obedient."
Our Lord Purifies His Servant
After this apparition St. Margaret began to suffer from a
mystical fever. The Most Holy Trinity appeared to her on another
occasion. At the request of her religious superiors, she was
asked to pray for a cure to her strange sickness. In response the
Blessed Virgin Mary came to her and granted her request. The next
year (1675) Our Lord came and asked her for a bitter sacrifice to
appease His justice which was aroused by the sins of a single
house of religious. She accepted to make this sacrifice. And so,
on the vigil of the Presentation (February 2), for the length of
one long night she suffered mystically the indescribable tortures
of hell and volunteered herself for an extraordinary public
penance, which in her humility she does not describe for us. The
next morning, at Mass, Our Lord spoke to her:
"At last peace is restored, and My Sanctity
of justice is satisfied by the sacrifice you
have made in honor of that which I made at
the moment of My Incarnation in the womb of
My Mother. I wished to renew and unite the
merit thereof with this act of yours in order
to apply it in favor of charity, as I have
shown you. Hence it is that you must no
longer lay any claim to whatever you may do
or suffer, either to increase your merits or
to make satisfaction by penance or otherwise,
since everything is sacrificed in favor of
charity. Therefore, in imitation of Me you
must act and suffer in silence without any
other interest than the glory of God, in the
establishment of the Reign of My Sacred Heart
in the hearts of men, to whom I wish to
manifest It by your means."
Thus Our Lord spoke to her, after she received Him in Holy
Communion.
Our Lord Requests the Devotion of First Fridays be practiced: June 16, 1675
During the octave in preparation for the Solemnity of Corpus
Christi, while St. Margaret was close to the choir grate, Our
Lord appeared to her upon the Altar.
"Behold the Heart which has so loved men that
it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and
consuming Itself, in order to testify Its
love; and in return, I receive from the
greater part only ingratitude, by their
irreverence and sacrilege, and by the
coldness and contempt they have for Me in
this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most
keenly is that it is hearts which are
consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.
Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after
the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for
a special Feast to honor My Heart, by
communicating on that day, and making
reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to
make amends for the indignities which It has
received during the time It has been exposed
on the altars. I promise you that My Heart
shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the
influence of Its Divine Love upon those who
shall thus honor It, and cause It to be
honored."
The Devotion is Made Known to the World
Our Lord had St. Margaret ask that a Feast in honor of His Heart
be offered Him by the Church on the Friday after the Solemnity of
His Body and Blood (Corpus Christi), that such homage be paid to
Himself by the King of France, and that the mission of
propagating this devotion was to be entrusted to the Order of the
Visitation Sisters and to the priests of the Society of Jesus.
After St. Margaret made this known to her spiritual director, the
future St. Claude de la Colombiere. He consecrated himself to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and began to spread the devotion. From
Paray-le-Monial, her convent, this devotion spread rapidly, under
the care of the Jesuits, to the entire Church. Today, just out
side of Paris, France, you can visit the Basilica built as a Act
of National Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which
commemorates the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret
Mary Alacoque. She is buried at Paray-le-Monial, which is between
Lyons and Paris. Her feast day is October 16.
The Apostolate Alliance of the Two Hearts & Immaculate Mediatrix grant permission to the general public to copy this document for the purpose of free distribution in this or in any other media. (
http://www.ici.net/mantle/)
