What better time to read the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque than the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart. She can appropriately be described as the apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. How united she was to his passion and death to the point of receiving the stigmata. How united she was to the sufferings of her Lord.
One of Christ's greatest sufferings during His passion was the ingratitude of those He came to save. In one vision of July 1674, Jesus particularly described the pain of ingratitude and how much it made Him suffer. St. Margaret Mary described it writing:
“One day, as I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar…Jesus Christ, my sweet Master, presented Himself to me, all resplendent with glory, with His five wounds shining like so many suns.
Think about this. All of our wounds will shine in eternity "like so many suns" if we embrace them for love of God.
“From all parts of His Sacred Humanity there issued flames but especially from His adorable breast, which was like a furnace.
St. Teresa of Avila who lived 100 years before St. Margaret Mary seemed to have a premonition of her vision. She prayed to be "a burning furnace of charity." May we all see this as our vocation. In imitation of Christ we are called to be like the burning bush in the Old Testament, on fire with love but never consumed.
“Opening [His breast], He showed me His loving and lovable Heart as the living source of those flames. Then he revealed to me all the unspeakable marvels of His pure love, and the excess of love He had conceived for men from whom He had received nothing but ingratitude and contempt.
The pagan philosopher Cicero called gratitude "not only the greatest of all virtues, but the parent of all the others." And yet, even among those who call themselves Christians, gratitude disappears. A gift given? Not worth a text. A kind word or compliment, no more than they deserve. Sadly, gratitude often seems to be the forgotten virtue. And what did Christ say to St. Margaret about the lack of gratitude?
“‘This is more grievous to Me,’ [Jesus] said, ‘than all that I endured in my Passion. If they would only give Me some return of love, I should not reckon all that I have done for them, and I would do yet more if possible. But they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. You, at least, can give Me the happiness of making up for their ingratitude, as much as you can.”
“First, you are to receive me in the Blessed Sacrament as often as obedience will allow, no matter what mortification or humiliation it may entail. Moreover, you are to receive Holy Communion on the First Friday of each month, and every night between Thursday and Friday I will make you partaker of that sorrow unto death which it was My will to suffer in the Garden of Olives.
“This sorrow will reduce you, without your understanding how, to a kind of agony more bitter than death. To join with Me in the humble prayer which I then offered to My heavenly Father in agony you are to arise between eleven and twelve o’clock, and remain with Me upon your knees for an hour, with your face to the ground, to appease the anger of My Eternal Father, and to ask of Him pardon for sinners.
“You will thus share with Me, and in a manner soothe the bitter grief I suffered when my disciples abandoned Me and I was constrained to reproach them that they could not watch with Me even for an hour. During that hour you are to do what I will teach you.”
How often do we fail to "watch with" Jesus? Even at Mass, how often is that hour disfigured with willful distractions and tepid participation? In this month of the Sacred Heart, may we grow in love of Christ and pray to become a "burning furnace of charity."
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