Thomas Griffin 10/16/24
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St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) channeled the centrality of the Christian message: the whole story is about the heart of God.
As a young girl in France she carried the cross of dealing with the ongoing illness of her mother. Margaret noted that “the heaviest of my crosses was that I could do nothing to lighten the cross my mother was suffering.” Seeing the pain of her mother must have implicitly sowed the seed Christ’s Passion to be revealed to her later in life. She deeply discerned the vocation of marriage for a lengthy period of time but eventually entered the Sisters of the Order of the Visitation when she was 24 years old.
St. Margaret Mary is most known for the revelation she received from Christ which ultimately became known as the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Starting in December of 1674 Jesus appeared to her many times in intervals for about 13 months. The many words shared from Jesus to Margaret Mary are all breathtaking. However, there are some that stand out among others.
Jesus said to her:
“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.”
The above so clearly and powerfully conveys the essential nature of God’s salvation. God holds back nothing in expressing his love. In being born among us and killed for our sins, we tried to exhaust his love. The fire of Jesus’ love was ignited in his earthly ministry and its flames engulfed the cross until his very last breath.
The grandeur of his love is that it did not end in his death. In giving us the gift of the Eucharist (the Sacrament of Love) we are given access to his heart every time we visit a church or attend the Sacrifice of the Mass. And yet, too often we enter church and neglect to truly be grateful and see the fire of love that resides by that red tabernacle candle. Instead, if you are like me, we get easily distracted and our mind wanders.
Today, let us challenge ourselves to not be among those who have coldness in their hearts when we attend Mass this Sunday. Let us consider making a promise to stop into a church a few times this month, not on a Sunday, to visit the Blessed Sacrament and contemplate the heart of God that spared nothing for us on the cross.
The following words are a continuation of Jesus’ words to Margaret Mary:
“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.”
Jesus told her that it is those that are closest to him that treat him with coldness. Those who are “consecrated” would be religious, priests, sisters and brothers. Inside of this category we can also add those who are very religious laypeople. Those who spend time at church each weekend, say their prayers on their own and those that work for the Catholic Church.
In our family experience we know this to be true: it is those that are often closest to that we end up hurting the most. We can overlook them and take them for granted even though they are the ones that sacrifice so much for us. We can also do the same to God.
Margaret Mary was asked to make the Sacred Heart of Jesus more pronounced so that the entire world can be more attuned to the love of Christ. So in your prayer today, run to the fire of his love – don’t show him coldness through distraction. Be entrenched in the heart of God and truly experience what He was willing to do in order to be with you.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine. He is the author of Let Us Begin: Saint Francis’s Way of Becoming Like Christ and Renewing the World.
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