O Lord my God, You are all my good. And who am I that I should dare to speak to You? I am Your poorest and meanest servant, a vile worm, much more poor and contemptible than I know or dare to say. Yet remember me, Lord, because I am nothing, I have nothing, and I can do nothing. You alone are good, just, and holy. You can do all things, You give all things, You fill all things: only the sinner do You leave empty-handed. Remember Your tender mercies and fill my heart with Your grace, You Who will not allow Your works to be in vain. How can I bear this life of misery unless You comfort me with Your mercy and grace? Do not turn Your face from me. Do not delay Your visitation. Do not withdraw Your consolation, lest in Your sight my soul become as desert land. Teach me, Lord, to do Your will. Teach me to live worthily and humbly in Your sight, for You are my wisdom Who know me truly, and Who knew me even before the world was made and before I was born into it.
We Must Walk Before God in Humility and Truth The Voice of Christ: MY CHILD, walk before Me in truth, and seek Me always in the simplicity of your heart. He who walks before Me in truth shall be defended from the attacks of evil, and the truth shall free him from seducers and from the slanders of wicked men. For if the truth has made you free, then you shall be free indeed, and you shall not care for the vain words of men. The Disciple: O Lord, it is true. I ask that it be with me as You say. Let your truth teach me. Let it guard me, and keep me safe to the end. Let it free me from all evil affection and badly ordered love, and I shall walk with You in great freedom of heart. The Voice of Christ: I shall teach you those things which are right and pleasing to Me. Consider your sins with great displeasure and sorrow, and never think yourself to be someone because of your good works. You are truly a sinner. You are subject to many passions and entangled in them. Of yourself you always tend to nothing. You fall quickly, are quickly overcome, quickly troubled, and quickly undone. You have nothing in which you can glory, but you have many things for which you should think yourself vile, for you are much weaker than you can comprehend. Hence, let none of the things you do seem great to you. Let nothing seem important or precious or desirable except that which is everlasting. Let the eternal truth please you above all things, and let your extreme unworthiness always displease you. Fear nothing, abhor nothing, and fly nothing as you do your own vices and sins; these should be more unpleasant for you than any material losses. Some men walk before Me without sincerity. Led on by a certain curiosity and arrogance, they wish to know My secrets and to understand the high things of God, to the neglect of themselves and their own salvation. Through their own pride and curiosity, and because I am against them, such men often fall into great temptations and sins. Fear the judgments of God! Dread the wrath of the Almighty! Do not discuss the works of the Most High, but examine your sins — in what serious things you have offended and how many good things you have neglected. Some carry their devotion only in books, some in pictures, some in outward signs and figures. Some have Me on their lips when there is little of Me in their hearts. Others, indeed, with enlightened understanding and purified affections, constantly long for everlasting things; they are unwilling to hear of earthly affairs and only with reluctance do they serve the necessities of nature. These sense what the Spirit of truth speaks within them: for He teaches them to despise earthly things and to love those of heaven, to neglect the world, and each day and night to desire heaven.
The Voice of Christ: MY CHILD, do not trust in your present feeling, for it will soon give way to another. As long as you live you will be subject to changeableness in spite of yourself. You will become merry at one time and sad at another, now peaceful but again disturbed, at one moment devout and the next indevout, sometimes diligent while at other times lazy, now grave and again flippant. But the man who is wise and whose spirit is well instructed stands superior to these changes. He pays no attention to what he feels in himself or from what quarter the wind of fickleness blows, so long as the whole intention of his mind is conducive to his proper and desired end. For thus he can stand undivided, unchanged, and unshaken, with the singleness of his intention directed unwaveringly toward Me, even in the midst of so many changing events. And the purer this singleness of intention is, with so much the more constancy does he pass through many storms. But in many ways the eye of pure intention grows dim, because it is attracted to any delightful thing that it meets. Indeed, it is rare to find one who is entirely free from all taint of self- seeking. The Jews of old, for example, came to Bethany to Martha and Mary, not for Jesus’ sake alone, but in order to see Lazarus. The eye of your intention, therefore, must be cleansed so that it is single and right. It must be directed toward Me, despite all the objects which may interfere.
Pope Benedict XVI inaugurates a special Year of the Priest starting on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
A little further on, having resumed her recital, and again crushed by the work, we read: “I proceed through obedience, O my God, without any other design than that of satisfying Thee by the martyrdom which I suffer in penning these lines, every word of which seems to me a sacrifice. But mayest You be glorified by it eternally!” The same plaintive tone is heard throughout her Memoir; the same contest is witnessed between humility and obedience. At one instant humility lays down the pen; at the next obedience makes her take it up. It was thus that was finished, in an incomparable glory of sanctity, the recital of the three revelations relative to the Heart of Jesus. We shall now make them known in Margaret Mary’s own words. The Church has studied the triple recital with the severity she always brings to this kind of examination and has solemnly declared their authenticity.
The first of the three revelations took place, no one can doubt on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, December 27, 1673. It was the same day on which three hundred and fifty-three years before, St Gertrude had learned in a vision that if the world beloved Disciple had said nothing of the sacred pulsations of the Sacred Heart, it was because God reserved to Himself to speak of them at a time in which the world begin to grow cold. The day could not of better been chosen for this revelation. We have the account of it written by Margaret Mary. She gives us the whole sense of the life.
We see it was the time that the Lord showed His Heart to Margaret; until then He has always kept It hidden. And such is the character of this apparition, and the impression that she receives from it, that the humble virgin, ordinarily so timid, so distrustful of self could conceive no doubt of it. Jesus had then spoken; and “This” adds Margaret: ” as it seems to me, is what passed: The Lord said to me, My Divine Heart is so passionately in love with men that it can no longer contain within Itself the flames of Its ardent charity. It must pour them out by thy means, and manifest itself to them to enrich them with its precious treasures, which contain all the graces of which they have need to be saved from perdition. I have chosen you as an abyss of unworthiness and ignorance to accomplish so great a design, so that all may be done by Me”.
Thus according to the condition of this first revelation, the new devotion was going to be the grand effort of the Heart of Jesus ‘ passionately in love with men and wishing at any cost to draw them from the abyss of perdition. Until then ordinary means had sufficed. But in the sad state in which the world was, Jesus could no longer contain the flames of this burning charity in His Heart, which wished to save all men. His pierced side opened, and His Heart longed to come forth. It had as yet only shown itself in cloisters and to chosen souls, and in showing it to them had made them faint from love. But now it wished to show itself to the multitude and by whether, in revealing the hidden secrets of love, it might succeed in melting the ice that was being heaped up in the midst of Christian people. Such was the sense of the first apparition.
Jesus said nothing else to Margaret Mary, excepting that, for the accomplishment of His designs, He made use of her; not in spite of her weakness and ignorance, but rather than on account of them, that all should be done by Himself. But when? how? in what manner?. The Lord did not say, and Margaret Mary had neither the thought nor the strength to ask Him.
Since however, there was question of a public ministry, the Lord desired to leave her a living and unquestionable proof of the truth of what had just passed. Before disappearing, He asked if she desired to give Him her heart: But let her speak for herself.
He demanded my heart, and I supplicated Him to take it. He did so, and put it into His own Adorable Heart, in which He allowed me to see it as a little atom being consumed in that fiery furnace. Then drawing it out like a burning flame in the form of a heart, He put it into the place whence He had taken it, saying: Behold, My beloved, a precious proof of My love. I inclose in thy heart a little spark of the most ardent flame of My love., to serve thee as a heart and to consume thee till thy last moment. Until now, you have taken only the name of My slave; henceforth you shalt be called the well-beloved disciple of My Sacred Heart.
One can easily imagine what effects might be produced by such a favour a creature already wholly inflamed with divine love. She said: After so great a grace, one that lasted so long and during which I knew not whether I was in heaven or on earth, I remained several days wholly inflamed, wholly inebriated.. I was so out of myself that it was only by doing violence to myself could I utter a word. I was obliged to make so great an effort to eat and recreate that my strength was exhausted in my endeavor to endure my sufferings”.
Such was the first act of this triple revelation of the Sacred Heart. One sees as yet only the principle and as it were, the inspiration of this new devotion; but in what touching beauty! A God forgotten by men, and unable to resign Himself to such forgetfulness; despised by man, and wishing to punish him; hearkening to His anger, endeavoring to silence the voice of His love, and yet nor succeeding; unable to contain within Himself the flames of His ardent charity, and yet not able to chastise His ungrateful creatures, He resolved to vanquish them by force of tenderness, and for this end daily inventing new and most divine contrivances of love! After the splendors and benefits of creation came the annihilations of the crib. The crib is followed by the sorrows of the Cross; the Cross, by the Holy Eucharist! Is there anything left? Yes; for we now behold the supreme effort of the Sacred Heart! It is always the same law. Every new evidence of coldness on the part of man causes God to descend a degree in order to touch the heart from which He cannot succeed in detaching Himself.
The day following this lively and ineffaceable apparition, in which Margaret Mary had learned two things, the first, that God could not contain in His Heart the secrets of His love; the second, that He would make use of her to reveal them to the world, – the life of our saint resumed its accustomed course. Very nearly six months were granted her to recover from the profound impression just received, – and she had much need of them. Six months of peace, recollection, silence, brilliant progress in humility and the love of God! And now, at the moment she least expected, comes the second revelation! More penetrating, more luminous than the first, it made a still deeper impression on her soul. She fell ill from the violent emotion it caused; so ill that all thought she must die.
This second revelation is the only one of which we know not the exact date. It certainly took place in 1674, before the arrival at Paray of Father de la Colombiere, who came in the autumn of this year. As the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, it could not be according to the custom of the times, other than the feast of the Visitation, or during the Octave of Corpus Christi. On the other hand, it seems to follow from Margaret’s account that it was on Friday, and the first Friday of the month. We think therefore, that it was in the beginning of June, and the Friday of the Octave of Corpus Christi.
Margaret excused herself on the plea of incapacity: “Fear not,: said Jesus; behold here is wherewith to furnish all that is wanting to thee.” “And at that moment: continued Margaret, ‘the Divine Heart being opened, there shot forth a flame so ardent that I thought I should be consumed by it”. Admirable symbol of what this new devotion was going to become in the Church, of that universal re-warming of hearts of which we shall try later to trace to the consoling picture!
Thoroughly penetrated with this burning flames, and unable longer to endure the fire, Margaret implored our Saviour to have pity on her weakness: Fear nothing”said He to her: I shall be thy strength. Listen only to what I desire of thee to prepare thee for the accomplishment of My designs” Then the Lord asked two things of her: the first to communicate every first Friday of each month to make Him the amende honorable!; the second, to rise between eleven and midnight on the night between Thursday and Friday of every week, and to prostrate for an hour with her face to the ground, in expiation of the sins of men, and to console His Heart for that general desertion, to which the weakness of the apostles in the Garden of Olives had been only a slight prelude.
“During all this time” says Margaret: “I was unconscious, I knew not where I was. Some of the Sisters came to take me away, and seeing that I could neither reply nor support myself on my feet, they led me to our Mother, who found me quite out of myself, trembling as if on fire”. When Margaret told her what had just taken place, whether she believed or not, or whether she feigned not to believe it, Mother de Saumaise humbled her as deeply as she could -“which gave me extreme pleasure, caused me inconceivable joy” Says Margaret Mary: “for I felt myself such a criminal, I was filled with such confusion, that, however righteous might be the treatment bestowed upon me, it would still have seemed to me too lenient”.
“The fire that devoured me brought on continual fever; but I rejoiced too much in suffering to complain of it. I never spoke of it, but when my strength was completely gone. Never have I felt so much consolation. My whole body was racked by extreme pain, and this relieved a little the parching thirst I felt to suffer. This devouring fire could neither be fed nor satisfied but with the woo of the cross; namely with contempt of all kinds, humiliations, and pains. Never was my bodily sufferings equal to what I experienced from not suffering enough. The Sisters thought I would surely die”.
Dr. Billiet, the attendant physician, declared that Saint Margaret Mary, had sixty consecutive fevers that resisted every remedy employed to moderate their ardor. Mother de Saumaise, very much perplexed, at last resorted to the following expedient. She approached the bed of the apparently dying Sister, and commanded her in the name of obedience to ask her restoration of God, adding that she would recognize it as a sign of the supernatural character of all that had taken place in her regard. She would then, she said, permit her to make the Communion of the first Friday of every month, and the hours prayer during the night between Thursday and Friday.
Margaret experienced strong repugnance to asking a termination of her sufferings, fearing she said, “to be heard”. But at the word obedience, she no longer hesitated. Scarcely had she uttered a short prayer before her fever fell, her pulse beat less rapidly, and the astonished physician pronounced her cured. There was however little need for the doctor to make this assertion, for the saint arose; and from that day the Sisters remarked a total change in her health. Mother de Saumaise did not resist the voice of God.
She granted Margaret Mary the permission to communicate the first Friday of the month, and for the future to rise on the night between Thursday and Friday.
Meanwhile Mother de Saumaise became more and more embarrassed. This cure, which looked like a miracle and which perhaps was one, caused her to reflect more seriously on the propriety of acknowledging the incontestable sanctity of Sister Margaret. But on the other hand Margaret was very young, hardly six and twenty, and counted but two years of religious life. The visions that she related were, moreover , very extraordinary. Was not some illusion to be feared? Finally Mother de Saumaise resolved to consult others; and breaking silence for the first time, she conferred on the subject with some religious whose names we do not know -‘learned people”, say our old Memoires. But whether Margaret so timid and so humble, was herself not understood, or whether the advisers of Mother de Saumaise entertained certain prejudices on the score of supernatural manifestations, a thing not infrequent even among priests and pious religious, her conferences led to the conclusion that in Margaret Mary’s case there was much imagination, a little natural temperament, and perhaps even some illusion of the evil spirit, so skillfully disguised that the good Sister could not perceive it.
The perplexity of Margaret’s judges was thus increased instead of diminished. Condemned by her Superiors and confessors, the poor Sister knew not which way to turn. She said: “I made every effort to resist my interior attractions, believing that I was assuredly in error. But I could not succeed. I no longer doubted that I was abandoned, since I was told that it was not the Spirit of God that governed me; and yet it was impossible for me to resist the Spirit that moved me.” One day, when drooping under the weight of this continued anxiety, and pouring out her plaintive wail at the feet of her Lord, she seemed to hear a voice saying to her: Have patience, and await My servant. She knew not what the words meant, but they poured a little balm into her soul, and she felt that God would come to her assistance in His own good time.
Things were in the same state when Mother de Saumaise announced to her Community one day that a pious conference would be given them by a religious of the Society of Jesus who had just arrived at Paray, and who had the reputation of speaking eloquently of the things of God. His name was Father de la Colombiere. We are astonished that a man who, in spite of his youth, was already so celebrated, and who from his entrance into the Society had given promise of attaining high renown, should be sent to so small a place as Paray. We read in the sequel the divine purpose of this sending. Father de la Columbiere came in time for the greatest perplexities (for it was very likely the morrow of the second revelation, so badly understood by the learned people of Paray, and the eve of the third and last, the most important of all). He was going, in a few words, to evoke light in the midst of darkness.
Sister Margaret Mary went with the other Sisters to the conference, Father de la Colombiere’s name not having made upon her the slightest impression. But he had hardly opened his lips when she distinctly heard these words: “Behold him whom I send to thee” Accustomed to await God’s moments without anticipating them, scarcely had she rested her eyes on the Father when she remitted to God who had sent him, the care of making her known to him.
The Ember days came. Father de la Colombiere having been deputed to hear the confessions of the Community, Margaret Mary remarked that, although he had never seen her, yet he spoke as if he knew what was passing in her soul. He detained her a long time, and even offered to see her again the next day, in order to receive a thorough manifestation of her interior state. These advances could not come more opportunely. But Margaret did not want to open her heart to him; and as to the second proposition, she replied humbly and timidly that she would do what obedience ordered her.
We have quoted this entire page, because in very brief form it contains true light, There is something elevated, sensible, sweet, and pious in it. It is, besides, the great word of Father de la Colombiere. He did undoubtedly utter many others. He preached long, he made known God’s truth in France and England.
But, notwithstanding all this, he was most probably created, led from afar, divinely prepared by a certain chain of hidden marvels expressly to speak this word. That done, he retires, his mission finished. He had played his part. Assuredly there is none either more glorious or more useful; for in enlightening one such soul he has enlightened millions. He contributed largely to the good of the Church by giving her bark tossed by a frightful tempest the stroke of the oar that was to enable her to clear rugged obstacles. But Father de la Colombiere did not retire and leave his work unfinished. We shall see him again at the decisive moment of the third revelation, when he will once more sustain and enlighten the Sister. He will study seriously this last and highest manifestation of God’s will, after which he will be the first to prostrate with our saint and consecrate himself to the Sacred Heart.
THIRD AND LAST REVELATION. – June 16, 1675.
It was on June 16, 1675, that the last of the grand revelations relative to the Sacred Heart took place. It was to close the cycle of those solemn disclosures. Until then the humble virgin had received from the Lord, only personal favours, very like those with which other holy souls had already been favoured. He had only demanded of her some individual practices of devotion. Now, however, the hour was come for Him to invest her with with her grand public mission.
This was the last revelation, and the most celebrated of all. Justly the most celebrated, for all that regards the Divine Heart of Jesus is contained in It. Its principle is no other than the overflowing love of God, love making a grand effort to overcome evil; its end, to become a public devotion, having been so long a private one; and, lastly, its effects, a new effusion of divine love on the Church, and more particularly on the pious souls that become its apostles and propagators.
But whether the Lord, to leave her the full use of her natural faculties at a moment so serious, had concealed a little the splendor of His divine presence, or whether Margaret Mary, reassured by Father de la Columbiere, had banished all fear and abandoned her soul entirely to the happiness of contemplating her Divine Master, we do not know. But at the close of the third revelation no trace of the violent emotion that had followed the first two were perceived. The humble virgin is recollected, attentive and happy. Although astonished at such a mission, (for who was she to establish a feast within the Church, she could not succeed in convincing her Superiors?) but one word escaped her: Lord, how can I?” To which the Lord answered by telling her to address herself to that servant of God who had been sent to her, expressedly for the accomplishment of this design.
Margaret Mary did, indeed, recur to Father de la Colombiere, and confide to him this third revelation. The venerable priest asked for a written account of it, that he might later be able to study it at leisure. We shall see later on with what religious respect he preserved the document. He examined the revelation attentively before God, and, enlightened from on high, declared to Margaret that she could rely on it, for without a doubt, it came from Heaven. Thus reassured, Margaret Mary no longer hesitated. She knelt before the Divine Heart of Jesus, solemnly consecrated herself to It, and thus rendered it the first and one of the purest acts of homage that it was ever to receive on earth or in heaven. Father de la Colombiere, wishing to unite with her, also consecrated himself to the Heart of Jesus. It was Friday, June 21st, the day after the octave of the Blessed Sacrament; the day that had been designated by the Lord to be forever the feast day of His adorable Heart. Thus He received, in the person of a holy priest and of an humble virgin, the first fruits of those acts of adoration soon to be rendered Him by all mankind.
Thus ended this glorious drama, and the same time three and one, of the revelations of the Sacred Heart. Thus was successively developed, in profound and mysterious order, that incomparable vision vouchsafed to one of the most humble of virgins. And that which in silence and ecstasy she had three times consecutively beheld in that chapel, through that grate, on that altar, the Church also was going to see. She examined this testimony, this recital, forced by obedience from the saint’s touching modesty; she declared them true and authentic; and, following the example of the humble virgin, she prostrated before the Sacred Heart.
Back in the 1970s, when there was a lot of liturgical innovation going on, Dorothy Day invited a young priest to celebrate mass at the Catholic Worker. He decided to do something that he thought was relevant and hip. He asked Dorothy if she had a coffee cup he could borrow. She found one in the kitchen and brought it to him. And, he took that cup and used it as the chalice to celebrate mass.
When it was over, Dorothy picked up the cup, found a small gardening tool, and went to the backyard. She knelt down, dug a hole, kissed the coffee cup, and buried it in the earth.
With that simple gesture, Dorothy Day showed that she understood something that so many of us today don’t: she knew that Christ was truly present in something as ordinary as a ceramic cup. And that it could never be just a coffee cup again.
She understood the power and reality of His presence in the blessed sacrament.
Which is really the sum and substance of what we celebrate on this feast, Corpus Christi. The reason for what we will do today – celebrating with the monstrance, the music, the procession – isn’t to glorify an inanimate object, a bit of bread contained in glass.
It is to remind the world that in that bread we have been given Christ.
Not an idea. Not a symbol. Not an abstract bit of arcane theology. No.
It is wider and deeper and more mysterious than that.
Look at that host — and you look at Christ.
Centuries ago, one of the Fathers of the Church described how the first Christians received communion. They did it the way we do it today, offering their outstretched hands, one over another. And he offered this instruction: “Make of your hands a throne,” he wrote. Make yourselves ready to receive a king.
Do we understand that today? I’m not so sure. Too often, I think, we see the minister of holy communion as just a liturgical Pez dispenser – passing out a sliver of bread, again and again and again, and we don’t truly, truly, realize what is happening.
I’ll tell you what is happening.
When I was in formation, I remember a talk given on the Eucharist by then-Father Caggiano. He spoke of St. Francis of Assisi, one of the holiest saints of the church. During his entire life, Francis received the eucharist only three times. It was that sacred to him – and he felt himself that undeserving.
He understood, deeply, the words we pray before we receive communion.
None of us is. And yet, he gives us himself anyway. The God who became man for us…again and again becomes bread for us.
Everything we are, everything we believe, everything we celebrate around this altar comes down to that incredible truth. What began two thousand years ago in an upper room continues here, and now, and at altars around the world. The very source of our salvation is transformed into something you can hold in the palm of your hand.
My question on this feast: what will we do with that knowledge? Once we have been transformed, by bread that has been transformed, how can we leave this holy place without seeking to transform the world? How can we just go out and head to brunch, or dinner, or out to do yardwork or the weekly grocery shopping?
You’ll notice that when the priest or deacon celebrates Benediction, he uses what is called a “humeral veil.” He wraps this long cloth around his hands and then takes hold of the monstrance to offer a blessing. There is a reason for that. It is to signify that the blessing comes not from the hands of the priest or deacon. It comes from Christ himself. The one holding the monstrance is merely the instrument.
When we receive communion, that is true for each of us.
We become instruments of Christ, bearers of Christ.
Dorothy Day knew that an ordinary cup that had contained the blood of Christ could never be just a cup again. Well, what’s true for a ceramic cup is true for each of us. Once we have received him, we can never be the same again.
What will we do with that knowledge?
How will we use what has changed us…to change the world?
Is the story true or a pious legend? I don’t know, but I found the story fascinating at face value. First, the priest who told the story assumed that the priestly celebrant at Day’s Mass had just reason for using a coffee mug as a chalice, something that ordinarily would be illicit. Such an assumption is a charitable first reaction, especially when someone doesn’t have all the facts of a case. Then the reaction of Day was also important. She didn’t interrupt the Mass to complain, and she didn’t sit and stew over a liturgical abuse, allowing such an abuse to deprive her of worshipping our Lord. Instead, after the Mass, she did something constructive that witnessed to the reality of the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist: She noted that the mug had now been used for the precious blood of Christ and was no longer fit to be used for anything less, so she buried it in the earth as a holy object.
The moral of the story is that we cannot always stop liturgical abuses from occurring, but we can always control how we respond to them; and, by our response, we can act as witnesses to the world of the sanctity of the liturgy and the Blessed Sacrament.