The Cloistered Heart of Saint Margaret Mary

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque's was a heart filled with fire. Jesus chose to reveal to this Visitation nun a Heart ablaze - His own Sacred Heart. I think it's accurate to say that the saint encountered the Fire of Jesus' love and reflected it back to Him. Love met love, Heart met heart, Fire met fire. But the story did not end there.

Jesus entrusted to Margaret Mary a mission: to spread the message of His fiery love.

"My Divine Heart," Christ said in an apparition to this humble nun in 1673, "is so passionately fond of the human race, and of you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you."

St. Margaret Mary later wrote: "Jesus asked for my heart, which I begged Him to take, and He placed it in His adorable One, in which He showed it to me as a tiny speck consumed in this burning furnace. Then, taking it out as a burning flame shaped like a heart, He replaced it in the place from which He had taken it."  

St. Margaret Mary said many things that strike at the very core of my "cloistered" heart.  I have room here for a few examples....

"Our Lord frequently told me that I should keep a secluded place for Him in my heart, where He would teach me to love Him."  

"I beg the Sacred Heart of Jesus to deign to consume ours in the flames of His holy love, so that they may live and breathe only to love, honor and glorify Him." 

"Jesus Christ is the true friend of our hearts, and they are made for Him alone. They cannot find rest, joy, or satisfaction except in Him."

"He wants your heart without reserve."

Jesus wants my heart without reserve.  He desires my love in return for His.  

How will I respond?

Detail of painting by Georges de la Tours, cropped and digitally altered.  In public domain.

to learn more about St. Margaret Mary, click here

Posted by © Nancy Shuman at 3:30 AM 

*This is a second repost from the archives of 6/13/13.

Help Me Make Time

"Lord, help me to make time today to serve You 

in those who are most in need of encouragement or assistance."

St. Vincent de Paul

Painting: Rostislav Felitsin

Kindly Listen

Where Love Must Start

Painting: Winslow Homer, Pumpkin Patch, 1878

The Smallest Thing

Painting: Dupre PD1923

If Love is Great

'Whether we pass our life in prayer before the Altar of God; whether we gather around us souls eager for knowledge, or minister to the sick in hospitals and city slums; whether we are nailed to the Cross of Christ, or are spending our days in humble domestic duties, we cannot be hid..

'We have joined the great Army of relief that reaches to the uttermost parts of the world, unseen by the human eye, but making its way into the souls of men, enlightening, strengthening, encouraging, in proportion to the union existing between us and the Divine Guest of our souls...

'It matters not to Him what our occupation may be.  It matters not to Him whether our days are spent in cooking, washing, ironing, sweeping, teaching, nursing, suffering, provided we are ever within hearing of His voice.  For all is great if love is great."

(from Sheltering the Divine Outcast, compiled by A Religious, The Peter Reilly Co, Philadelphia, 1952)

Mary Cassatt painting, 1879

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Charity the Measure

"'To do little things

 with great purity of intention and a strong will

to please God is to do them excellently, 

and then they greatly sanctify us.' 

 The more our works are motivated by the love of God,

the greater their value becomes.

    Some persons weigh the merit of their actions

 by their appearance or difficulty.

 They prize only showy virtues or gifts,

without considering

 that the use they make of God's gifts

derives value only from the motive and aim of their actions.

Charity must be the only measure."

(text from In the Midst of the World, Sister Joanna Marie Wenzel VHM using writings of Sr. Francis de Sales, Brooklyn Visitation, 1985, p. 9)

(painting 1893, in US public domain)