Paths to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, my favorite devotion! His Love draws our hearts to His. Everything I write about, every pilgrimage I lead, every talk I give, is about bringing others (and myself) to the Heart of Christ. This is why I call the website that bears my name, “Paths to His Heart”.

When I read/write/speak about the four temperaments, like I did in my book, “Piety and Personality: The Temperaments of the Saints”, my theme is finding our path to His Heart, through the temperament that He gave us.

Is our path to His Heart that of St. Edmund Campion or St. Margaret Clitherow, who were martyred for our Holy Catholic Faith? Is our path that of a courageous missionary like St. Francis Xavier or his namesake St. Frances Xavier Cabrini? Is our path that of a husband or wife who raises a family of saints like Louis and Zelie Martin? Or is it that of a humble servant girl like the Cinderella saint, St. Germaine of Pibrac?

His Heart is always drawing us towards Him, pulling us into the immense ocean of His love. Have you felt Its magnetic pull? Have you felt the longing of His Heart to be united with yours in frequent Holy Communion?

When I lead pilgrimages or write about the Saints, my focus is “how did they find their way to the Heart of Christ and how can we imitate them?”

On March 25, 2002, my friend Mary and I were blessed to make a daytrip from Paris to visit Paray-le-Monial, the town where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque lived and where she received the apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We took the fastest commercial train in the world, the TGV, which has been clocked at 357.2 miles per hour!

The Visitation nuns were founded by St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. In the Chapel of the Apparitions, a monastery chapel of the Visitation nuns in Paray-le-Monial, we visited the gated altar where St. Margaret Mary is buried. The glass case holds a wax figure of the saint, beneath which her bones “await the resurrection of the body” (as the sign said). I wrote in my journal afterward, “I wanted to leave my heart there where His appeared…but I felt He wanted me to take it with me and use it for Him.”

My friend bought the autobiography of St. Margaret Mary in the little shop, and I bought the spiritual directions of St. Claude de la Colombiere (her spiritual director). I had heard his name, but didn’t know anything about him.

We continued on down the road to the Chapel of St. Claude. A beautiful mosaic of the Sacred Heart of Jesus shone down on us from over the altar. On the side, we saw a painting of St. Claude giving Holy Communion to St. Margaret Mary. Imagine that moment – one saint giving another the Body and Blood of Christ Himself!

Below that, a gold prone statue of St. Claude rested, with his bones beneath it. There were copies of his prayers to Our Dear Lord in many languages. We read aloud the English ones (since we were alone in the church), and I became very emotional. Have you read his prayers of love and trust?

One of them begins: “My God, I am so convinced that you keep watch over those who hope in You, and that we can want for nothing when we look for all in You, that I am resolved in the future to live free from every care, and to turn all my anxieties over to You.”

To live free from every care, and to turn all my anxieties over to Our Lord…. What if we could turn over all our anxieties to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, trusting Him completely? If that sounds impossible, what if we could do it just for the month of June?

In Saint Claude’s retreat notes from London in 1677, he wrote:

“This Heart is still the same, always burning with love for men, always open so as to shower down graces and blessings upon us, always touched by our sorrows, always eager to impart its treasures to us and to give Himself to us, always ready to receive us, to be our refuge, our dwelling place, and our heaven even in this world.” (p. 24, The Spiritual Direction of Saint Claude de la Colombiere, translated and arranged by Mother M. Philip, I.B.V.M.)

He then talks about how Our Lord finds “in so many hearts nothing but hardness, forgetfulness, contempt, and ingratitude: Jesus loves and is not loved.”

This makes us long to connect with a Savior Who loves us so much. St. John the Apostle, in John 19:34, tells us that the soldier with a lance “opened His side”. The Apostle, who was an eyewitness, doesn’t say “pierced” or “stabbed” but opened. Our Lord willed that His Heart be opened to receive us into It.

In this beautiful month of June, let us take the time to:

·       Praise the Heart of Jesus for His Mercy

·       Meditate on Our Lord’s Love for each and every one of us

·       Look up the 12 promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

·       Read the story of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St. Claude de la Colombiere

·       Spread devotion to Our Lord’s Heart, for if we do, He has promised to write our names in His Heart.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!