Chapter 14: Several Wonderful Things About the Sacred: Heart of Jesus, Related in the Life

Several Wonderful Things About the Sacred

Heart of Jesus, Related in the Life of

Sister Margaret of the Blessed

Sacrament, a Carmelite

Nun of Beaune(1)

"The SON OF GOD teaches that His members dwell in Him and He in them, that He is the true Aaron who bears the name of His people engraved in precious stones upon His breast, and carries them i n the depths of His Heart out of His abundant love for them. We must not be surprised that He revealed to Sister Margaret of Beaune that He had placed her in the sanctuary where He universally receives all His chosen ones. When He chose to elevate her more and more in His grace, He drew her into His Sacred Heart where all those who love Him are to dwell everlastingly. He is a Father to whom all His children are dearer than the apple of His eye and He covers them under the shadow of His wings. His infinite charity for souls is pictured in countless ways, such as the beloved disciple resting against His Heart at the Last Supper, and the repose of the blessed in Abraham's bosom. He is a Shepherd, says the Prophet, who carries His lambs in His arms, holding them close to His breast. Hence the favor shown to Sister Margaret when, wishing to make her share in His heavenly delights, He lifted her into ecstasy and took her into His Heart.

"We have seen that God granted her holy conversation with the saints and angels and then raised her up to His throne in heaven. (I). The author of the life, which appeared in 1655, is Father Amelotte, a priest of the Oratory.

Thoughts of Sister Margaret 63

Then He brought her still higher and, uniting her even more closely to Himself, He opened His own Heart and hid her in its Holy of holies.

"Thus He revealed His Heart as a vast and boundless furnace of love in which He enclosed her for days and nights. There were transfused so many graces at their source that her progress i n perfection seemed greater in a single day than it had ever been for whole years at a stretch. That divine Heart, searing like a hot fire, consumed her imperfections. She was plunged into the abyss of charity so ardent that the heat issued forth and was felt outside of her body. The love of Jesus carried her away with such impetuosity that she was seen raised above the earth, fair and shining as a Seraph. At times she was bathed with love as in a fountain of sanctity. At other times she appeared to be tinged with innocence itself, and was fragrant with purity.

"She noted the twofold movement of dilation and compression of the Heart of Jesus, experienced by other Saints,(2) and understood that the Sacred Heart contracted as if to encompass the Holy Spirit, to love its Divine Father in His own name, to offer itself to Him as sacrifice, to humble itself before His majesty, to enter into His divine life, to unite itself to His adorable perfections, and to render Him all due homage. She understood that the Sacred Heart expanded to shed abroad its Spirit in all His members and to communicate to His Mystical Body, the Church, all the power of its vital warmth.

"She sensed in that loving Heart an endless, shoreless ocean of love for God His Father, a possession and an enjoyment of His divine goodness, a repose in His infinite bliss, a calm and peace passing all understanding, an incomprehensible treasure of all the virtues, which shone forth in a beauty, a nobleness, an expanse, and a splendor so great and inexplicable that there was enough to fill an infinite number of worlds thousands and thousands of times more vast than our planet. (2) On the heart-beats of the Heart of Jesus, cf. St. Gertrudes Herald of Divine Love, Book 1 1 1 , chap. 51; Book IV, chaps. 4 and 24. Also St. Mechtilde’s Le Livre de Ia Grâce spéciale, Part 1, chaps. 5 and 20; Part V, ch. 32.

"Nevertheless, amid so much wealth and happiness, she saw that that divine Heart had been submerged, as it were, in the very deeps of pain and bitterness. It had been stricken down, heavy with sadness, on account of the sins of men whose gall and venom it had been obliged to taste. Unless i t had been sustained by the Uncreated Word, it would have succumbed under the weight of our crimes.

"Despite the throbbings and the swoons occasioned by the constant horror of our sins, with all the struggles it had endured against the pains of death, she recognized in that most gracious Heart an unutterable transport of love for those who had caused it so many evils. As He fought against the apprehension of death, the strength and generosity of His love repulsed the spirits and the humors(3) which had drawn towards the center of His body, and caused it to break out in a sweat of blood(4).

"She saw that wondrous Heart as a sacred palace where were born and nourished all the affections of the Saviour, His desires, His loyalties, His joys, and His sorrows. But among all those inexhaustible treasures of virtue and holiness, it was chiefly in the love, purity of heart, and innocence that she was allowed to share.

"Her lower faculties had been so consumed by the possession that God was assuming over her daily more and more, that she took little nourishment. She found in the Sacred Heart of Jesus a supernatural substitute which sustained her without eating and restored her strength more nobly than vital forces would have done. Sometimes it seemed to her that there flowed from that Heart through her (3). The humors in old physiology are the four fluids: blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile) and melancholy (black bile) conceived as entering into the constitution of the body and determining, by their relative proportion, a person's health and temperament, [Eng. Tr.] (4). 1t is interesting to compare this passage on the sweat of blood with another taken from ancient Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Carthusian Monks of the XIV-XVIl Centuries, Ref. London, 1926, P. 97: "In time of great suffering, the blood is concentred in the heart in order to strengthen the principal member-hence the exterior parts of the body become pale-but in this exceptional case (Our Lord's), strength of mind so forcibly overcame natural weakness that it refused this aid, and sent back the blood to the outside as a sign of its readiness m be spilt without waiting for the hand of the executioner to shed it by force." [Eng. Tr.]

Thoughts of Sister Margaret 65

whole body a sacred liquid, now in the form of very sweet oil, now like purest milk, now like a balm filled with celestial fragrance, now like a pleasant manna fortifying not only body but producing marvelous effects in her soul as well.

"Worldly-minded people are far from understanding how a girl dwelling on earth could be hidden in the Heart of the Saviour. But the children of light, who feed on the life of the spirit, will readily conceive that it was not a transport of the body but only of the soul, and that her access to His Heart was a loving plan to associate her more closely with His innocence and His other virtues.

"Although the Son of God does not grant such special graces to every soul, it is conceivable nevertheless that there are many who, in the dark night of faith, enter as truly into His Heart and His affections as several saints who have been granted the luminous entrance perceptible to the intellect. Each of us has to raise himself humbly by the ordinary way of the Church, which is the way of faith. When we seek to love or adore God, to acquire a real sorrow for our sins, to sacrifice ourselves to the Eternal Father, we have no better way than to enter in spirit into the Heart of the Son of God. We must clothe ourselves with His holy dispositions, loving God in Him and with Him, detesting sin as He detests it, and uniting ourselves by faith with His perpetual sacrifice." The author of the life of Sister Margaret of Beaune reports all the above details and enlarges on other points which I omit, because I wish to set forth only those that chiefly concern the adorable Heart of our Saviour. To Him be infinite honor, praise and glory, for all the graces, favors and blessings which His most benign and most generous Heart has dispensed and will dispense on earth and in heaven, in all hearts that love and shall love Him forever! 66-