The Church celebrates the feast of St. Margaret Mary this week (October 16) and concludes a year of celebration in honor of the 100th anniversary of the canonization of the saint known as “The Apostle of the Sacred Heart.”
A few years ago, someone related a true story that made me stand up and take particular notice of one of the twelve promises that the Sacred Heart made to St. Margaret Mary. The 9th promise reads, “I will bless every place in which an image of my Heart is exposed and honored.”
The story goes like this. In Paris late in the 19 century, there lived a very devout woman who had a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She begged her non-believing husband for permission to hang a picture of the Sacred Heart in their home, but again and again he stubbornly refused her. She did not give up. Finally, angry and exasperated by her persistence, he yielded.
One day years later, the husband, suffering from severe depression, threw himself into the Seine and drowned. The wife was inconsolable because she felt that the gates of heaven would be closed to him. Months later, she made a journey to the celebrated parish priest and later saint, John Vianney. She intended to confess to this holy man. For hours she remained outside his confessional, weeping quietly, not sure what to say to him. Eventually, he came out of his confessional and sat beside her. After a few moments, she told him about her husband’s death and her concern for his eternal salvation.
The saint assured her that during the brief interval between jumping from the bridge and hitting the water her husband had received the grace of conversion and was indeed saved. His permission to hang a picture of the Sacred Heart in their home, though made with great reluctance and considerable cynicism, nevertheless merited the reward of the 9th Promise.
This story underscores for me the incredible and loving mercy of Jesus which he expressed so powerfully in these words during his third appearance to St. Margaret Mary: “Behold this Heart which has loved mankind so much that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify to its love!”
God be Praised!
Gratefully,
V. Rev. Lewis S. Fiorelli, OSFS
Provincial
This reflection originally appeared in DeSales Weekly, the e-newsletter of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
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