"O Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, and our dear Mother! O all ye holy angels,
who, by your adoration in our churches, make up for the little love which your
God and our Saviour receives from men, obtain for us the grace to comprehend
a little the love of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament."
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
First Friday Mass
Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
8:30 pm, Holy Family Chapel
McGuiness Center
Revelation of the Sacred Heart
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, (1647-1690)
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
favors, very like those with which
other holy souls had already been favored. He had only demanded of her
some individual practices of devotion. Now however, the hour was come
for Him to invest her with her
grand, public mission.
During the octave of the feast of the Blessed Sacrament, June 16,
1675, Margaret Mary was on her knees before the choir-grate, her eyes
fixed on the tabernacle. She had just
received "some of the unmeasured graces of His love". We have no
particulars of these graces.
Suddenly the Lord appeared on the altar and discovered to her His Heart:
"Behold", said He to her, "this Heart which has so loved men that it
has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to
testify
its love. In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude,
by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt
they have for Me in this sacrament
of love. What is most painful to Me," added the Savior, in a tone that
went to the Sister's heart, "is that they are hearts consecrated to Me"
Then He commanded her to have established in the Church a particular feast to honor His Sacred Heart.
"It is for this reason I ask thee that the first Friday after the
octave of the Blessed Sacrament be appropriated to a special feast, to
honor My Heart by communicating
on that day, and making reparation for the indignity that it has
received. And I promise that My Heart shall dilate to pour out
abundantly the influences of its love on all that
will render it this honor or procure its being rendered".
http://usccb.org/bible/readings/060713.cfm
