Homily – 10-17-2008 – St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

St. Faustina Kowalska of our own day, was not the first to have envisioned the heart of Jesus as the source of mercy and love. In the 17^th century today's saint: Margaret Mary Alacoque had similar visions of Jesus who encouraged her to spread devotion to his most Sacred and Loving Heart!

Margaret Mary was born in 1647 in France. She was always attracted to the life of a nun and thus joined the Visitation sisters in 1671. There was widespread secularism at the time in France and this is one reason why Jesus chose this time to use her as an instrument of devotion to his heart. She was to promote the establishment of the Feast of the Sacred Heart to be assigned on the Friday after the feast of Corpus Christi. She was to establish the practice of receiving Communion on each of the first Fridays of the months in reparation for sins; and to spend an hour in prayer every Thursday night in remembrance of the Lord's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Later, the prescription was made that any who made nine consecutive First Fridays would "be among the blessed at the Last Day" All of these things came to pass over a period of time and it was in 1956 that Pope Pius XII gave unquestionable theological foundation to this devotion.

Margaret Mary died at age forty-three, on October 17, 1690. She was canonized in 1920.

The readings today speak of the love and mercy pouring forth from the heart of Jesus into hearts who believe in him: and in this way knowledge of him can become complete, and a desire to serve him in others can become authentic and real.

Jesus chose to communicate to Margaret Mary a greater depth of the secrets of the mystery of his love and mercy and for this we are grateful: from her experience with him, we know that we can take our wounded, tired and burdened hearts and place them in his – and we will be refreshed and strengthened and renewed: our burden will become light and we can love and serve him with all the more ardent willingness and desire.

Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth; you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom! May we become little enough today to "get the message!"