On Monday, May 19 we'll discuss the next great 2025 Anniversary on the Son Rise Morning: the 350th anniversary of the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary at Paray-le-Monial. The celebration of this anniversary began as a Jubilee on December 27, 2023, the anniversary of the first apparition and ends June 27, the date of the Solemnity of the feast of the Sacred Heart.
These apparitions at Paray-le-Monial are the source of modern devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (which earlier saints like St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bonaventure, and St. Gertrude the Great had also promoted): First Fridays, the Litany of the Sacred Heart, the Twelve Promises, the dedication of the month of June, Consecration, and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart on the third Friday after Pentecost. In my experience, formed as I was in Catholic schools from Kindergarten through high school, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was encouraged enthusiastically in the last century.
So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at the usual time at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.The great connection for me between this great feast/devotion and my interest in the history of the English Reformation and its aftermath is of course: Saint Claude de la Colombière, the Jesuit priest who helped Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque promote this devotion and served as her confessor in 1675 and 1676. According to this Vatican News website he was sent there to consult with her on the apparitions she'd been experiencing:After Father Colombière's arrival and her first conversations with him, Margaret Mary opened her spirit to him and told him of the many communications she believed she had received from the Lord. He assured her he accepted their authenticity and urged her to put in writing everything in their regard, and did all he could to orient and support her in carrying out the mission received. When, thanks to prayer and discernment, he became convinced that Christ wanted the spread of the devotion to his Heart, it is clear from Claude's spiritual notes that he pledged himself to this cause without reserve. In these notes it is also clear that, even before he became Margaret Mary's confessor, Claude's fidelity to the directives of St. Ignatius in the Exercises had brought him to the contemplation of the Heart of Christ as symbol of his love.
After his time at Paray-le-Monial he went to England in 1676. He was a chaplain at the Court of Saint James during the reign of King Charles II serving as a preacher for Mary of Modena, wife of James, the Duke of York.
During his time in London, Saint Claude continued to correspond with Saint Margaret Mary. He preached in the chapel at Saint James and quietly worked to bring lapsed Catholics back to the Church at Court. As the Vatican News website notes:
And even if there were great dangers, he had the consolation of seeing many reconciled to it, so that after a year he said: "I could write a book about the mercy of God I've seen Him exercise since I arrived here!"
The intense pace of his work and the poor climate combined to undermine his health, and evidence of a serious pulmonary disease began to appear. Claude, however, made no changes in his work or life style.
Being in the household of the Duke and Duchess of York was probably the most dangerous place he could be once the machinations of the Popish Plot began. The whole point of the fictitious plot was for a Jesuit or Jesuit agent to assassinate Charles II so that his Catholic brother James--and his Catholic wife Mary of Modena--would succeed to the throne.
So in 1678 he was arrested and held in the prison of the King's Bench for three weeks and his health declined precipitously. King Louis XIV negotiated his release but by the time he returned to Paray-le-Monial in the summer of 1681 he was very ill. He died on February 15, 1682.
In his homily for Saint Claude's canonization on May 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II referred to him as one of "the saints of Paray" and concluded:
For evangelization today the Heart of Christ must be recognized as the heart of the Church: it is he who calls us to conversion, to reconciliation. It is he who leads pure hearts and those hungering for justice along the way of the Beatitudes. It is he who achieves the warm communion of the members of the one Body. It is he who enables us to adhere to the Good News and to accept the promise of eternal life. It is he who sends us out on mission. The heart-to-heart with Jesus broadens the human heart on a global scale.
May the canonization of Claude La Colombiere be for the whole Church an appeal to live the consecration to the Heart of Christ, a consecration which is a self-giving that allows the charity of Christ to inspire us, pardon us and lead us in his ardent desire to open the ways of truth and life to all our brothers and sisters!
Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us!
St. Claude de la Colombière, pray for us!