CHAPTER IV. How useful this devotion is for our salvation and our perfection.
IF Jesus Christ has wrought so many miracles to oblige us to love Him, what favours will He not do to those whom He sees anxious to show Him their gratitude and ardent love ? He has loved us with tenderness, says St. Bernard, and has loaded us with gifts, when we did not love Him, when even we did not wish that He should love us." Dilexit non existentes, sed et resistentes." (St. Bern.) What gifts and graces will He not heap upon those who love Him, and who are so touched by seeing Him so little loved ?
It has been shown clearly enough, that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a proof, or rather, a continual exercise of an ardent love for Jesus Christ. It consists, moreover, in the practice of the holiest exercises of our religion. It unites in itself such power and tenderness, that it obtains all things from God. Indeed, if Jesus Christ grants such great graces to those who have a devotion to the instruments of His Passion, and to His Sacred Wounds, what favours will He not bestow on those who have a tender devotion towards His Sacred Heart ? Reasons have been adduced in the Preface of this book, to lead any prudent man not to refuse his belief to the revelations of St. Mechtildis. Hear what this Saint says on the subject which we are speaking of. (Sp. Works of St. Mechtildis, book ii. ch. 18.) "I saw one day," she says, "the Son of God. He held in His hands His own Heart, which was brighter than the sun, and shed rays of light from every part. It was then that our loving Saviour made known to me, that, from the plenitude of that Divine Heart issue all the graces which God pours continually upon men, according to the capacity of each." The same Saint testified, shortly before her death, that having one day earnestly begged of our Lord a great grace, for a person who had asked her to do so (book iv. chap. 14), Jesus Christ said to her: " My child, tell the person for whom you pray, that whatever she wishes for, she must seek in my Heart. Let her ask Me for all things in this Heart, like a son who knows no other artifice but what love suggests, and who asks of his father whatever he wants."
Almighty God having made known to that person of whom we spoke in the second chapter, and for whom Fr. la Colombiere had so much veneration, the great graces that He had annexed to the practice of this devotion gave her to understand that it was by a last effort, so to speak, of His love for men, that He had resolved to discover to them the treasures of His Sacred Heart, and inspire them with this devotion, which is calculated to make the love of Jesus Christ spring up in the hearts of the most insensible, and to inflame those of the least fervent. "Publish everywhere," said our loving Saviour, "insinuate, recommend this devotion to persons in the world, as a sure and easy means to obtain from Me a true love of God ; to ecclesiastics and religious persons, as an effectual means of attaining to the perfection of their state ; to those who labour for the salvation of their neighbours, as a means of touching the most obdurate souls; and finally to all the faithful, as one of the most solid and suitable devotions by which to gain the victory over the strongest passions, to restore peace and union in the most disunited families, to rid themselves of the most inveterate imperfections, to obtain a most tender and ardent love of Me, and finally to arrive in a short time, and by an easy method, at the most sublime perfection."
St. Bernard, full of these sentiments, always speaks of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the treasury of all graces, and the inexhaustible fountain of all blessings (St. Bern. Pass., tract i. ch. 3). " Oh most sweet Jesus," he cries, " what riches dost Thou enclose in Thy Heart, and how easy is it for us to enrich ourselves, possessing as we do, in the adorable Eucharist, this infinite treasure." "In this adorable Heart," says St. Peter Damian, " we find all the weapons necessary for our defence, all the remedies suited to the cure of our diseases, all the most powerful aids against the assaults of our enemies, all the sweetest consolations to alleviate our sufferings, all the purest delights to fill our souls with joy. Cor Christi coeleste gazophilacium et erarium est" (St. Peter Damian, Excell. of St. John Evang., serin. 1). " Are you afflicted ? do your enemies persecute you ? does the remembrance of your past sins trouble you ? do you feel your heart agitated by disquiet, by fear, or by passions ? Come and prostrate yourself at the foot of the Altar. Throw yourself, as it were, into the arms of Jesus Christ. Enter even into His Heart. He is the asylum and refuge of holy souls, and a place of shelter where our soul is in perfect security. Cor Christi asylum perfugii in tentationibus and tribulationibus " (Blosi Consol. of the faithful soul).
" The Sacred Heart of Jesus," says the devout Lanspergius, " is not only the seat of all the virtues, but it is also the fountain of graces by which these virtues are acquired and preserved. Have a tender devotion to this loving Heart, which is so full of love and mercy. Through It ask for all that you wish to obtain and offer of all your actions. For this Sacred Heart is the treasury of all supernatural gifts. It is, so to speak, the way by which we unite ourselves more closely with God, and by which God communicates Himself more lovingly to us. You have in this Sacred Heart all the graces, all the virtues of which you stand in need, and you need not fear to exhaust this infinite treasure. Have recourse to It in all your necessities. Be faithful in the holy practices of a devotion so reasonable and so useful, and you will soon perceive its effects. Ad venerationem cordis piissimi Jesu, amore ac misericordia exuberantissimi studeas te ipsum excitare, ac sedula devotione ipsum frequentare. Per ipsum petenda petas, et exercitia tua offeras quia charismatum omnium est apotheca et ostium, per quod nos ad Deum, et ipse ad nos accedit .... Gratiam quoque ejus, et virtutes, ac prorsus quid-quid fuerit tibi (quod mensuram excedit) salutare, videaris tibi ex gratioso Corde attrahere .... Ad quod in necessitate confugias, unde consolationem quoque et omne auxilium haurias" (Lanspergius, Shafts of Divine Love to the Sacred Heart of Jesus). We find also an illustrious example of this in the life of St. Mechtildis. The Son of God, in an apparition to her, commanded her ardently to love and to honour as much as possible His Sacred Heart in the Blessed Sacrament. He gave her His Heart as a pledge of His love, and as her place of refuge in life, and all her consolation in death. From that time the Saint felt within herself an extraordinary devotion towards the Sacred Heart, and received from It so many graces, that she used to say, that were she to write down all the gifts and favours she had received by means of this devotion, there would be no book, however large, that would suffice to contain them. The happy results which have been already experienced, and are still daily experienced, by those who have this devotion at heart, sufficiently confirms the sentiments of these beloved friends of God.
"I am resolved," says the author of the Interior Christian (book v. ch. 23), " to depend in future only on Divine Providence, without seeking either consolation or support in creatures. I should be like an infant, which, without disquiet or fear, reposes sweetly in the arms of its mother, whilst it receives from her a thousand caresses and endearments. I confess that it is thus our Lord treats me. For, without seeking elsewhere wherewith to nourish and enrich my soul, I find in His Sacred Heart all the helps and graces of which I stand in need, and I find them in so great abundance, and I am so liberally enriched with them, that I am sometimes filled with astonishment, and dread my own negligence in receiving such great graces from this Sacred Heart with so little trouble of my own."
But, even though we could not adduce in favour of this devotion either authority, or example, or special revelation, and even though Jesus Christ had not expressed Himself so clearly and so frequently on the subject, would it require much reasoning to convince a Christian that there is nothing more solid or more advantageous for our salvation and for our perfection, than a devotion which has no motive but the purest love of Jesus Christ ; the end of which is to repair, as far as possible, all the indignities which Jesus Christ suffers in the adorable Eucharist, and all the practices of which tend to make Jesus Christ honoured and ardently loved ?
Can this adorable Saviour, Who has done so much to gain the hearts of men, refuse anything to those who themselves ask of Him a place in His Heart ? If Jesus Christ allows Himself to be given even to those who do not love Him, and would have Himself carried to dying persons who never condescended to visit Him in their lifetime, and who have been insensible both to the manifest marks of love which He gave them and to the cruel outrages He received in the adorable Eucharist : in fine, to persons who have perhaps themselves ill-treated Him, what will He not do for faithful servants who, sensibly touched at seeing their dear Lord so little loved, so rarely visited, so cruelly outraged, make Him atonement, from time to time, for all the insults He receives, and neglect nothing to repair so many offences, by their frequent visits, their adorations, their homages, and chiefly their ardent love ? Is it not, then, plain that there is nothing more reasonable, more useful, than the practice of this devotion ? Can it be necessary to use many words in order to persuade Christians to practise it?
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