When our soul is distracted and dissipated

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus -- Fr. Croiset

When our soul is distracted and dissipated, we must conduct it tranquilly to the Heart of Jesus Christ, and offer to the Eternal Father the holy dispositions of this adorable Heart, and unite the little we do with what is done by Jesus Christ with infinite perfection. In this manner, whilst doing nothing ourselves, we do much by means of Jesus Christ. Let the Sacred Heart of Jesus be henceforward your Oratory, devout soul. In It, and by means of It, offer all your prayers to God the Father ; if you wish them to be accepted. This is the school which you must frequent if you would learn the sublime science of God, and be instructed in its lessons so directly opposed to the maxims and false opinions of the world. This must be your treasury from which you are to draw all that you may require in order to become rich — purity, pure love, fidelity. But the most precious and the most abundant riches this treasury contains are, humiliations, sufferings, and an ardent love of the greatest poverty. The esteem and love of these things is so precious a gift that it is only to be found in its original source, the Heart of a God made man. All other hearts, however holy and noble, possess it in a greater or less degree ; only as they seek it with more or less diligence in this treasury, the Heart of Jesus Christ."

In fine, it has been observed, not only that all the Saints of the Church, who have seemed to be favoured with the highest graces, have had a most ardent and tender love for Jesus Christ, but also that there is not one, so to say, of those who have had this exceeding love for Jesus Christ, that has not had a singular devotion to His Sacred Heart.

Those who have read the life of St. Francis of Assisi, the works of St. Thomas, and those of St. Teresa, the lives of St. Bonaventure, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Philip Neri, St. Francis of Sales, and St. Aloysius Gonzaga, will have noticed the tender devotion of these Saints towards the Heart of Jesus Christ. And to shew that this is still familiar to all those chosen souls, who burn with a most fervent charity for our loving Redeemer, it will suffice to read the life of the great servant of God, Armelle Nicolas, who died not long since, in the odour of sanctity. In her life, entitled The Triumph of Divine Love, she says : "As soon as any affliction befel me, from creatures, I had recourse to my loving Saviour, Who immediately filled me with the sweetest consolations ; you would have said, that He was afraid lest I should suffer any uneasiness, so solicitous was He to console me in all my sorrows. Frequently, also, He shewed me His opened Heart, that I might hide myself therein, and at the same moment, I found myself enclosed in this Sacred Heart, in such security, that all the efforts of hell seemed to me but weakness. For a length of time I could not regard myself as in any other place than in this Sacred Heart, so that I used to say to my friends, 'If you wish to find me, seek for me nowhere but in the Heart of my Divine Saviour, for I shall not quit it either by day or night. This is my retreat and place of refuge against all my enemies.' "