By JOE SIXPACK
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was born in 1647 in France. It is Margaret Mary who was responsible for spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From a very early age, Margaret Mary wanted nothing more than to give her life to the service of God, so she entered the convent of the Visitation Sisters. This is where her love for the Blessed Sacrament became so strong she could only tear herself away from the Divine Presence with the greatest difficulty.
She used to tell Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament that she wanted to be consumed with love for Him the way a candle is consumed by fire.
Once while she was deep in prayer before the tabernacle, our Lord appeared to Margaret Mary. He showed Himself to her in all His glory with His five wounds shining like five brilliant suns, and His Sacred Heart like a furnace of fire. He told her how much He loves all mankind and how He is hurt by the ingratitude they show Him by forgetting Him.
Jesus appeared to Margaret Mary two more times in 1675. On the last occasion He said, “Behold this heart that has loved men so much that It has spared nothing to testify to them Its love; and in return I receive from most of them only ingratitude by their irreverences and their sacrileges and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in the Sacrament of Love.”
One of the devotions our Lord taught to St. Margaret Mary was the Holy Hour of Reparation. Jesus in His Agony in the Garden went over to His apostles, Peter, James and John, to seek a little consolation from them, but He found them asleep. He said to them, “What? Could you not watch one hour with me? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.”
In memory of this, Jesus asked St. Margaret Mary to honor His most Sacred Heart by rising every Thursday night at eleven o’clock and prostrating herself for an hour before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. During that hour she was to beg God’s mercy for poor sinners and try to sweeten the bitter pain He felt when His apostles slept during His agony in the Garden of Olives.
Among the ten promises our Lord made to St. Margaret Mary is one called the Great Promise: “I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who go to Holy Communion on the first Friday in nine consecutive months, the grace of final penitence: They shall not die in my disfavor nor without receiving their sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.”
If we were to compare the seventeenth century to today, I seriously doubt anyone would attempt to make an argument that we are more devout in the practice of our faith today than Catholics were then. The world has intentionally walked into an abyss of moral muck and slime, especially over the last seventy years, which will lead far more of us into the eternal pains of Hell than into Heaven to be with Jesus.
Yet notice what Jesus said about the people of Margaret Mary’s time. He said He receives “from most of them only ingratitude by their irreverences and their sacrileges and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in the Sacrament of Love.” I recall the thought I gave to these words the first time I read them. I actually had a shiver down my spine and a queasiness in the pit of my stomach.
Back in St. Margaret Mary’s day, Confession lines were long every week, because unlike twenty-first century people they had a sense of sin. If the people of Margaret Mary’s day were more fervent and devout than we are today, and Jesus complained of all the ingratitude, irreverences, sacrileges, and contempt for Him in the Eucharist, then how we must offend Him today!
Pope Pius XII told us that modern people have lost their sense of sin, something he saw behind the evils of the Second World War, and things have only grown worse since then. Pius XII was absolutely right about our loss of a sense of sin. We no longer live in the United States of America, but rather the United States of the Offended, and we no longer preach from the books of the Bible, but rather from the Book of Political Correctness.
If Jesus was offended 400 years ago by ingratitude, how does He view us today? He complained of the irreverences and sacrileges and coldness and contempt we have for Him in the Most Holy Eucharist. Friends, any honest person who knows and understands that Jesus is really and truly present in the Eucharist must acknowledge that we are the most ungrateful, irreverent, sacrilegious, and contemptuous generation of Catholics in the history of the Church.
We make excuses and justifications for our sins, then go to Communion anyway. While at church we talk to one another before Mass, distracting the few others who are trying to prepare worthily for Mass, showing our irreverence for Him. We show Him our irreverence and ingratitude by attending Mass dressed with an immodesty that violates the Sixth Commandment. We show Him our contempt and commit sacrileges by receiving Him in Communion while steeped in mortal sin. Many people show their ingratitude, irreverence, coldness, and contempt for Jesus by receiving Communion then immediately walking out of Mass to go home. Friends, if that applies to you, when you leave Sunday or the Vigil Mass after Communion, you shortchange your Sunday Mass obligation! Mass is not over until the final blessing.
Wake up, friends! Jesus warned us to pay attention to the times and events around us while He was still on Earth. Look around you. Anyone who denies the existence of a growing persecution against Christians in the world — even here in America — is living with his head in the sand. In less developed nations of the world, they have been killing us — more Catholics than anyone — for several decades. About the time our enemies began making martyrs of us in other countries is when the persecution of Christians began in our own. If you believe it won’t come to martyrdom for us here, I pity you in your blindness.
Through St. Margaret Mary, Jesus gave us a dire warning, but He also gave us a remedy to what is coming. However, in order to take advantage of the remedy He has given, there are certain things we must do first. We must commit ourselves to learning, understanding, and living our Catholic faith.
Don’t tell me you know the faith because you went to Catholic school or have been a Catholic all your life. If those were valid arguments you couldn’t have gotten this far in these articles without realizing you have been ignorant of the faith all your life. I know from the things I hear and the response I get on JoeSixpackAnswers.com that you have been learning things you never previously knew . . . and all I’ve written about thus far is only the most basic tenets of the faith — things Catholic fourth-graders learned sixty years ago.
We also need to re-examine the way we live, form a right conscience, have recourse to frequent Confession, and commit ourselves to devout prayer and living life for Jesus Christ rather than the distractions offered by the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The only way we can survive what is coming is to get serious about our holy and ancient faith. And if I’m wrong about the persecution growing worse and worse, the very least you will have done by taking this advice is to ensure yourself of a heavenly reward and becoming much happier in this life.
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
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