Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She was born in 1647 in France and was a sickly child, eventually taking to her bed with paralysis for 4 years. At this time, she vowed to the Blessed Virgin that she would dedicate her life to God and was miraculously healed. During her teenage years, she would often have visions of Jesus. She did not know that this was unusual and simply thought that everyone had visions of Jesus. As she grew older and entered the convent, Jesus began speaking to her and teaching her about his Sacred Heart.

There are, I believe, two different but related devotions to the Sacred Heart. The one is the enthronement of the Sacred Heart in, say, your home, with your family. It includes a prayer and a display of the image of the Sacred Heart. This is a later devotion that became popular early in the 20 ^th century. Cardinal Burke has written a lot of wonderful homilies about this. (Follow this link for some wonderful instructions! http://www.wf-f.org/SacredHeart_BurkeII.html) I want to leave this one aside, though, and focus on the 1 ^st Friday devotion that St. Margaret Mary introduced. This devotion was given to her directly by Our Lord during her visions.

In the year 1673, St. Margaret reported that Our Lord allowed her to rest her head against his chest. When Jesus revealed his Sacred Heart, he also told St. Margaret Mary: "Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume itself, to prove to them its love." She was from this moment on dedicated to teaching others about the Sacred Heart.

She further records his words in her writings: "On Friday during Holy Communion, [Our Lord] said these words to [me] "I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that its all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on nine first Fridays of consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they will not die under my displeasure or without receiving their sacraments, my divine Heart making itself their assured refuge at the last moment."

What a beautiful promise! Some of us, I am sure, hopefully all of us, are at least a little bit concerned about dying in a state of grace. Don't be overly anxious! Jesus has promised to supply all the grace we need in our final moments. It is our responsibility, though, to prepare ahead of time. We must live every moment as though it may be our last. Some worry that they will not make it to confession in time to be forgiven of a mortal sin, well, go to confession frequently! We recently added a confession time on Tue nights from 5-5:20 here at Epiphany. I would love it if the lines were so long that we forced Fr. Tom to add even more times! Confession is the sacrament of mercy. It is where we meet Jesus most intimately. It helps us to stay in a state of grace and receive the Eucharist fruitfully. Do not wait until the end. If we live our lives as Jesus wishes us to, he will absolutely take care of us and bring us safely to heaven. And by this I don't mean be perfect; what I mean, and what the Sacred Heart teaches us, is that what God desires from us is not perfection but that we throw ourselves entirely into his arms through repentance and love. Open your heart to him and he will give you all of his Sacred Heart as a resting place.

I want to go over the words of Our Lord to St. Margaret again, just so we know the details. I don?t know about you but I take great comfort in a simple, clear plan to follow. Here is what he requested of us so that we may obtain extra graces:

1) That we receive communion on the 1 ^st Friday of 9 consecutive Fridays,
2) that we make these communions with an internal devotion to the Sacred Heart,
3) and remain for a holy hour after the mass on the 1 ^st Fridays for adoration.

So, to recap, Go to confession! We all need it and it helps us tremendously! If you are inspired by the Sacred Heart, try to follow the instruction of Our Lord, in this way you will, like St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, find your life hidden away with Jesus. Even to your last moments. So great was her love that the last words on her lips at the time of her death were,

"What have I in heaven and what do I desire on earth, but Thee alone, O my God."