The Sisters Of the Visitation of Tyringham

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AMAZING GRACE OF THE HEART OF CHRIST

by Sister Judith Clare

October 2008

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Dear Friends of the Heart of Christ.

 In 1591, seven men gave their lives to defend their Catholic faith. Known as the London Martyrs, they died after a royal proclamation which led to a stricter enforcement of laws against Catholics in England who refused to deny the tenets of their faith. They could not in conscience accept the ruling that the King or Queen was the head of the Church in England. One of the martyrs named Brian Lacey, a priest, was betrayed by his own brother. Historical documents record that Father Brian Lacey's brother "rather rejoiced than any way bewailed the untimely and bloody end of his nearest kinsman." Imagine yourself betraying and rejoicing over the death of your own brother or sister or nearest kin... However, this story had an unusual twist. Just ten days later Father Brian's brother underwent a remarkable conversion. He not only became a Catholic, but entered a monastery of Friars Minor and eventually became the superior of the English Franciscan province and later founded a community of nuns.

This story is one of the many incidences in our world of the power of God's grace. God can and does change things around as the familiar hymn proclaims, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost and now I'm found, was blind and now I see."

Another amazing turnaround in the realm of grace is seen in the life of the brilliant musician Hermann Cohen. Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Germany in 1821, Cohen went from the glittering world of musical fame, parties and loose living to the very depths of depravity. He was rescued from that darkness by a miraculous grace he received while in front of the Blessed Sacrament. His whole course of life changed. Instead of concentrating on himself, he rededicated his life to God and became a Carmelite priest. His great love of God and his devotion to Christ's heart made him tireless in his travels throughout Europe, preaching and founding houses for his religious congregation. His cause for beatification is now being considered in Rome.

I bring up these two examples because in our lives we sometimes become despondent that God seems so far away and that nothing is happening to change our lot and lighten our load. But God is at work... We can't be here today without pausing to consider how the Heart of Jesus bisects our everyday existence with his providential graces.

In the Church's calendar of saints, today is the feast of St. Faustina Kowaiska that great apostle of the Divine Mercy who died at age 33 in 1938. The day has a special significance for me because 29 years ago I entered the monastery. It was a day I'll never forget. Our community was in Wilmington, Delaware then and our imposing granite monastery, shrouded by huge leafy canopies from giant Zelcova trees, was quite a sight to behold. Back then on that momentous day, I was extremely nervous and hesitant about "throwing my independence to the winds." What would my life now be like behind a 10 foot wall enclosing one city block? What I want to tell you is that God did things in those 29 years that I never expected, and he started right at the beginning.

 I had planned to enter on October 71' and then changed to October 4th (the feast of St. Francis of Assisi) because the superior wanted me to accompany the community on a trip to Washington, D.C. We were to see Pope John Paul II at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sunday, October 7t• On the morning of the 4th as I was preparing to arrive at the Wilmington Monastery from my mother's house in northeastern Pennsylvania, I received a phone call from my very good friend who was to drive me to the monastery. She informed me that she was calling from the hospital emergency room where she had taken her mother who was having chest pains. Apologizing, she said she would be unable to drive me to the monastery that day. What to do... My mother did not drive and all the other people who could take me were working. I called the monastery to relate my problem only to be told by a lay worker that the Sisters were not home since they went to see the Pope in Philadelphia. They would be back at 3:00 p.m. to greet the new postulant. I said that I was the new postulant and was not coming! When I called the superior later that day to describe my dilemma, she ordered me to come the next day, even if I had to take the bus. She did this because she did not want me to miss the once in a life time opportunity of accompanying our community of cloistered nuns to see the Pope. However, this left me befuddled. I felt disappointed that my plans for entering had been changed and that now October 5tI would forever be remembered as my entrance day and that no prominent saint would be my patron for that day.

 Years later, I related this story in our monastery outside of Atlanta, Georgia where I just recently went to attend the funeral of the superior under whom I began my religious life. As I was speaking to one of the young white veiled sisters there telling this tale, she turned to me and said, "Now it is..." Meaning that now October 5` is a feast day of a very prominent saint: St. Faustina. Of course, the unbelievable thing happened that our community relocated from Wilmington to Tyringham, where the Marians, one of the prime promoters of the Divine Mercy and St. Faustina, are our chaplains. It also turned out that my entrance day on October 5th was a First Friday, a day that has special significance in Sacred Heart spirituality.

I relate this simply as a further indication to myself and to others who would hear it that God's amazing graces can change things around and put new meaning into our existence. There are no coincidences in the spiritual life when we let God in to work there.

When we started to look for property in the Berkshire area and frequented the Marians chapel in Stockbridge, we were surprised and delighted to see the little window of the Sacred Heart appearing to St. Margaret Mary in the side altar room. Right in this bastion of Divine Mercy Spirituality was a symbol of St. Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart. In this small room there is also a first class relic of St. Faustina. How close these two great saints seemed as they both worked to spread the messages of love and mercy from Christ's Heart.

As devotees of the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy, we have been given heavenly treasures. We are being shown once again that God is love, that God is mercy. In the encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy) by Pope John Paul II, we read that "Mercy is love's second name." The Heart of Christ is trying to tell us something through his revelations to St. Margaret Mary and St. Faustina. In both we see Jesus emphasizing his heart which is all love and mercy and so eager to employ these in each of our lives.

For a moment let's take a look at a few striking similarities between St. Margaret Mary, canonized on May 13, 1920, and Saint Faustina, canonized on April 30, 2000. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647 1690) was born in France to a good Christian family. She was a youth who loved the spiritual, but at the same time she was attracted to things of this world. She herself admits in her Autobiography that she was "naturally fond of pleasure and amusement." The Lord had to literally wrench her from herself. She writes, "I would see a pitiful figure, my Savior, fresh from his scourging and it wasn't easy to go on having a good time after that! Especially as I'd hear him saying, 'Are you really so bent on enjoying yourself? I didn't have a good time on earth. Sorrow, sorrow in all its forms, was the lot I chose, trying to win your heart because I love you." After much family opposition the Lord himself directed Margaret to the Visitation monastery at Paray¬le Monial where she entered at age 23. She was a true disciple of Jesus, embracing the cross of continual physical and spiritual sufferings. From 1673 1675 the Sacred Heart appeared to her asking that she help him revive the cold hearts of humanity. Among the requests made to Saint Margaret Mary by the Sacred Heart were: a communion of reparation on the First Friday of every month, along with a weekly Holy Hour; the distribution of an image of the Sacred Heart; the institution of a feast on the Friday after Corpus Christi honoring his Heart of Love.

Helena Kowaiska (1905 1938) was born in Poland to a hard working Christian family. Like Margaret Mary, she was drawn to things spiritual from her youth, but again we see a nature that knows how to enjoy life. Helena in her Diary writes, "The incessant call to grace caused me much anguish; I tried, however, to stifle it with amusements. Interiorly, I shunned God, turning with all my heart to creatures. However, God's grace won out in my soul. Once I was at a dance with one of my sisters. While everybody was having a good time, my soul was experiencing deep torments. As I began to dance, I suddenly saw Jesus at my side, Jesus racked with pain, stripped of his clothing, all covered with wounds, who spoke these words to me: 'How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting me off?" In the pattern of St. Margaret Mary, Helena experienced a flat refusal by her family to pursue religious life, but was personally directed by the Lord, "Go at once to Warsaw; you will enter a convent there." Many physical and spirituals trials made Saint Faustina's 13 years of conventual life a veritable image of Christ crucified. From 1931 to her death in 1938, she devoted herself to spreading the message of Jesus' all merciful heart as revealed to her through numerous revelations. Among the requests made to Saint Faustina by the Merciful Heart of Jesus were: the recitation of a powerful chaplet of prayers invoking the mercy of the Heart of Jesus; the painting and distribution of an image of Jesus depicting rays of mercy emanating from his heart; the institution of a feast of mercy on the first Sunday after Easter.

Nearly 300 years ago, the Heart of Jesus manifested itself in an extraordinary way to St. Margaret Mary. Why? If we look at the tenor of the times we see a world chilled by the icy spirituality of Jansenism¬ that stream of belief which made God into a fearsome ogre instead of a loving, compassionate Creator. It has always been the subtle work of the evil one to take a good thing and distort it for its own purposes. Such was Jansenism in the life of the Church. Unsuspecting souls were swept into its claims of an unapproachable Deity who was high above creation. Holy communion became the sacrament of fear instead of the sacrament of loving union with God. As such times when the church or the world seems to be turned on its head, God steps directly into the picture. In this instance it was to Margaret Mary, the essence of insignificance from the world's perspective, that the Heart of Jesus unveiled his intense love for all humanity. He spoke to her these words: "My Divine Heart is so passionately in love with all souls that it can no longer withhold the flames of its burning love. It must let them spread by means of you and reveal itself to the world with its profound treasures which hold the graces they need to be saved from eternal loss. I have chosen you, an abyss of unworthiness to carry out so great a design, that all may be done by Me." So it was that the red hot flames of Christ's love were released on a world grown cold.

Compare this to our world today. It is in an awful mess. Constant bombardment by television and news media, society's norms of bizarre and immoral behavior, materialistic empires, abortion, euthanasia, and you name it, leave confused youth and susceptible adults in a state of siege. How can the ordinary person today not become bewildered by the overwhelming pressures to succumb to the world's standards? Yes, we are in dire need of another reminder that the Heart of Christ is alive and well and working! The Heart of Christ is again manifesting itself in a profound way and giving us another chance to turn our lives around as it pours out its infinite mercy upon us.

Just recently, we learned that another striking similarity exists between St. Margaret Mary and St. Faustina. On September 28, the spiritual director of St. Faustina, Father Michael Sopocko was beatified in his native Poland. Like St. Margaret Mary, whose spiritual director was St. Claude la Colombiere, St. Faustina was anxious and uncertain about the supernatural visions she was having.

Recall that St. Margaret Mary was given manifold visions by the Lord. These left her in a state of spiritual exaltation, but on a human level there was much opposition. Her religious superior was not sure what to make of them. The Visitation Order rather down played such exceptional mystical gifts. To test their genuineness, St. Margaret Mary says that she was "abundantly fed on the delicious bread of mortification and humiliation." The larger part of her religious community did not sympathize with her trouble. Relying on the disapproval of priests who had been contacted about her, the Sisters openly blamed the saint and some labeled her as a visionary and reformer. Who was she, such a young religious, to make herself so singular and to be giving lessons to her elders? To drive out the evil spirit whom they believed influenced her, they doused her with holy water. So it was absolutely necessary that heaven vindicate her if the message of the Sacred Heart were to spread. This took place quite emphatically when Jesuit Father Claude la Colombiere was sent to the out of the way town of Paray le Monial. In the midst of all her trials, Margaret Mary received this promise from the Sacred Heart: "I will send you my faithful servant and perfect friend who will teach you to know Me and abandon yourself to Me." When the recently ordained Claude arrived at the Visitation Monastery in 1675, an interior voice told Margaret Mary that he was "the man after His own Heart."

Like St. Claude, Blessed Michael Sopocko was a person of high integrity and was gifted spiritually and intellectually. Faustina writes of him in her Diary that Jesus proclaimed him "a priest after My own Heart... Through him it pleased Me to proclaim the worship of My mercy." (Diary 1256). Both of these spiritual directors were sent by the Lord to the two mystics of the Heart of Christ to authenticate their remarkable revelations. Their ability to recognize the Spirit of God at work in their spiritual children and their willingness to suffer criticism and personal mortification to spread these divinely inspired messages gives the Church two models of extraordinary discernment and courage. It is interesting to note that St. Claude and Bl. Michael both died on February 15th, one is 1682 and the other in 1975.

Beyond a doubt we can see so many links between the spirituality of the Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy. One of the religious metals that I possess and keep in a little leather pouch at my prayer place in the choir combines these two devotions. On one side of the metal there is the image of the Divine Mercy with its twin rays emanating from the Lord's Heart. On the opposite side the Two Hearts of Jesus and Mary, much like the center of our rose window in our church is stamped. It is a single metal but has two distinct sides with two distinct images. I like to think of the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy like that. From the same Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ comes forth divine love for each of his children and divine mercy for each of his children. How we desperately need them both. The Lord deprives no one of them, and no sinner, however lost, will be denied them if they but turn with the slightest hint of openness and repentance to the Lord.

It is through God's mercy that the eyes of the blind are opened and that those who lay in the dust are lifted up to contemplate the Light. Through God's mercy, His Glory and Majesty is revealed, and hearts are re aligned to turn again to the Lord. In these days of grace, God's mercy is one of the greatest treasures of His Heart which has been kept for our times which are so full of evil. God wants to show even more compassion, especially to those who are bowed down and whose bodies are crushed to the ground by sin. Everyone is included in the Lord's merciful designs, no matter how wretched.

So there is amazing grace stored up for us in the Lord's Heart. A hymn we often sing entitled Sacred Heart, All Holy sums this up so well: O Sacred Heart all holy, that Heart so meek and lowly, our hardened hearts refine. For in your heart is treasure, of goodness without measure, of mercy, grace and love divine. Your heart for love is yearning, while we to sin are turning, unmindful of your love. But in your gracious kindness, Lord cure us of our blindness, and lead us to your throne above.

This presentation was given at the Monastery of the Visitation of Tyringham, MA on Wednesday October 1, 2008

God be Praised