Meeting
THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS
Ready or Not!
Dear Friends of the Sacred Heart of Christ,
We had an “interesting” Thanksgiving this year in the monastery. First of all, a few days before, on the Sunday of Christ the King, one of our Sisters passed into eternity. Although she had been suffering, we did not expect our Sister Alice Marie to leave us so suddenly… she died quietly in her sleep about 3:00 a.m. that Sunday, November 23rd. When I heard the knock on my door in the middle of the night — I just happened to be awake – I suspected that something was awry. I was told that our Sister had gone to the Lord. Now it is our custom to be present around the bedside of our dying Sisters. If you have ever seen movies of nuns dying with their community members gathered around them, you will get a good idea of what it’s like here. So I went over to the infirmary and joined the others to pray for the soul of our departed Sister. It was the feast of Christ the King – a beautiful day to enter eternity. But we now have an obligation to pray for the soul of our dear Sister, having given her a proper Christian funeral.
Since Thanksgiving Day came right in the middle of our preparations for Sister’s funeral (which occurred on Saturday the 29th), our holiday was “different” this year. Besides this, we had a snow event on the day before Thanksgiving. Beautiful as it was to look at – the abundant snow providing us with a white Thanksgiving – as evening fell on that day before Thanksgiving, we had another unexpected “joy” when our electrical power went off. Thanks be to God we have a generator and were not totally in the dark… but on limited power only… no lights in the church, no dishwasher, no lights in the shower cores, limited lighting throughout the house, no computers, no pipe organ, limited water supplies. Fortunately, we do have two gas ovens and were able to eat a hot Turkey dinner in our Refectory under subdued lighting. (We usually eat Thanksgiving dinner in the community room where we have a more convivial atmosphere.) Yet, there were many things to be grateful for, and we thank the good Lord from our hearts for them all.
The day after our Sister’s funeral was the First Sunday of Advent and the readings could not have been more appropriate. The Gospel from Mark (13:33-37) exhorted us to be vigilant. It began: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come. It is like a man travelling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work and orders the gatekeepers to be on the watch. Watch, therefore: you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all, ‘Watch!’”
As I was preparing this talk, waiting in line to go to confession, the Sisters had begun to sing the Office of the Readings. They began with a familiar Advent hymn. The words were poignant:
The Bridegroom will be coming in the middle of the night,
and happy will those virgins be whose lamps are burning bright.
But woe to those dull servants whom the Master will surprise,
With lamps untrimmed, unburning, and with slumber in their eyes.
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Beware, my soul, be watchful, lest slumber bring you down,
and in the sleep of death you fall, to lose the golden crown.
But stay awake, be sober, with a watchful eye and thus,
Cry “Holy, holy, holy God have mercy upon us.”
Mother Church after having placed before our consciousness the need to pray for the suffering souls in purgatory – the month of November is dedicated to them – now begins the season of Advent by exhorting us to be watchful, for we do not know when the Bridegroom will come.
This gives us much food for thought. During the month of November, I had been reading various essays and stories on the souls in purgatory. There are many saints and holy people who have been great helpers of these souls. Among them are St. Padre Pio, St. Gemma Galgani, St. Francis de Sales, St. Faustina Kowalska and our own St. Margaret Mary. Our holy Sister St. Margaret Mary had a particular devotion to the suffering souls in purgatory and in her correspondence she frequently refers to them. In one of her letters she points out: “The Sacred Heart of Jesus continues to give me to certain souls in purgatory to help them satisfy the divine justice. It is at such times that I suffer pain very much like theirs and find no rest day or night.” Other stories in her letters also give us a deeper insight into what these souls experience. Here are two examples: “This morning,” she writes, “Good Shepherd Sunday [May 2, 1683], when I awoke, two of my good friends suffering in purgatory came to bid me goodbye. This was to be the day on which the sovereign Shepherd would receive them into His eternal fold and, accompanied by more than a million others, they were taken up midst songs of inexpressible joy. One of them is good Mother Monthoux [died February 5, 1683] the other my dear Sister Jeanne Catherine Gacon [died January 18, 1683], who repeated to me over and over again these words: ‘Love triumphs, love rejoices, love of the Sacred Heart gladdens.’ The other said: ‘How happy are the dead who die in the Lord, and religious who live and die in the exact observance of their rule!’ They want me to tell you for them that death can indeed separate friends but not destroy their union.” There were also accounts of souls in purgatory who were in great turmoil and who came to her begging for our saint’s efficacious prayers and suffrages. Margaret Mary tells of a former member of her community for whom she is offering to the Lord all she does and suffers. She writes, “Until I made this promise to do penance for her, she gave me no rest. She told me that she was suffering very much, especially for three things. The first is the too great care and softness she showed her body. The second, for tale-bearing and lack of charity. The third, for some petty ambitions of hers.” And she concludes, “I confide to you that I do not remember ever having passed a year like this one as far as suffering is concerned.”
Hearing these accounts makes us put things into perspective. Our merciful God is also a God of justice and supreme holiness. To share His Kingdom means to be pure of heart and pure of intention. Therefore, He calls us all to watchfulness, to preparedness so that our spiritual house may be in order when He comes. And as a means of anticipating this ultimate meeting with Him, the Church gives us the season of Advent each year, so that we may ready our hearts not only for the annual feast of Christmas but for that face to face encounter with the Lord when we die.
One of the most impressive helpers of the souls in purgatory that I have come across is the laywoman Eugenia von der Leyen (1867-1929). This well-educated woman of high German nobility kept a diary of her contacts with the poor souls. It was eventually handed over to Bishop Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII. Of her many encounters with the suffering souls, there is one, in mind, that stands out. From her diary she relates the visits of a deceased shepherd named Fritz. Initially, she was frightened by his appearance and could not distinguish whether his form was of a man or woman. She relates in a diary entry, “The horrible man stayed more than an hour during the night, and went back and forth continually. He has disheveled black hair and horrific eyes.” When she asked him if he had much to suffer, he moaned terribly. Finally Eugenie was able to identify her ghostly visitor as her former neighbor who had been murdered by his only son. The man had spent his life as a real hell-raiser. Yet, when the holy woman asked Fritz what had saved him, he answered, “Insight and repentance.” God granted him permission to come to her for her prayers and sacrifices which greatly relieved him and after a time brightened and transformed his very appearance. Significantly, the parish priest summed up Fritz’s salvation by concluding, “In him, the greatness of the mercy of God manifests itself.”
We must never forget that God wants every soul He has created to be saved, no matter what we have done in life. If we sincerely repent, acknowledge our failings and try to do better, the mercy of God will be with us. In counseling a Visitation Nun in another monastery who was floundering in her religious obligations, St. Margaret Mary tells her, “Once more, then, my dear friend, do not worry about your faults, but when you have committed one, say quite confidently to the most loving Heart of Jesus, ‘O my Love, pay your poor slave’s debts and make good the evil I have just done. Turn it to your glory, the edification of the neighbor, and the salvation of my soul.’” “In this way,” Margaret Mary emphasizes, “our falls sometimes help very much to humble us and to teach us what we really are.”
In conclusion, I’d like to tell you about a holy laywoman I learned about from reading an article on Church mystics. Her name is Gabrielle Bossis (1874-1950). She came from a well-to-do French family and developed a very close relationship with the Lord. From early life, Gabrielle was surprised by a Mysterious Inner Voice which she perceived to be the Voice of Christ. The journal that she kept of her dialogue with the Inner Voice has been published (with Imprimatur) in numerous languages under the title, He and I. The Voice of the Lord instructed her to take frequent stock not only of the value of her actions, but above all, of the value of her motive in doing them. Perhaps we can all take this advice to heart as we proceed on our Advent journey, so that all we may do will redound to our eternal salvation and the salvation of other souls. The Lord’s words to her are so poignant for devotees of His Sacred Heart: “Ask Me for love. Ask Me” pleads the Lord. “I am burning with desire to give it to you. Talk to Me. For Me, there is no sweeter prayer.” +