Our new video highlights six Visitation Mystics
(Video script) Jesus Christ chose the Visitation Order of Holy Mary to be the sanctuary of His Sacred Heart. He has revealed to His Visitandine Spouses the intimacies of His Love throughout four centuries. We present six French Visitation Nuns who were holy recipients of his messages. We hope His Heart will touch yours.
1. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is the Visitation Order’s “mystic of mystics”.Our Lord chose her to receive the revelations of His Love for us in His Sacred Heart. From 1673 to 1675 Christ appeared to St. Margaret Mary in the Visitation Monastery of Paray-le-Monial, France, showing her His Heart. “My divine Heart”, He said, “is so passionately fond of the human race, and of you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you.” He mourned the world’s indifference, asking St. Margaret Mary for a communion of reparation on the First Friday of each month. In another great vision Jesus revealed His Heart, saying, “Behold this Heart which has loved everyone so much that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love.” Jesus Christ requested a special liturgical feast for His Sacred Heart. The Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart were also drawn from these revelations.
Spend time before Jesus’ Heart in prayer, receiving His Love, loving Him and comforting Jesus for those who do not know His Love.
Each succeeding Visitation Sister’s mission of the Sacred Heart seems to build upon and develop that which was first revealed to St. Margaret Mary.
Venerable Sister Anne Madeleine Remuzat, of Marseilles, France, was a Visitation Nun whose prayers encouraged the consecration of that city to the Sacred Heart, which saved Marseilles from the bubonic plague! She was born in 1696, a generation after St. Margaret Mary.
She prayed, “Oh! That I had a new heart to love Thee with! Oh! That I had all the love of all the hearts in all the world, so that I might give Thee Thy desert of love.”
When the bubonic plague erupted in Marseilles in 1720, Ven. Anne Madeleine’s prayers for society, city and the abasement of disease were heart-rending and accompanied by sacrifice and self-giving to a deep degree.
That year Marseille was the first city in France to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart during Bishop Belsunce’s episcopacy.
Sister Anne-Madeleine Rémuzat whose own heart is preserved in the Basilica, worked to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart. The bubonic plague ceased.
She had a saintly death 10 years later in 1730, having received the stigmata. Her cause for beatification is being handled by Bishop Jean-Pierre Ellul as Postulator
Pray that your city, Diocese and nation may be consecrated or re -dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus!
Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart Bernaud was Foundress of the Guard of Honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Her Visitation Monastery of Bourg-en-Bresse France received a letter from Annecy, the founding community, stating that Our Lord complained to a favored soul there that Visitandines were not employing enough zeal in spreading devotion to His Heart. The sisters looked towards Sr. Marie saying: “It is up to you to find a new way to glorify the Heart of Jesus” Sr. Marie had a vision of the Sacred Heart surrounded by a dial with the words Glory! Love! Reparation! She reproduced this image and entitled it Guard of Honor of the Sacred Heart. March 13, 1863, the fledgling Guard of Honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was founded.
The Guard of Honor is the providential means of worship particular to the wound of the Heart of Jesus received by the soldier’s lance. It is an Association any one can join.
Choose an hour to honor the wounded Heart of Jesus, every day, as you go about your ordinary tasks.
Venerable Mary Martha Chambon of the Visitation of Chambery, France was mystically commissioned by Jesus during her lifetime (1841-1907) to renew reverence to His Holy Wounds. She sensed Our Lord Jesus say to her one time, “My heart is wide, My Heart is tender. The wound of My Heart is deep enough to contain all your needs.” St. Francis de Sales in a vision told her “God has chosen you to complete the devotion to the Sacred Heart.”
In prayer she was given the Chaplet of the Holy Wounds. Place your hurts, needs and intentions into the Holy Wounds of Jesus as you pray this Chaplet.
Pray on the large beads of your Rosary:
Eternal Father, I offer You the Wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ to heal the wounds of our souls.
And on the small beads:
My Jesus, pardon and mercy, through the merits of Your Holy Wounds.
Venerable Louise Margaret Claret de la Touche was chosen by Our Lord to live her religious life for the clergy.
Jesus said to her,
“The heart of my priest ought to be a burning flame, warming and purifying souls. If the priest only knew the treasures of love which My Heart contains for him! Let him come to My Heart, let him draw from It, let him fill himself with love until it overflows from his heart and spreads itself over the world.
Margaret Mary has shown My Heart to the world, you show It to My priests, and draw them all to My Heart.”
Ven. Louise Margaret’s mission included organizing four groups that would make known his love to priests.
Eventually the Visitation community she founded in Italy became a new congregation, Bethany of the Sacred Heart.
May your intercessions before the Sacred Heart include the needs of our ordained priests.
Sister Marie Teresa Desandais was a Visitation Nun known as the Apostle of Merciful Love and a contemporary of St. Faustina
Born in France in 1876, she began her literary activity under the pseudonym of “little hand” or “Sulamite.” Everything she wrote was, according to her own words, “written at the dictation of God”, receiving His revelations of Merciful Love. She wrote:
“Love is not Loved because it is not known, ..Merciful Love wants to reveal itself to this world. To know God is also to know Merciful Love.
Merciful Love is not a new thing; the Church has taught it from the beginning. It is the love of the Savior, his manifestation of the new Law. I do not want that you embrace this devotion hoping to find in it some new form of spirituality.”
In 1912, without possessing special knowledge of painting Sister Marie Teresa painted the first image of the painting of ‘”merciful love” .
Sister Maria Teresa served her community as Superior for 9 years. Her writings became well known in Spain, through the interest of Fr. Juan Arintero who published them. She died in 1943.
May you run to Merciful Love with the needs of your soul and that of all those for whom your pray.