Within the Catholic world, June is known as the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is a month of true love, Sacred Love, Love of the Divine Heart.
An early Visitation Nun, Sr. Jeanne Benigne Gojos, (1615-1692) was deeply mystical and united to the Heart of Jesus.
At the Visitation Monastery in Turin, in 1635, this humble domestic Sister received wonderful favors. She spent her life in adoring and invoking the Heart of Jesus Rapt frequently into ecstasy, united in an ineffable manner to the Heart of Jesus, sharing His sadness, and inflamed with the desire of making Him known and loved, she foresaw in divine light the virgin of Paray, ( St Margaret Mary Alacoque)and announced the great mission with which St Margaret Mary would one day be charged.
The Word said to her one day, “I not only give myself to thee, I imprint myself on thee so as to engrave in thee the divine image.” She felt Him in her heart, she enjoyed secret conversation with Him by His interior words. Another time He said to her, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; my way leads thee to the Father, my truth directs and instructs thee, and my life unites thee by love to the Holy Spirit.” “Oh, unworthy as I am,” she said, “how great was this grace!”
An incomparable favor was conferred by the Word on Sr. Jeanne Benigne, which bears some resemblance to that received by St. John, the beloved of Jesus, and her dear Patron, when he described to us the eternal generation of the Word in sacred words dictated by the Truth Himself. In some small measure the humble Jeanne saw, like the divine eagle, St. John, the Word in God, Light in Light, God in God.
“I suddenly saw it in the divine Hands of that uncreated Love, who held it as if in a very rich vase; I knew that this vase was the Heart of Jesus, and it was said to me, ‘Jesus has taken thy heart, but He gives thee His, which contains thine;’ then I saw that poor heart of Benigne so small that I was grieved, thinking it so limited and incapable of holding much love. I desired to be able to take it into my hands to try to stretch it as far as the ends of the earth, and to raise it from earth to heaven, in order that it might be filled with such love as an infinitely amiable Lover deserves. Then Love Himself consoled me for my helplessness, and said to me, ‘ My dove, I supply all the defects of thy love by my love, its littleness by the love of the Heart of Jesus, its weakness by my all powerful goodness; in short, the Heart of Jesus and thine, Benigne, are united.’
Also found among her notes, “I felt a great joy which came from my heart, and from the knowledge I received that Divine Love had made Himself absolute master of the hearts of the Saints; that same Love inspired my heart with a vehement desire of being also ruled by it; instantly I felt myself immersed, as a drop of water in an ocean of love; the union was so complete that it seemed to me as if the whole substance of my body and soul was lost in love, so that I became all love for God; seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing but an emotion of pure love, but as it were imperceptible, which animated me with a tranquil though very earnest desire that my whole self should be annihilated in love.”
An exquisite painting of Sister Jeanne Benigne Gojos is currently displayed at the Visitation Museum in Moulins France,www.Musee-Visitation.eu, within the Sacred Heart exhibition:
A whole chapter in the Museum’s latest book, a tout Coeur, is devoted to the Sacred Heart devotion in the Monastery of Turin, where Sr. Jeanne Benigne Gojos lived her religious life and holy profession. http://visitationspirit.org/wp-content/docs/All-Heart-Order-Form.pdf
Tomorrow: Her life and vocation
Source and for further reading: