All Visitandines renew their vows on the Feast of the Presentation, November 21. During this special Jubilee Year as we celebrate the centenary of the canonization of St. Margaret Mary, we can reflect on how St. Margaret Mary viewed the evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience and chastity.
Preparing for Renewal of Vows. Advice from St. Margaret Mary
Poverty
St. Margaret Mary distinguished two kinds of poverty- exterior poverty, which consists in privation of goods of this world, and interior poverty, which is one with renouncement and detachment.
It ought to have no limit but the poverty of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
“In the Holy Eucharist, “said St Margaret Mary, “Jesus has made Himself poor. He is in a condition to receive from His creatures whatever they will give- whatever they will give back- to Him.
We imitate Him by our vow of poverty, allowing ourselves to be given this or that, or to be deprived of it”
Such was the inviolable rule followed by St. Margaret Mary.
Following the example of this Saint, religious will have the treasures of the Heart of Jesus reserved for them.
Christians not bound by vow to poverty can yet be led by its spirit! How you rejoice the Heart of Jesus, who said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” What is this true kingdom of God if not the Heart of Jesus?
Source: Religious and the Sacred Heart by Fr Alfred Yenveux
St. Margaret Mary on the Vow of Obedience
St. Margaret Mary suggested a view of the vows and Evangelical Counsels in a deeply Eucharistic light.
It is before the Divine Tabernacle that she invites us to come, asking that our obedience should be imitating the obedience of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
“We must deck ourselves out in the virtues that will serve to make us pleasing to the eyes of our Divine and Crucified Spouse, especially in this one: he was obedient even unto death of the Cross, and He is evermore obedient upon our altars. What is there more obedient than Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, where He is present the instant that the Sacramental words have been pronounced?
Our obedience then, interior and exterior alike, shall be then in honor of Jesus Christ upon the Cross and that which in the Blessed Sacrament He renders to the priest, and we shall unite ours with His.” (St. Margaret Mary)
Source: Religious and the Sacred Heart by Fr. Alfred Yenveux
St. Margaret Mary on the Vow of Chastity
“O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory: for the memory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with God and with men.”
(Douay-Rheims Bible: Book of Wisdom, Chapter 4, verse 1)
That which called forth this cry of admiration was the sight of those who, in the midst of this corrupt world, whatever may be their vocation, keep their hearts innocent and pure.(Fr. Alfred Yenveux)
St. Margaret Mary can teach us more by example than by precept about Chastity in the Religious Life. This Visitandine Visionary remarks about her experience, ” During the annual retreat of 1678, my Divine Master said to me: ‘Keep in all purity the temple of the Lord, for wherever it shall be God will assist it with a special presence of protection and of love.’
“The whiteness of the Host, she adds, teaches us that one must be a pure victim to be immolated to Jesus.. pure in body, in heart, in intention and in affection.”
This understanding proposes as a model for chastity the very purity of the Heart of Jesus in the Host, and it demands as practice the imitation of the Eucharistic sanctity. What a Divine model is shown to generous souls.
Source: Religious and the Sacred Heart by Fr Alfred Yenveux