The small town of Saône-et-Loire remains very marked by the apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Saint Marguerite-Marie, of which it celebrates the great jubilee of 350 years. The Chapel of the Visitation is a discreet building, located in the eponymous street which leads to the Sacré Cœur basilica of Paray-le-Monial. The term under which she is today known, “Chapel of Apparitions”, gives a greater measure of its importance for the Catholic faith. Because it is here that Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque had three great apparitions of Christ 350 years ago, that a jubilee of the diocesan sanctuary commemorates since December 27 last, feast of Saint John – he is the apostle who rested his head on the chest of Christ and heard his Heart beat – and anniversary of the apparition in 1673, until June 27, 2025, feast of Sacred Heart, in memory of the great appearance of the octave of the Corpus Christi of June 1675. It was during the latter that Christ, showing his Heart, said to her: “Here is this Heart which so loved the men, that he spared nothing until he exhausted himself and consumed himself to show them his love; and for gratitude I do not receive from most only ingratitude, through their irreverence and their sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this Sacrament of love.”
In the heart of the cloister
Exceptionally, the Sisters of the Visitation offered us the privilege – and joy – of entering the monastery enclosure, place reserved for the nuns of the Order.
. A long, bright corridor, on the wall of which is hung a path of Croix, is still known to the Sisters as the “Corridor of Agony”: it is here that the November 20, 1677, after having declared to the united community that Christ was outraged at the lack of charity of the Sisters, young Marguerite-Marie was molested by the latter bursting with rage.
The Choir of the Seraphim
The memory is everywhere, even in the seemingly most common places. At the entrance to the garden, lulled that day by the breeze, Sister Margarita stops and shows a few steps, in a small courtyard. This space, where Saint Marguerite-Marie came to meditate for her proximity geographical with the Blessed Sacrament of the neighboring chapel, was for her the object of an experience all the more spectacular because it contrasts, as often, with the simplicity of the place: the visitandine sees the Sacred Heart “brighter than a sun”, “in the middle flames of his pure love” and surrounded by a choir of seraphim “who sang in admirable concert”. A few meters away, the cloistered part of the choir contains a precious relic inaccessible to the faithful and of which the prayer to God installed in front underlines the attachment of the community: the brain of Saint Marguerite-Marie. “The fact that it was found intact is remarkable and totally unusual, because the brain is normally the first thing destroyed after death,” notes Sister Marguerite-Marie, Visitandine in Paray-le-Monial. For her, the explanation behind the miraculous conservation of matter gray of its illustrious namesake is obvious: “Some, like the Jansenists, had, at the time, treated her as crazy: in answer, the Lord has therefore preserved his brain” she smiles.
The dynamism of Paray
By going to Paray-le-Monial and surveying the Visitation, the pilgrim is plunged into a great mystery: to reveal his Sacred Heart and ensure its dissemination, why did Christ manifested in the heart of the Charolais countryside, a simple visitandine who had practically never left her village? “Jesus clearly told Marguerite-Marie that he chose her “so that all things be done by [Him].” And in fact, devotion took on wildfire” recalls Sister Marguerite-Marie. “That can also be a lesson for our time: by a very small means of departure, all the ends of the earth have been reached. Today, the diocesan sanctuary, which welcomes between 50,000 and 80,000 pilgrims each year, sees young families coming to settle in the surrounding area, anxious to see their home grow in the shadow of the Sacred Heart.
“Paray-le Monial is getting younger,” confirms Clara Martin, a 26-year-old young woman. After several years attending community-organized summer sessions of Emmanuel, she came to settle in six months ago with her husband. Very attached to the Sacred Heart, from whom she testifies to having received “graces of consolation and healing”, she associates with her new life an approach of spreading devotion. “There is still a lot to do,” she notes. When I talk about Paray around me, some don’t know the history of Saint Marguerite-Marie and are even surprised by the story of the appearance of the Sacred Heart…” However, the simplicity of the message Paray-le-Monial, which is based on a “heart” whose symbolic power is present in all cultures, gives it an obvious universality.
“Someone who knows nothing about the Christian faith but discovers that Jesus offers him his heart will, even unconsciously or imperfectly, be seized by deepest part of his soul” testifies Father Xavier Jahan, present in Paray-le Monial since 2016. For this Jesuit, attached to the Claude-La-Colombière chapel, artistic jewel of the first half of the 20th century erected in honor of the first man having believed in Saint Marguerite-Marie, and faithful propagator of devotion to the Sacred Heart, the latter is far from being outdated: “The Heart of Jesus contains the entire mystery of Jesus. In these turbulent times, where everything is called into question, we find ourselves in an emergency that pushes us to get to the center of the center, to the essential: the Sacred Heart.”
Exit from “purgatory”
The faithful Parodians all seem to maintain a real closeness with the Sacred Heart and hope to take advantage of the jubilee to make the devotion more known, especially since it seems to come out of a sort of purgatory where had precipitated the recurring controversies – and coming from hostile circles to the Church – since the National Vow of the Basilica of Montmartre. “Young people of today no longer have any contact with all these stories” believes Sister Marguerite-Marie, for whom devotion will ultimately “start again” and of which the monastery intends to put online for the first time, on the occasion of the opening of the jubilee, the totality of the authenticated writings of the saint.
“I have already told clients “Go and rest on the Heart of Jesus”” calmly explains Éric Pierre Delaveau, florist from Paray-le-Monial, who strives as much as possible to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart in his work. “Formerly, the Feast of the Sacred Heart in June attracted people, which is less the case today,” he further notes. However, the florist predicts a strong comeback of devotion, because “the Sacred Heart of Jesus is something pure and simple, which works with everyone we talk to about it.”
Repairing injustice
The spotlight on Paray-le-Monial during the jubilee will allow the greatest number to discover the initiatives already proposed by the sanctuary to spread devotion, like the Guard of Honor whose 30,000 members present in France offer one hour every day under repair at the Sacré-Cœur. More broadly, this jubilee could be an opportunity for the French to repair an injustice. Because no one is a prophet in his country and the Sacred Heart does not escape the rule: although devotion finds its source in the Scriptures (see pages 16 to 18), it is in France, with a young Visitandine, that the Christ chose to reveal his Heart, making the fading of devotion in France all the more ungrateful. “When I meet people French people who do not know devotion in the Heart of Jesus, I say to them: “Do not forget, you French, the treasure that the Lord has given for you !” says Sister Margarita Islena. Before adding: “The French must return to the Heart of Jesus.” Far from being an outdated devotion, the Sacred Heart of Jesus appears as a formidable tool of evangelization, whose simplicity and radicality of the message are able to touch the most distant hearts of the Christian faith.
From our special correspondent, Constantine of Vergennes Source: 3839 (calameo.com)