Fr. Etienne Kern
In the context of the Jubilee of the 350th anniversary of the apparitions of the Sacred Heart to the Religious Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, we are continuing a reflection on the issues at stake in this Jubilee. Last Friday, we published the first part of these issues. Here is the second and final part. Last week, we presented the first two major issues of the Jubilee of the 350th anniversary of the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary: Bringing devotion to the Sacred Heart out of the dead ends in which it has been imprisoned To unfold a living place, where an intense experience of faith is lived today Today, here are the other three main issues:
III. Rediscovering the topicality of the theme of reparation
To deepen the communion that unites the different ecclesial realities attached to the Sacred Heart Receiving What God Wants for Our Sanctuary III.
Rediscovering the topicality of the theme of reparation
The events of Paray-le-Monial are a reference to the spirituality of reparation. Thus, the request for the institution of the feast of the Sacred Heart by Jesus, during the great apparition of June 1675, is a request for reparation. Following the events of Paray-le-Monial, reparation took a prominent place in the spirituality of the Church, until the great anthropological turning point of the 1970s, when it declined very quickly. The demand for reparation is central to Paray-le-Monial. It is not possible to hide it without amputating the message. It is therefore up to the shrine to rediscover ways of accessing this request of Christ and to propose a new actuality of it. In addition, the issue of reparation is becoming highly topical in the cultural and social spheres.
Among many other works, we can mention Maylis de Kerangal’s book, Repairing the Living, published in 2014, which has sold more than 400,000 copies and has been adapted for the screen, or that of Dr. Denis Mukwebe, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2018, Repairing Women, published in 2019 on reconstructive surgery, or the film by Jeanne Herry, I’ll Never Forget Your Faces, released in 2023, about restorative justice… It would have been difficult to have “Reparation” as the theme of the Jubilee, because it is an expression that is difficult to understand without prior explanation. Hence the restrained choice of Render Love for Love, which expresses its deep spiritual dynamics while being able to speak to the heart from the outset. On the other hand, the colloquium organized by the shrine on the occasion of the Jubilee, Repairing the irreparable from May 1 to 5 in Rome, will address Reparation head-on. It is a question of showing that the events of Paray have something to say today to the Church in France, and to society, while the thirst for reparation seems to be awakening. This question is also part of the Church’s painful timeliness, namely the “crisis of abuse”.
The endemic and systemic spread of abuses cries out for reparation. Jesus’ words to St. Margaret Mary, as well as their legacy in history, can shed precious light. One of the challenges of this Jubilee is therefore to deepen the following problematic: How can Jesus’ request to make reparation for the indignities done to his Heart, and particularly by consecrated persons, open the way for the necessary reparation due to victims of abuse in the Church, and particularly by consecrated persons? From the outset, it is obvious to us that offenses against God are irreparable. Offenses to victims of abuse are irreparable. Yet, in Paray, Christ asks for reparation. He himself, he alone, opens and offers a path of repair. In the course of the colloquium, we will therefore confront the many questions that this raises: Can we then compare the “indignities” that Jesus makes explicit in “ingratitudes”, “irreverence”, “sacrilege”, “coldness” and “contempt” with the crimes committed against the victims of abuse? Is it possible to go from Jesus as a victim to the victims themselves? How can we escape from a spiritualization that is too rapid, denying justice, in order to perhaps discover a reparation that assumes justice and also exceeds it, responding to a deep thirst of the heart? How can we overcome the suspicion of a morbid perversion of reparation in order to find in it the expression of greater freedom? Does it make sense to speak of love, of reparation of love, where the dignity of man has been so violently trampled upon, so far from what love can be? Can spiritual reparation make it possible to pronounce a name on the unspeakable? Does listening to the victims offer a new ear to Christ’s complaint? How does this listening contribute to reforming the life and practices of the Church?
I would like to thank Father Louis Pierre Dupont, who is in charge of the organization of this conference and who refers you to the website of the shrine where you will find all the additional information to register. IV. To deepen the communion that unites the different ecclesial realities attached to the Sacred Heart Pope Francis reminds us that the Holy Spirit is the one who creates both diversity and unity. A special grace of fraternity was given by the Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary and St. Claude, who then received each other as brother and sister in order to be able to fulfill their respective missions. One year ago, on October 16, 2022, together with the director of the shrine, the parish priest, the superior of the Visitation and the superior of the Jesuits of Paray, we received from the Vicar General, Father Grégoire Drouot, the mission to work together for the influence of the Sacred Heart and to welcome pilgrims, each according to the modalities specific to his mission. Now, to use Pope Francis’ expression, communion is not spherical (where any point on the sphere is equidistant from the center), but polyhedral (the polyhedron being this complex geometric figure composed of multiple facets integrating diversity. Our stories, our spiritual sensitivities are not the same. We are not all equally attached to the different aspects of the richness of the Heart of Jesus. Our way of talking about it is not the same and the experience we carry is varied. Here we experience that receiving each other as brothers and sisters is certainly a beautiful challenge, but may the Lord give it to us and that this only strengthens our fidelity to the Lord and enriches the pastoral proposal that we can offer to pilgrims. This calls for humility on the part of all of us.
The humility to recognize the gifts that the Lord has given us and the humility to recognize the gifts he has given to the other ecclesial realities attached to the Heart of Jesus. The humility of needing others and the humility of taking the place that the Lord asks us to take. No one can identify the Sacred Heart with themselves or affirm that “The Sacred Heart is me!” No one can claim the exclusivity of this devotion. No one can lay their hands on the Heart of Jesus and make it their own. We are together at the service of a grace that surpasses us, each according to the mission received from the Church. To put it simply, we have a beautiful experience of synodality. Demanding, certainly, but profoundly joyful and fruitful. Pilgrims are already benefiting from it today, with the joint editorial of the free newspaper “Special Paray – 350 Years” for tourists who visit the basilica and the sanctuary. They will continue to benefit more from it in a few weeks because I am happy to announce that in collaboration with the town hall, we are going to completely redo and unify the signage for all the realities of the Church in Paray. Today, our assembly reflects this same ecclesial and spiritual diversity, as I will have occasion to emphasize in my welcome address during Mass. Thus, this grace of fraternity which is at the origin of the spread of the devotion of the Sacred Heart continues to extend among all of us, apostles of the Heart of Jesus, gathered on this occasion. Our world needs it more than ever so that these words of the Lord, spoken here 350 years ago today, may resonate: “My Divine Heart is so passionate with love for all men and for you in particular. » In 1981, Father Pedro Arrupe, then General of the Jesuits, said: “I am convinced that few proofs could be as clear of the spiritual renewal of the Society of Jesus as a vigorous and general devotion to the Heart of Jesus. Our apostolate would find new vigour and we would soon see the effects, both in our personal lives and in our apostolic activities.”
These vibrant words resonate as a prophetic call for the Jesuits but also much more broadly! For this reason, I would like to address a second appeal, this time to the religious congregations linked to the Sacred Heart (we have identified and invited more than 250 in the world), the parishes consecrated to the Sacred Heart (more than 120 in France have received our invitation), the educational institutions of the Sacred Heart (250 schools, 60 middle schools and 26 high schools have been invited), the shrines of the Sacred Heart in the world (we have written to about twenty of them in Belgium, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal): Come to Paray, come and rediscover your spiritual roots, come and drink from the source of the Heart of Jesus. For this reason, the shrine is organizing an international meeting of major superiors of religious congregations and institutes related to the Sacred Heart, on October 14 and 15, 2023. V. Receiving What God Wants for Our Sanctuary We know what we have prepared, what we believe God has asked us to prepare. But we do not yet know what God has actually prepared for us. As the book of Proverbs, chapter 16 says: 01 In his heart, the man proposes; through his word, God disposes.09 Man, in his heart, makes plans for the road, and the Lord directs his steps. 50 years ago, in 1975, the rector at the time contacted many people in the Church to invite them to Paray for the 300th anniversary of the apparitions. And no one came… except for a group of a few charismatics who landed in Paray, led by Pierre Goursat, the founder of the Emmanuel, without knowing that it was the 300th anniversary.
What surprises does the Lord have in store for us? What are the calls he will make to us? We don’t know, but it’s up to us to prepare ourselves now to “hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” as the book of Revelation says. It is in this spirit that I approach the question of consecration. Let us allow ourselves to be instructed by the Lord’s way of doing things in order to obtain a feast instituted in honor of His Sacred Heart. If he had wanted to be efficient and prompt, he would have appeared directly to the pope and cardinals to order that the feast of the Sacred Heart be instituted. The pope would certainly have complied, signed a decree, and the following year the whole Church would have celebrated this feast. But the Lord does not rule by decree, even though it would be convenient for us sometimes. He appeared to a woman, cloistered in the depths of a monastery in Charollais, to ask for it. It was less efficient and slower, certainly, but more fruitful. This request worked the body of the Church, hearts, families, parishes and dioceses, congregations and pastors, until the institution of the Feast of the Sacred Heart more than 150 years later. So it is with consecration. Hence the third appeal I address today: that we better understand what consecration to the Sacred Heart is, that we live it personally and as a family/parish/diocese/community/congregation, that we live it and that it transforms us. And so that we can discern in the Church what is God’s call for us, the Church, France and all our countries on this subject. Isn’t the most important thing that the world knows the love of the Heart of Jesus?
Paray-le-Monial : Les grands enjeux du Jubilé des 350 ans | ZENIT – Francais