If Claude La Colombière was canonized in 1992, it is because he has something special to bring to us today. The links between the message of Jesus in Paray and Saint Claude are essential:
We cannot grasp the value of this without referring to what he experienced here in Paray-le-Monial, and we can say that the relevance of this message can only be fully understood with him.
Claude La Colombière was sent by his provincial, François de Lachaise, in 1675, a few days after taking his solemn vows, on his 34th birthday, February 2.
He was the one who reassured Marguerite-Marie and her superior…
on the authenticity of what she lived, and the first apostle of devotion to the Sacred Heart. But there is more to it than that; Gifted with exceptional human and spiritual qualities, having grasped and experienced the eminent value of the message received by the Visitandine nun and associated with its dissemination, he is still an exceptional witness to it today.
He offers us the opportunity to discover, through his life and his writings, a lived, accessible and luminous, overwhelming and current experience of God’s passionate love for each one of us, which, when welcomed with a confidence that is (un)measured, grasps and radically directs our being towards its blessed end:
If you believe, you will see the power of my Heart.Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary
“To be God’s without reserve”
Claude La Colombière was born on February 2, 1641 in Saint Symphorien d’Ozon in the Dauphiné, into a profoundly Christian family: of the five children who survived, three of the four boys became priests and the only girl a Visitandine nun. After studying in Lyon with the Jesuits, Claude entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Avignon at the age of 17, to respond to God’s call and belong to him “without reserve”, according to his family’s motto. At the end of his two years of novitiate, his father, the master, noted the exceptional qualities of the young professed: “Claude La Colombière has very great gifts, a rare good sense, a remarkable prudence, and an experience that is already quite developed; He got off to a good start in his studies. His temperament is full of gentleness. His physical strength is delicate. He is made to take on any task (Ad omnia factus)”. As a testimony to the care that was taken in his formation, he was sent by Father General to Paris to study theology, and thus witnessed the beginnings of the anti-Jansenist controversy. It was there that he was ordained a priest on April 6, 1669.
The “faithful servant and perfect friend” of Jesus Christ
He told me that he would send me his faithful servant and perfect friend, who would teach me to know him and to abandon myself to him without further resistance.Marguerite-Marie
This is the promise that Christ made to Marguerite-Marie, a nun at the convent of the Visitation of Paray-le-Monial, when she was prey to criticism and doubt about the visions and apparitions with which Christ was gratification her. Some time later, she met our young Jesuit who, with sound judgment, immediately recognized the divine origin of these manifestations.
In going through the life of Claude La Colombière, one cannot help but be struck by the work of Providence which prepared the “faithful servant and perfect friend” of Christ for the particular mission destined for him. In addition to his exceptional human and spiritual qualities, singular and astonishing events mark the path of the fulfillment of a vocation that is in fact the one to which each of us is called: perfection in love following the example of Christ, holiness.
Sainthood was chosen by Claude as the goal of his life, and he committed himself to it “at whatever cost”, discovering at the same time his radical inability to achieve it by his own strength and the passion that lies in wait for him: “vain glory”. To move forward, he chose with good sense the means given to him by his position: he pronounced a special vow of unreserved fidelity to the Rules and Constitutions of the Society of Jesus.
The Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ sealed this discovery and directed him until the end of his life towards the total gift in return to God’s primary love: “He loves and is not loved…” To make reparation for so many outrages and such cruel ingratitude…, I offer you my heart…, I give myself entirely to you. »
According to Marguerite-Marie’s own testimony: “This devotion to the Sacred Heart… raised him to glory more than anything else he had been able to do during the whole course of his life. »
The last years of his life were marked by passive purifications, by means of illness, “one of the greatest mercies that God has exercised towards me”, wrote Claude in one of his last letters to Marguerite-Marie, which led to the offering of his own will, to self-forgetfulness and to the final sacrifice of his life.
But it was in Paray-le-Monial that Claude finally discovered the way to achieve what he aspired to with all his being: “to be God’s without reserve”. Giving an anamnesis of what he received there, he wrote, at the end of the retreat he made in London a few weeks after leaving the Charolais city:
On this eighth day, it seems to me that I have found a great treasure, if I know how to make the most of it: it is a firm trust in God, founded on his infinite goodness, on the experience I have that we do not lack him in our needs… Therefore I am resolved to set no limits to my confidence, but to extend it to all things.
The Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ sealed this discovery and directed him until the end of his life towards the total gift in return to God’s primary love: “He loves and is not loved…” To make reparation for so many outrages and such cruel ingratitude…, I offer you my heart…, I give myself entirely to you. »
According to Marguerite-Marie’s own testimony: “This devotion to the Sacred Heart… raised him to glory more than anything else he had been able to do during the whole course of his life. »
The last years of his life were marked by passive purifications, by means of illness, “one of the greatest mercies that God has exercised towards me”, wrote Claude in one of his last letters to Marguerite-Marie, which led to the offering of his own will, to self-forgetfulness and to the final sacrifice of his life.
The Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
If Father Claude helped Marguerite-Marie with his precious advice, the saint was also for him the messenger of Jesus and transmitted to him the commands and desires of the Heart of Jesus until the last moment of his life, and he benefited greatly from it.
In fact, Claude La Colombière was associated by Jesus himself, from his first stay in Paray-le-Monial, with the mission of the Visitandine nun:”Once Father Claude said our community Mass, the Lord filled them with graces; and, as she approached to receive him through Holy Communion, he showed her his Sacred Heart, like a fiery furnace, and two other hearts that were about to be ruined in it, saying to her: “This is how my pure love unites these three hearts forever.” Afterwards, he gave him to understand that this union was all for the glory of his Sacred Heart, whose treasures he wanted to reveal to him, so that he might make known and publish its value and usefulness. And for this reason, he wanted them to be as brother and sister, equally divided spiritual goods.”Immediately putting into practice Jesus’ requests to Marguerite-Marie, Claude did not hesitate, convinced of the authenticity and value of this devotion, to recommend it to the people he accompanied: “I have already inspired it in many people,” he wrote in February 1677 in his retreat diary. In England, he was already considered “the apostle of the Heart of Jesus”. “When I was in his presence, I thought I was dealing with the apostle Saint John who had returned to earth to rekindle this love in the fire of the Heart of Jesus,” says Saint John Wall, an English Franciscan hunted down who found comfort one night with him, before being martyred.
He formed disciples among the Jesuit novices whom he was in charge of at Lyons in his last year.
To accomplish this work, the divine Master used his spiritual and literary qualities: Claudius contributed more to the development of the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus after his death through his writings than during his lifetime through his apostolate. God knows what he’s doing.
The news of Saint Claude
Claude La Colombière lived only a short time in Paray-le-Monial, about 23 months. But it was here that he gave God back his soul of fire, at the express request of the Lord. And he’s still there…
Claude La Colombière, who died in 1682 in Paray-le-Monial with a reputation for holiness, was not beatified until after the canonization of Marguerite-Marie, on June 16, 1929, by Pope Pius XI. And he was finally canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 31, 1992.
On October 5, 1986, Pope John Paul II came to pray at the chapel of La Colombière: “During my pilgrimapilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial, I wish to come and pray in the chapel where the tomb of Blessed Claude La Colombière is venerated. He was “the faithful servant” whom, in his providential love, the Lord gave as spiritual director to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. This is how he was the first to spread his message. In a few years of religious life and intense ministry, he proved to be an “exemplary son” of the Society of Jesus to which, according to the testimony of Saint Margaret Mary herself, Christ had entrusted the task of spreading the worship of his divine Heart.
John Paul II, Letter to the Superior General of the Society of JesusAnd on May 31, 1992, the pope declared:
“May the canonization of Claude La Colombière be for the whole Church a call to live the consecration to the Heart of Christ, a consecration which is a gift of self to let Christ’s charity animate us, forgive us and lead us in his ardent desire to open to all our brothers and sisters the ways of truth and life!”
Homily at the Canonization Mass
To respond to this call, let us put ourselves at the school of Saint Claude, at the invitation of his sister Marguerite-Marie who testifies as follows: “The talent of Father de la Colombière is to bring souls to God”.oday we rediscover the richness of the personality and grace given by God to the “faithful servant and perfect friend” of his Son.
Coming to Paray-le-Monial, may you experience the sweetness of his friendship and enter with him into the infinite riches of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Let us make this prayer our own, a summary of his act of trust in God:
My God, I am so convinced that you watch over those who hope in you and that we cannot lack anything when we expect everything from you that I have resolved to live from now on without any worry and to unloadall my worries on you .
