Love of the Sacred Heart as illustrated by Saint Mechtilde

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The Dealings of the Sacred Heart with Men

Chapter 14 – The Sacred Heart Mediates Between God and Man

The Sacred Heart is the mediator between God and man. From the first moment of His Incarnation, His Passion was always in the Heart of Christ and He offered it unceasingly to His Father: “Christi passio, quae ejus Cordi semper exstitit intima, quam adhuc Patri repraesentat, pro homine incessanter interpellans.”

Our Lord in heaven continues to intercede for us. He shows His eternal Father the wounds in His feet and hands and above all the wound in His Sacred Heart.

To-day, therefore, our Lord exercises the office of Mediator for each one of us. What a countless number of clients all sinners, those in misery and suffering, and the dying, struggling in their agony! If the divine Pleader has a few good causes to sustain, how many are bad, nearly desperate? What solicitude He must show and what resources He must make use of, not only before God, but as to His unhappy clients. Who would not wish to see the Sacred Heart exercising this office? How meek, humble and patient, and especially merciful, He must be! Saint Mechtilde had this great happiness, and she can describe to us the solicitude and vigilant love of our Mediator in His multi-form and delicate ministry.

This mediation may be considered in reference to His Father and in reference to us.

In reference to His Father, it satisfies all the requirements of His justice.

“To me,” said Jesus, “are confided the concerns of men and I am their Mediator with the Father. A faithful servant collects carefully his master’s income, and if he finds a deficit he supplies it from his own substance. In this way I offer the good gained by man’s industry to My Father, increased a hundredfold; and wherever there is any imperfection, I supply for it, so that I may present to My heavenly Father, before all the Saints, the soul of man enriched with the most precious graces.”

So great a generosity on the part of our divine Mediator fills us with astonishment. Not only does He pay our debts, but He wishes to enrich us! How this conduct of His Sacred Heart disconcerts our souls, always inclined to distrust! But He insists still further: “Come, let us see, do you not think Me sufficiently rich to pay all your debts?” To which Mechtilde replied: “Yes, Lord, I am certain you can.”

Our Lord: “Am I not rich enough to forgive and supply for all Your omissions?”

She replied: “Yes, Lord, I know that nothing is impossible to Thee.” “Therefore,” said our Lord, “I will answer fully and entirely for you to My Father. I will offer for you first that holy time, those nine months which I passed in My virginal Mother’s womb. I will offer it for the time when thou, enclosed in Your mother’s womb and stained with original sin, were incapable of receiving My grace. I will then offer My holy birth for Your birth when, not yet regenerated in the baptismal font, you were estranged from Me.

“Then, I will offer the first days of My life, so pure, before I spoke, and those of My infancy, for the ignorance in which you passed the same age. I will also offer the fervent desires of My childhood and youth to atone for the your negligences.

“I will offer the whole of My holy and perfect life on earth, with the fruit of My Passion, overflowing with My love, for all Your sins of commission and omission. In that way, in Me and by Me, all that you stand in need of shall be supplied.”

O infinite justice of God, exact from me as rigorous an account of all my iniquities and excesses as you wilt. I am not reduced to the Prophet’s helplessness: Si iniquitates observaveris Domine, Domine quis sustinebit?” Behold the Heart of Jesus; from it, pay Yourself for all my debts. you will not exhaust my treasure; with the surplus I dare ask Heaven of You, and Heaven is You.


Chapter 15 – In What Manner the Sacred Heart Exercises the Office of Mediator Toward Us

Considered from our point of view, the mediation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is of immense value. It is extended to all men, in all stations, in all their needs and misfortunes. The works of the Heart of Jesus fill the whole world! Its office is universal everything lives, everything breathes, everything prospers, through it. Truth, grace, glory, all are from it, and its office is not a transient one which may fail and disappear, but is a fixed and permanent state.

Such is the Heart of Jesus, universal source of all that is good, beautiful, just, holy, under all forms, in every time, in all places, and of it one may say that the entire universe is full of its magnificence.

Saint Mechtilde recognized this magnificent prerogative of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Over and over again she declares that all comes from Him, on earth and in heaven. He is the universal treasure from which come pardon, life and glory. One day our Lord tried to make her understand this sublime office by an almost trivial comparison. It was to reward her for an act of humility. She had just received a wonderful grace, but, recognizing her lowliness, she exclaimed with a profound contempt for herself:

“O most generous King, so sublime a gift is unfit for me. I am ‘unworthy to wash the dishes in Your kitchen.'” Our Lord lovingly replied: “What do you call My kitchen and what are the dishes you would wash?”

Mechtilde, not knowing what to say, was silent. Our Lord, who sometimes raises a question so that He may be able to answer it Himself, at once said: “My kitchen is My divine Heart. The kitchen is a public room open to all, to slaves and to free. So My Heart is open always to all and disposed to grant to all what they desire. The chef of this kitchen is the Holy Spirit: in His inexhaustible liberality and with His sweet and priceless gifts He continually fills My Heart, and He fills it to overflowing. The vessels into which it overflows are the hearts of the Saints and of My elect, which are continually being filled with a wonderful sweetness from My divine Heart.”

Therefore we see the Heart of Jesus is open to all men, and thither they must go to seek nourishment for their souls and true happiness of heart, Cujuslibet delectamentum. To express more clearly this precious attribute our Lord often had recourse to a similitude not less striking. “I offer you My Heart,” He said one day to Mechtilde, addressing all her sisters through her, “I offer you My Heart,” and at once she saw Him holding His Heart in His breast like a cup, and in this cup were gathered three organ pipes which signified the three dispositions of the divine Heart of our Lord on earth, dispositions in which He wished all to be who had recourse to His Heart.

First, the Heart of Christ was towards His Father full of reverence and Love. Secondly, the Heart of Christ was towards men full of mercy and charity. Thirdly, the Heart of Christ was in itself full of humility and abjection.

And our Lord said to all who approached His Heart: “Drink and be inebriated, My dear friends.” Mechtilde wished that all in heaven, on earth and in purgatory might share in this grace and come to drink at this sources Our Lord therefore offered His Heart to all these person! in the Church militant as well as in the Church triumphant, that they might drink so delicious a draught. The Saints in heaven took long draughts from this Heart of sweetness and the joys of beatitude, while the children of the Church militant drank from it the waters of mercy, After which our Lord said: “I will drink of the hearts of all who drink of My Heart.”

May we not make a comparison between this cup of the Sacred Heart and the cup the Psalmist speaks of? “I saw,” he says, “in the hand of God a cup filled with three liquids (Calix in manu Domini vini meri plenus mixto): First there is the pure wine (vini meri), then the wine mixed (plenus mixto), and lastly the dregs (verumtamen faex ejus non est exinanita)” (Psalm 74:7,8). What is signified by the pure wine? Eternal joy, joy mixed with no evil nor with any bitterness. What is signified by the dregs but the pains of the lost, pains alleviated by no sweetness? And what is signified by the mixed wine but good and evil, whose nature can be changed according to us in this present life?

This cup which our Lord holds in his hand is the cup of His justice; and it is justice itself which pours in the three liquids, signifying the good of heaven, the evil of hell and the good and evil in this present life. But the cup which the Man-God hides in His breast is the cup of mercy whose waters wash the sinners of the earth, purify the stained souls in purgatory, and slake the thirst of the Saints in heaven.

O my God, I do not desire to drink of the cup of justice which is in Your hand, but of the cup of mercy hidden in Your Heart, Da mihi hanc aquam. I leave the first for sinners who reject Thee, O Sacred Heart of Jesus: Bibent omnes feccatores terrae.

From this teaching we learn that the Heart of Jesus is a mediation for all. To contemplate Him exercising this merciful function we must adopt some plan. The different subjects seem indicated to us by the diversity of cases this Divine Mediator must plead for, the wants He must supply, the unfortunate He must help. The Sacred Heart of Jesus has among His clients, sinners, the just and souls consecrated to Him. He meets them at prayer, at the tribunal of penance, at the Holy Table and at Holy Mass. He leads them to a bed of pain, to the agony of death, to the flames of purgatory and at last to heaven. Volumus videre Jesum. O that we could see the designs of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with His own in all these different circumstances!


Chapter 16 – The Sacred Heart is the Sources of the Divine Life which we Receive in Baptism

The Christian by baptism becomes a member of Jesus Christ. Consequently he ought to live His life and look upon himself as another Jesus Christ, whether he works, rejoices or suffers. Every Christian ought to say with Saint Paul: “I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.”

The source and principle of this life is in the Sacred Heart. One day Saint Mechtilde was giving thanks for the work of our Redemption. Having come to the part where she thanked Him for having been baptized for us, our Lord said to her, “I will baptize thee,” and there upon a great wave coming from the divine Heart seemed to inundate her soul. Then our Lord said: “I will also be Your godfather, and as godparents instruct their god daughters I will teach you three things.

“The first is to bear all sufferings corporal and spiritual not for thyself, but for Me, as if I bore them in thee.

“The second is to accept all blessings and all the services rendered to you by men, with joy and gratitude, as if they were done for Me, and not for thee.

“The third is to live entirely for Me, so that you look on Your works as belonging to Me and not to thee, seeing in thyself only a garment, with which I cover Myself to execute and direct all Your actions.”

This intimate union, established between the soul and God in baptism, is called a participation in the divine nature: Consortes divinae naturae. Two comparisons in turn are employed to express the consequences and fruits of this union; one is borrowed from Saint Paul, and the other from our Blessed Lord.

To become a Christian is to put on Jesus Christ. So our Lord tells Saint Mechtilde that the soul becomes His covering. To express the same thought Saint Paul says that Jesus Christ covers the soul. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” he writes to the early Christians (Romans 13:14); “walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called with all humility and mildness, with patience supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:23); “for as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:1).

But where are prepared those Christian virtues which form, so to say, the garment or nuptial robe of the Christian? In the Heart of Jesus. Our good Mother will take them from there to clothe us.

Mechtilde one day begged this virgin Mother to obtain for her purity of mind and body. Then our Blessed Lady appeared to her, standing before our Lord, and she took a white garment from the divine Heart which she gave to her. Mechtilde wished to put it on, but a troop of demons stood on the right and on the left to prevent her wearing it. She then invoked our Blessed Lady, begging for her assistance, and at once she placed herself before the demons, covering Mechtilde with her shadow, and the devils disappeared. Mechtilde was then able to put on the white garment taken from the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Not only purity is to be found in this divine source, but all other virtues.

“I will Myself prepare Your garments, My beloved,” said our Lord to His Spouse, “and I will clothe you with them. Know you not that worms spin the silk, and it is written of Me, I am a worm and no man? (Psalm 21). I will spin garments for thee, out of My tender love, and if you cannot wear them alone, we will bear them together. Up to this present time, you have served Me devotedly in Your labours: in future you shalt serve Me in practising the virtues of which I have given you an example.”

What a gracious image! The silkworm winds around its body its precious thread and finds in it its death, and the covering of this poor little creature becomes an ornament for kings and queens. He who was as despicable as a worm covered Himself with all human virtues. He died in that covering and calls us from the Cross to cover our nakedness with it.

The second comparison, which symbolizes the union of the baptized soul with the divine nature, is employed by our Lord Himself:

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he that abides in Me the same bears much fruit” (John 15). The branch united to our Lord is fruitful, it spreads out, and becomes a vine for the Beloved. Vinea dilecto. “Oh,” exclaimed Saint Mechtilde, “would that my heart could always be a vine pleasing to Your Heart.” To which our Lord replied: “I can accomplish all that you desire,” and it was revealed to her that the just man was God’s vine and that God found pleasure in him who from his infancy until his death had sanctified his life for God. In the centre of the vineyard was a fountain and, near it, God was seated on a throne. From His Heart rushed a torrent of water into the fountain which our Lord made to overflow on those who longed for their own spiritual regeneration.

So we see the soul of the just man is like a vine watered by water flowing from the Sacred Heart. Under the similitude of wine, our Lord presents to us the works produced by His beloved vine. Works offered to God in infancy are like very pure wine and exceedingly sweet. The labour which a young man undertakes in order to resist sin and temptation and the power of the enemy of our soul is as wine, red and strong. The acts of virtue accomplished by a man in his prime, for the love of God, are as wine, warm and very good. Then the different desires which tend to make a man aspire with all his strength to God and heavenly things, as also the pains and troubles of all sorts which ordinarily come to sadden old age, are like wine, as generous as nectar.

The vine that is planted in good ground and well exposed to the rays of the sun produces a more exquisite wine and is worthy of being served at a king’s table. The same may be said of the vine of our hearts when it is warmed with the sun of charity.

“What wine do I give you to drink, my Beloved, when I pray for Your friends?”

Jesus answered Mechtilde, saying, “A very generous wine capable of making My Heart rejoice, as it is written: Wine may cheer the heart of man” (Psalm 53).

“And when I pray for sinners?”

“A very pure wine, sweeter than honey in the comb, you present to Me when you pray for My enemies, who are in a state of damnation, so that they may be converted from their evil ways.”

“And when I pray for the dead?”

“Thou give Me a wine which always rejoices My Heart when you pray for these souls, so dear to Me, so that they may be delivered from their pains.”

We can therefore give to the Sacred Heart of Jesus invitation for invitation. He says to us: “Come, eat My bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you (Psalm 9:5). Eat, My friends, drink and be inebriated, My dearly beloved.”

And we, in our turn, little chosen vines of the Master, may call thee, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, to drink the wine we have prepared for Him. Inebriate Thyself, O Lord, with these prayers; these good works offered for Your friends, for sinners and for souls who suffer far from Thee.


Chapter 17 – The Means of Leading a Christian Life Must Be Sought in the Sacred Heart

The prophet said: “You will draw waters of joy from the Saviour’s fountains.”

These holy fountains signify His wounds, and especially that in His Sacred Heart. A Christian must always be striving to approach nearer to this inexhaustible fountain and to draw from it the water which flows unto eternal life. Our Lord says to each one of us: “Enter and travel through My divine Heart, see its length and breadth; its length is the eternity of My goodness, and its breadth the love and the desire I have always had for Your salvation. Consider this length and breadth that is, take possession of it, for all the good that you find in My Heart really belongs to thee.”

Therefore the source of life, grace, virtue and holiness is opened, and Jesus says: “Why should not a Christian receive what I very willingly offer him?” “I give him readily the treasure of the life I passed here on the earth in innocence and sanctity; let him take it for himself and seek in it a compensation for all his needs.” Mechtilde replied: “If you so much desire, my sweetest Jesus, that we should appropriate all that is Thine, tell me, I pray Thee, how it is to be done.”

He replied: “Offer to God the Father all Your desires, intentions and prayers in union with My desires and prayers; all will unite and ascend to God, giving Him pleasure, as several perfumes burnt together cause only one column of smoke that rises straight to heaven. Any other prayer, even though it should reach heaven, could not be so pleasing to God.”

“In the same way, if you unite Your labours and all Your works with My labours and My works, all that you shall be ennobled; as brass melted with gold is no longer a common metal but is changed into precious gold. If a handful of wheat is thrown on to a heap of the same, it is immediately identified with it, and so the works of men, in themselves nothing, when joined to My works, are multiplied and changed to their advantage.

“In the third place, regulate Your whole life, Your movements, strength, senses, thoughts, words, indeed everything according to My way of living, from which will result a new and a higher life. See a beautiful bird which flies from a fetid marsh and poisonous air; it takes a new life in better surroundings. So the earthly man, in the life he has hitherto led, becomes heavenly in the new life he receives, united with Me.”

Therefore, beloved souls, let us receive with great gratitude so great a favour from heaven. Let us take possession of the most holy life of Christ to supply for what is wanting in ours. Let us also study, according to our ability, to conform ourselves to His virtues; this will be our greatest glory, in our eternal home. What glory could be greater than to approach, in some way, the splendour of the eternal light?


Chapter 18 – Mary’s Assistance with the Sacred Heart

Our blessed Lady is the Mother of baptized Christians; she is charged to develop in them the life of her divine Son which they receive in baptism. The Book of Special Grace shows us the solicitude of this devoted Mother. Whether it is to develop His life in us or to renew it, it is to the Heart of her Son that she always leads us. Better than the Apostles, she under stood those words at the Last Supper: “I am the vine, you the branches, he that abides in Me bears much fruit” (John 15).

One Saturday while they were singing the Mass, Salve Sancta Parens, Mechtilde saluted our Blessed Lady, begging of her to obtain for her true holiness, and the glorious Virgin answered her: “If you desire true holiness, keep near my Son, who is holiness itself and who sanctifies all things.” Mechtilde asked how she was to carry out this advice, and our Lady answered with great kindness: “Keep before you His holy infancy, that thereby His innocence may supply for all the actions and omissions of Your infancy. Keep before you His fervent youth, which was so full of love, that it alone would suffice to enkindle the furnace of divine love; by it the lukewarmness and idleness of Your youth shall be repaired. Keep before you His divine virtues, which will ennoble and elevate Your actions.

“Keep also my Son before Your eyes in directing to Him all Your thoughts, words and actions. He who did all things perfectly will efface all that is imperfect in them.

“Rely also on Him, as a spouse relies on her husband; she is fed and clothed at his expense, and for love of him she cherishes and honours his family and friends. The soul must be nourished by the word of God, as by the choicest food; it must be clothed and adorned carefully with what pleases Him? – i.e., with the example of His virtues, which it should strive to imitate. It should make His family its own that is, His Saints love them, praise God on their account and incite them often to praise its Beloved with it. In this way will the soul also be holy according as it is written, ‘With the holy you wilt be holy (Psalm 18:26), in the same way as a queen is queen because she participates in the dignity of the king.”

To keep with Jesus, that is the secret of all holiness; to keep with Jesus in all the vicissitudes of our life, with Him in the mysteries of His infancy, of His youth, of His life and death, of His resurrection and glory. Happy he who understands this secret! He will soon attain, and without great efforts, to a Christian life even in its perfection.

It is certain that some day or other great obstacles may arise on the narrow way that leads to heaven, but the Sacred Heart will be with us to enable us to over come them. There is, above all, one that we shall escape easily, if we remain constantly faithful to Him, according to our Lady’s recommendation, and that is, taking pride in ourselves. The Heart of Jesus throws so much light on our soul and its imperfections that we shall escape this natural satisfaction and pride and the indolence which results from it.

The servant of God was one day forced to complain to our Blessed Lady of an obstacle she thought would prevent her progress in the service of God. The Blessed Mother said to her: “Go and present thyself to my Son respectfully.”

She then prostrated herself at our Saviour’s feet, and on rising she saw upon His breast what appeared to her to be a very brilliant mirror; and from this there seemed to come forth other mirrors which covered the whole of His sacred Person. She understood this to mean that all the members of Christ in their various operations shine before us like mirrors, and that all these operations proceed from the love of His Heart.

His feet, which are His desires, burn for us; He must see how cold are our desires for spiritual things, and how helpless for human things.

The knees of Christ are for us mirrors of humility. They were bent so often for us in prayer, and also when He washed His Apostles feet. In this we can recognize our pride, which prevents us from humbling ourselves, though we are but dust and ashes.

The Heart of Christ is for us a mirror of the most burning love where we may see clearly the coldness of our own hearts towards God and our neighbour.

The mouth of Christ is for us a mirror of sweet words, full of praise and thanksgiving. We can recognize by it the worthlessness of our words and the omissions of which we are guilty in divine praise and in prayer.

The eyes of our Lord are for us the mirrors of divine truth; in them we may see the darkness caused by our unfaithfulness, which prevents us from knowing the truth.

The ears of our Lord are for us the mirrors of obedience, for He was always ready to obey God His Father and to listen to our prayers.

The baptized soul must therefore love the Sacred Heart of Jesus, if it wishes to live the divine life of which it received the seed in the waters of baptism. From this Sacred Heart flow the waters of eternal life. Mechtilde saw these precious waters rush out and flow over souls. She called them now a river, then a stream, and again a spring; but the river, the spring and the stream were able to purify all souls.

The river, she says, flows from the Heart of Jesus, inundating souls, penetrating them entirely, chasing away sadness and spreading around the joy of the City of God. The little stream from the Heart of Jesus hides itself in the baptismal waters in order to flow over all those who receive spiritual regeneration. The humble spring of living and limpid waters flows gently from the Sacred Heart into souls full of love for Him.


Chapter 19 – The Church Enshrined in the Sacred Heart

“My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fruitful place, and he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a wine press therein, and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now ye inhabitants of Jerusalem and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Juda, His pleasant plant, and I looked that he should do judgment and behold iniquity” (Isaias 5).

The vineyard of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the holy Catholic Church, which He founded in His blood and in His love on the tree of the Cross. It has given abundantly the fruits of sanctity, chastity and all virtues.

This gracious allegory is beautifully developed in the Book of Special Grace.

One Sunday, while they were singing the Asperges me, Mechtilde said to our Lord: “My Lord, with what wilt you presently purify my soul?”

At once our Lord, with an inexpressible sweetness of love, stooped towards her as a mother might to her son, and took her into His arms, saying: “It is with the love of My divine Heart that I will wash thee.”

He opened the door of His Heart, that treasury of divine compassion, and she entered as into a vineyard. She there saw a river of living water flowing from east to west, on the banks twelve trees bearing twelve fruits; they were the virtues enumerated by Saint Paul in his epistle, charity, peace, patience, joy, etc. (Galatians 10:22). The river was the river of love. The soul entered into this vineyard and was at once cleansed from all its stains. Our Lord said to her: “My vineyard is also the Catholic Church. I laboured in it with pain and sweat during thirty-three years; come and work with Me in this vineyard.” Mechtilde replied: “And how shall I do this?” Our Lord answered: “By watering.” At once Mechtilde rushed to the river. To work in our Lord’s vineyard is therefore to water it with the waters drawn from the river of love.

To show men how much God loves them, or even to increase that love in their hearts, is truly God’s work, and that of His Son, Jesus; it must therefore be the object of all our efforts with the souls who are subject to us.

Our Lord showed Mechtilde the souls of those who are members of the Church under different similitudes according to their dispositions. In this way, she saw loving souls who had separated themselves from the vanities of the world and plunged into the source of all good, the Heart of Jesus Christ. She saw souls, thoroughly Christian, who raised their thoughts to God after having despised the world and its pleasures. She also saw souls lying steeped in sin, some ready to repent and others hardened in sin, rejecting God’s grace. Let us examine the tenderness of the Sacred Heart for each and all these souls redeemed by His precious blood.


Chapter 20 – The Sacred Heart and Sinners

From the first moment of the Incarnation, the Heart of Jesus offered for sinners the drops of Precious Blood that He had just received from the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. An ardent desire to shed this blood then took possession of His Sacred Heart and became a real agony (coarctor). This abiding desire explains why forgiveness, with so much delicacy, was so easily granted to Magdalen, to the woman taken in adultery, to the Samaritan, to Zacheus and to the paralytic. But if love, according as it is bestowed, makes of us either Saints or sinners, what shall the immense love which Jesus bears to sinners make of Him? This love makes Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Good Shepherd who follows the strayed sheep, the Father who receives the prodigal with joy. The work of this love is eternal; it confirms the Heart of Jesus in the three dispositions of which we have already spoken. He is always the Victim slain for us. He is always the Good Shepherd seeking His lost sheep. He always rejoices, like the Father in the Gospel, at the return of a repentant sinner.

These three dispositions of the Sacred Heart make us thrill with hope when we realize them in the Holy Gospels. Could we only realize them now in Jesus so close to us, in the tabernacle! Let us listen to the sweet Saint who had the privilege, like Saint John, of hearing the beatings of the divine Heart.


Chapter 21 – The Sacred Heart A Perpetual Victim

Our Lord appeared one day to Saint Mechtilde with His Hands outstretched and His open wounds. “When I was hanging on the Cross,” He said, “all My wounds were bleeding, each of them a voice interceding with My Father for the salvation of men, and they still cry to Him to appease His wrath against sinners.

“As I, in My human nature, offered Myself to God the Father with ineffable love, covered with blood, a victim on the altar of the Cross, so with the same love I offer Myself now to the Father for sinners, I present to Him all the instruments of My Passion, for what I most desire is that the sinner should be converted and live.”

If this sinner is converted, the divine Victim thrills with joy; but if he resists the graces offered by the Sacred Heart, He feels the sad effects and seems to have found an executioner.

“As long as a sinner remains in sin, he keeps Me stretched and fastened to the Cross, but as soon as he is converted and repentant he detaches Me, and as if I had really been detached from the Cross I fall, with all my weight on him, as formerly on Joseph of Arimathea, with My grace and mercy; I give Myself into his hands, so that he may do with Me as he will.”

On leaving the banqueting hall Magdalen only carried with her the assurance of her forgiveness; we, poor sinners, may carry Jesus Himself.


Chapter 22 – In Heaven the Sacred Heart is Still the Heart of the Good Shepherd

Can anything more sweet or more touching be imagined than the solicitude of the Good Shepherd for His strayed sheep? This solicitude is still as great and as untiring in the Heart of Jesus.

“I follow,” He tells us, “this sinful soul ceaselessly, and when it returns to Me, by repentance, desire or love, I rejoice exceedingly. It is impossible to confer a greater favour on a debtor than to bestow on him the means to pay his debts: I have become, in a way, a debtor to My Father, by undertaking to satisfy for the sins of men, so I can wish for no greater joy than to see men return to Me by repentance and love.”

Not content with following the lost sheep Himself, the Good Shepherd wishes to associate us with Him in this ministry of salvation. Like Saint Mechtilde, we feel indignant with those who refuse our help and the graces offered by Jesus. But He says to us, as to the Sons of Zebedee: “You know not of what spirit you are.” “See, leave Me to act, and pray for these poor sinners that I have bought with a great price and for whose conversion I long so ardently. He who desires to pray and be heard for those who are captive either in body or in soul, by sin, let him pray to Me by the love of My Heart; by that love which held Me captive nine months in the Virgin’s womb; by that love which bound Me in swaddling clothes and delivered Me in fetters into the hands of wicked men. Let him pray by the love which bound Me in chains, when led by the Jews before the judge; by the love which bound Me to the pillar to be scourged; which nailed Me with so much shame to the cross; which after death enveloped Me in a winding sheet. By that love which bound Me in all these different circumstances, let him beg of Me to deliver this captive from the bonds of sin.”

How powerful is this prayer for sinners! One day Saint Mechtilde was soliciting ardently the conversion of all those in a state of sin, and our Lord said to her: “Very well! For Your prayers I will convert a hundred sinners.”

The Sacred Heart always rejoices over the Return of Sinners.

Paternal love is the explanation of all we read in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the joy with which the Father receives his guilty child, the facility with which he grants him forgiveness and reinstates him in all his rights! His son was dead, and his son is risen again. He is like Jacob, happy in clasping to his breast Joseph his well-beloved, whom he supposed devoured by wild beasts!

If the Heart of Jesus feels a similar joy when a sinner is converted it is because it is full of a love as great as that of a father for his son. Nothing, He tells us, makes Me so happy as to possess man’s heart, which I enjoy so rarely. I have everything in abundance, except man’s heart, which so often evades Me.

“But when this poor human heart is contrite and broken with sorrow and cries out, I will arise and go to my Father, the Sacred Heart thrills with joy. I say to thee, that no matter how great his sins may be, at that same moment, if he sincerely repents, I forgive all his sins, and My Heart inclines towards him with as much mercy and sweetness as though he had never sinned.”

“O depth really unfathomable!” adds Saint Mechtilde. “Oh, the depth of Your wisdom and Your mercy! God most clement, by so many different and admirable ways you draw the hearts of sinners to Thyself; they cannot then despair since Your paternal call is followed by so much mercy.”


Chapter 23 – The Invitations Given by the Sacred Heart to Those Who Wish to Devote Themselves to Its Service

“To have chosen you,” our Lord said to His Apostles. “I have called you,” He also says to the friends of His divine Heart. The reason of this choice and of this call is the love with which He is consumed for us. Oh, you who hear its voice, harden not your hearts, but appreciate God’s gift, and force yourselves to return Him love for love. But how can we hear this voice, how understand this language of the Sacred Heart?

In an ecstasy, which raised Mechtilde out of herself, she saw the King of Glory: Mary, the Queen of heaven, was at His right: Mechtilde placed herself on the left, then laying her head on the breast of Jesus she listened, with the ears of her heart, to the violent and continual beatings of the Sacred Heart of Christ.

The beatings of the divine Heart sounded as though they would say to the soul: “Come and repent, come and be reconciled, come and be consoled, come and be blessed; come, friend, and receive all that one friend can give another. Come, sister, and take possession of the inheritance that I have bought with My Precious Blood. Come, spouse, and rejoice in My divinity.”

This delightful invitation was addressed not only to the favoured Benedictine, but to all souls of good will. This is proved in another divine communication: Leaning her head on the breast of her Beloved, Mechtilde heard three distinct beatings. Our Lord said to her: “These three beatings signify three words I wish to address to the loving soul. This is the first: ‘Come and separate thyself from creatures.’ The second: ‘Enter with the confidence of a spouse.’ The third: ‘Into the mystical couch which is the divine Heart.'”

By these words she understood that God first calls the soul chosen from all others, causes it to renounce all the joy it could find here below and to attach itself to the Lord its God with an entire devotion. Then our Lord fills it with confidence and the chosen soul, as a spouse who never fears a refusal, full of assurance, goes forward to the nuptial couch of His divine Heart, wherein abounds and overflows all the happiness that the heart of man could desire.


Chapter 24 – What the Sacred Heart Wishes to Be for Us

The Son of God deigns to lower Himself to each of us. He stands at our door and knocks, saying: “O son of man, give Me Your heart and receive Mine.” As soon as the soul answers, “Enter, O well-beloved Lord,” He takes possession of us, but by a happy exchange we take possession of Him. “The bee,” He tells us, “does not fly with greater eagerness to the green meadows than do I to Your soul when it calls Me. Now My Heart is thine and Your heart is Mine.” And in a sweet embrace and by all His divine virtues He attracts this soul so that it seems, in future, to be one with Him.

And what will be, for each one of us, this Heart which only aims at giving itself and putting itself entirely at our service) The passing union between the divine Heart and ours at Holy Communion cannot satisfy us. “O unparalleled sweetness, remain, I pray Thee, with me; for the day of my life draws towards evening.” It was the wail of Saint Mechtilde, and is also ours; but listen to the reply of the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

“I shall remain with you as a Father with his son, giving you a share in the heavenly inheritance that I acquired for you during My thirty-three years on earth; all that shall be given to you and shall be thine. I shall also be with you as a friend with his friend: he who has a faithful friend takes refuge with him in time of trial and is devoted to him. So you shalt always have in Me the most faithful Friend, a safe refuge in all Your needs; in Your weakness you shalt lean on Me and I will always come faithfully to Your assistance. I shall also be always with you as a Spouse with his spouse: between whom there could be no separation, except through illness; but if you should fall ill, you wilt find in Me the most skillful physician; I will cure you of any sickness. So there is no separation possible for us, but an eternal and inseparable union. I will also be with you as a traveller with his companion. If one of them is laden with a weight too heavy, the other immediately takes part of the burden on himself, so will I, without fail, help you to carry all Your loads, which will then seem light to you.”

Who would not joyfully accept an alliance with such advantages? The Sacred Heart itself becomes our Father, Friend, Spouse, Physician, Companion of our journey to eternity, carrying with us the burden of life.

Mechtilde had heard before, several times, the nature of this alliance. Our Lord said to her on different occasions: “I give you My soul, it will be Your companion and guide, entrust it with all you have. When you are in sorrow, it will console you, and in all circumstances it will be for you a faithful helper.”

Ashamed to have neglected this great favour, Mechtilde cried out: “Alas, my Lord, life of my soul; forgive me, Loving Guide, Noble Companion whom I have so rarely invited to share my labours and whose aid I have not sought when I ought to have done so.”

Our Lord replied: “I forgive thee. My soul shall remain with you until the end of Your life; then it will unite you with the Divinity; as I, dying on the Cross, remitted My Spirit into the hands of the Father, so it will then offer you to My heavenly Father.”

After this comforting assurance Mechtilde begged our Lord to grant to a person who was her faithful friend what He had just granted to her, and, at once, she saw her before our Lord, and He taking her hands gave her possession of all His goods.

O Saint Mechtilde, pray also for us and obtain for us a like favour!


Chapter 25 – The Sacred Heart is the Source of Fervour

Jesus made to Saint Margaret Mary magnificent promises in favour of persons who were devoted to His Sacred Heart. Tepid souls were to become fervent and fervent souls to reach a high perfection. In the thirteenth century our Lord had already made the same promises and verified them in those chosen by His love.

Saint Mechtilde had a tender devotion for the Heart of Jesus. Often she happened, when tepid and less fervent, to feel the divine Heart unite itself with her heart, like liquid gold, and the approach of this fire produced in her so much sweetness that she was soon glowing with her accustomed great love.

“The love of the Sacred Heart watches with great care over the souls that have consecrated themselves to its service. Therefore whenever a man feels his devotion diminished, his heart becoming cold, and perceives that he has strayed from God, he ought to call on this Love, entrust to it all his desires, praying it to obtain for him the grace or zeal of true devotion. He should also beg Love to guard all the good he does, and Love will preserve it carefully in the casket of the divine Heart, returning it faithfully to the soul, increased and ennobled. In all his sorrows and trials let him call Love to his help. With Love man feels not weakness and faints not in adversity.”

The soul is therefore reanimated in fervour when it casts itself into the Sacred Heart and calls on its burning Love. And indeed, whatever may be the nature of the weakness which overwhelms it, an efficacious remedy will always be found for it in this Heart.

One day when Mechtilde was honouring the divine wounds, she saw they were surrounded by precious stones, and as she was astonished at this our Lord said to her: “Precious stones possess great qualities and may sometimes chase away great sickness; in the same way My wounds are so efficacious that they drive away all languor from men’s souls. Some men have such weak, trembling hearts that they never dare to trust in My tenderness and they try to fly from Me. One would say they had the palsy. If they would take refuge in My Passion, honouring tenderly My wounds, I would soon deliver them from all fear. Others have restless, fickle hearts; they never stop to think; at the smallest word they give way to impatience or even anger. If they would recall My Passion, if they penetrated their minds with the remembrance of My wounds, they would acquire stability and find patience. There are others who have a sleeping paralysis. I mean all those who do all lazily and carelessly. They, too, at the remembrance of My Passion and the consideration of the depth and pain of My wounds would be aroused from their tepidity.”

But of all our Saviour’s wounds we must have special recourse to that of His Heart.

Praying for a person under this spiritual torpor, Mechtilde saw her soul in the divine Heart under the appearance of a little child. She tried to hold this divine Heart in her hands. Our Lord said: “May she always come to Me so in her sorrows, and may she cling to My divine Heart, seeking there consolation, and I will never abandon her.”