Galatians 5:18-25 / Psalm 1 / Luke 11:42-46
Today is the optional memorial for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is the French religious sister to whom Jesus revealed the devotion to His Sacred Heart. We have a large statue of the Sacred Heart here so I thought it would be good to highlight her along with this statue.
Margret Mary entered the convent to be a sister in the late 1600’s. About three years in, she began to receive visions of Jesus. Here in October, the world talks a lot about seeing ghosts, but we like to focus on the visions of Jesus and Mary, which are called Apparitions.
We just passed a big anniversary of one for Mary, Our Lady of Fatima, that was just on October 13th, and that one happened just over 100 years ago. With all of these visions or apparitions, the Church wants to test them to see if they are real, for Fatima the way it was tested was that Mary said everyone that came on October 13th, 1917 would see a sign, and they did, all 70,000 people, atheists and believers alike, saw the sign known as the “Miracle of the Sun.”
Apparitions always have a message for us in some way - even though Jesus appeared only to her, the message was for the whole world, and the message was about His Sacred Heart. What is the Sacred Heart all about?
Well, when Margaret told her spiritual director of her visions, these apparitions, he wanted to test them too so he told her: “If Jesus appears to you again, you go back and ask him the last mortal sin that I confessed.” When she asked Jesus, He replied: “I don’t remember.”
The priest understood this to be a confirmation of the Lord’s mercy: Once a sin is forgiven, it’s gone forever.
This is really important for us today, in light of our readings. These are very difficult readings with Jesus just calling out the Pharisees and scholars for not loving God and not helping people, from looking good on the outside, but on the inside being terrible sinners.
And then in our first reading, Paul goes through this massive list of sins, all mortal sins, some internal, some external, and St. Paul calls out the Galatians in this manner too saying, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
So pretty heavy readings today, but what we have to recognize is that Jesus’ love forgives us, when we turn to Him, when we repent of our sins and turn to His Sacred Heart, in His mercy He not only forgives, He forgets. Once a sin is forgiven, it’s gone forever.
St. Paul was a terrible sinner. He was killing Christians, but he had repented, he turned from his ways, and now he was warning people.
I’m not much different, I mean I have never killed anyone, but I still struggle with things on this list, “jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness,” to name a few, I am a sinner. But I am trying to grow in holiness.
This is why this image of the Sacred Heart is so important to me. In my house I have a private chapel and I have 3 images of the Sacred Heart in my little chapel. I have another in my office right above my desk which I brought over today. It is very important to me because the mercy of God is so important to me.
I go to confession about every two weeks I’d say, it varies, because like I said, I am trying to grow in holiness, just like everyone is hopefully, and this image helps to remind me of the love that Jesus has for me, despite my failings. His human heart was to be the symbol of His divine-human love.
Over the next year, in 1675, Jesus appeared to Sr. Margaret Mary Alacoque at intervals, not consistently like at Fatima, varying intervals. He asked her to make up for the coldness and ingratitude of the world by frequently going to Communion, especially on the first Friday of each month, this is why we have all school Mass on 1st Fridays and make that a big deal.
And He asked her to pray for an hour every Thursday night in memory of His agony and isolation in the Garden of Gethsemane. We can do these things too, they will help us to grow in holiness.
God wants to help us to grow in holiness. He wants us to take the time in prayer to focus on His love. He was trying to get the Pharisees and Scholars to do that too saying “Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention… to love for God.” Basically Jesus was saying, you look like to love God on the outside, but on the inside you don’t, put your focus on love.
St. Paul encouraged the Galatians to live in the Holy Spirit, after warning them about those sins that would keep them from the Kingdom He said, “In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
So my encouragement is similar to theirs. Focus on the love of God. Seek His mercy. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you these fruits, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
God loves us and wants to bless us with these gifts, but like most gifts, we not only have to ask for it, we have to accept it.
May God bless all of you who seek to grow in holiness with an outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.