Please do join us on this occasion to make the Heart of Jesus rejoice and to avail yourself of all the graces that God wants to give you.  The more you give, the more you receive and Jesus will never be outdone in generosity. The first class relics of both St Margaret Mary and her confessor St Claude de la Colombiere will be present for personal veneration at the end of the evening.  Please spread the word. Share these fliers and be prepared to receive another beautiful gift from Jesus:

“Those who spread this devotion will have their names written on My Heart, never to be effaced.”

 

The First Class Relics of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St Claude la Colombière 

 available for your Veneration.

We are both delighted and blessed to have the first class relique of these great saints with us on the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

 

Firstly a little about St Claude la Colombière

St Claude had a vital rote.  He was only in Paray for a very short time, for eighteen months in fact, but in that time he is accredited with being the instrument by which God  saved the devotion.   The problem was that so called "learned" but perhaps  prejediced men had dismissed the experiences of St Margaret Mary Alacoque, and the whole town of Paray also became dismissive of her  visions.

 

It would need a very learned and respected man of trusted opinion and renowned holiness if there was to be any chance that her experiences were going to be taken seriously.  St Claude had all these qualities and more.  He was from a respected family of nobles and he  had forsaken a comfortable life to became a learned Jesuit priest.  So respected in fact that after Paray La Monial he was to became the spiritual director of the future Catholic queen of England.

 

He was totally convinced of the authenticity of the visions and put to rest any doubt about them. He himself was to be totally taken up by the love of the Sacred Heart.  It may well have been that the Lord, in seeing the goodness and holiness of St Claude, wanted St Claude to have this great honour of being the instrument which allowed the message to flourish. 

 

St Margaret Mary one day just before receiving Holy Communion from the hands of St Claude had a vision and it was this:  There were three hearts that appeared. The large heart was the Sacred Heart of Jesus, then the other two hearts, smaller in size appeared just below the Sacred Heart, equal in size and both caught up in the flames of love emanating from the Sacred Heart. 

​

Undoubtedly, this vision would have impressed upon her the understanding of just how essential would be the role of St Claude, and also the fact that he was an equally chosen soul, and similarly caught up in the love of Jesus; just like her. 

​

We understand that this is the first relic of St Claude to come to Australia and we blessed to have this precious relic, a relatively large slither of bone,  available for veneration.

 

​

St Margaret Mary

When her tomb was canonically opened in July, 1830, two instantaneous cures took place. Undoubtedly she is powerful in her intercession because she is so close to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the source of every grace and blessing.  Her body is preserved incorrupt to this day another special sign of God's special favour towards her.    Her body rests under the altar in the chapel at Paray, and many striking favours have been obtained by pilgrims attracted  from all parts of the world. We are indeed most blessed to have the First Class Relic available for veneration on this year’s Feast of the Sacred Heart.   Do come and seek her special and powerful intercession.

​

From the earliest age she had intense love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  She would regularly be carried away by intense mystical experiences  and at these times would be oblivious to everything around her.  These experiences were not only intense but often times rather prolonged in duration.Here following is a brief description of her life from the Advent:Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, born at Lhautecour, France, 22 July, 1647; and died at Paray-le-Monial, 17 October, 1690.

 

Her parents, Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, were distinguished less for temporal possessions than for their virtue, which gave them an honourable position. From early childhood Margaret showed intense love for the Blessed Sacrament, and preferred silence and prayer to childish amusements. After her first communion at the age of nine, she practised in secret severe corporal mortifications, until paralysis confined her to bed for four years.

 

At the end of this period, having made a vow to the Blessed Virgin to consecrate herself to religious life, she was instantly restored to perfect health. The death of her father and the injustice of a relative plunged the family in poverty and humiliation, after which more than ever Margaret found consolation in the Blessed Sacrament, and Christ made her sensible of His presence and protection.

 

He usually appeared to her as the Crucified or the Ecce Homo, and this did not surprise her, as she thought others had the same Divine assistance. When Margaret was seventeen, the family property was recovered, and her mother besought her to establish herself in the world. Her filial tenderness made her believe that the vow of childhood was not binding, and that she could serve God at home by penance and charity to the poor. However, she began to take part in the pleasures of the world.

 

One night upon her return from a ball, she had a vision of Christ as He was during the scourging, reproaching her for infidelity after He had given her so many proofs of His love. During her entire life Margaret mourned over two faults committed at this time--the wearing of some superfluous ornaments and a mask at the carnival to please her brothers.

 

On 25 May, 1671, she entered the Visitation Convent at Paray, where she was subjected to many trials to prove her vocation, and in November, 1672, pronounced her final vows. She had a delicate constitution, but was gifted with intelligence and good judgement, and in the cloister she chose for herself what was most repugnant to her nature, making her life one of inconceivable sufferings, which were often relieved or instantly cured by our Lord, Who acted as her Director, appeared to her frequently and conversed with her, confiding to her the mission to establish the devotion to His Sacred Heart.

 

These extraordinary occurrences drew upon her the adverse criticism of the community, who treated her as a visionary, and her superior commanded her to live the common life. But her obedience, her humility, and invariable charity towards those who persecuted her, finally prevailed, and her mission, accomplished in the crucible of suffering, was recognized even by those who had shown her the most bitter opposition.Margaret Mary was inspired by Christ to establish the Holy Hour and to pray lying prostrate with her face to the ground from eleven till midnight on the eve of the first Friday of each month, to share in the mortal sadness He endured when abandoned by His Apostles in His Agony, and to receive holy Communion on the first Friday of every month.

 

In the first great revelation, He made known to her His ardent desire to be loved by men and His design of manifesting His Heart with all Its treasures of love and mercy, of sanctification and salvation. He appointed the Friday after the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi as the feast of the Sacred Heart; He called her “the Beloved Disciple of the Sacred Heart”, and the heiress of all Its treasures. The love of the Sacred Heart was the fire which consumed her, and devotion to the Sacred Heart is the refrain of all her writings.

 

In her last illness she refused all alleviation, repeating frequently: “What have I in heaven and what do I desire on earth, but Thee alone, O my God”, and died pronouncing the Holy Name of Jesus.All her actions, her revelations, her spiritual maxims, her teachings regarding the devotion to the Sacred Heart, and her life  where examined most thoroughly by the  Sacred Congregation which declared the heroic virtues of this servant of God, and which subsequently beatified and then canonised this wonderful saint.  

Her feast is now 16 October.

Do come and pray with her sacred relic which will be available to you at the end of the Mass.  When one thinks of the graces that have come to the world through this one great saint, one cannot help but be overwhelmed.   We can hardly imagine  saints closer to the Heart of Jesus than St Margaret Mary, and the Heart of Jesus is the  source of every grace, blessing and miracle.