A story for every day...

Not only did Our Lord make known to His faithful servant the graces He would grant to those who would venerate the image of His Sacred Heart, but He also deigned to show her how it should be represented. Here are the words in which the servant of God gave an account of it to her director.

“On the day of St. John the Evangelist, after I had received my divine Savior, He gave me a grace which seemed to me to be of the same nature as that which this beloved disciple received on the evening of the Last Supper. The Heart of Jesus was represented to me as in a throne formed of fire and flames, blazing on all sides, brighter than the sun, and transparent as a crystal. The wound that He received on the cross was clearly visible. There was a crown of thorns around this Sacred Heart and a cross above it which seemed to be fixed there. My divine Master made me understand that these instruments of His passion meant that the immense love of His Heart for men had been the source of all His sufferings: That from the first moment of His Incarnation, all these torments had been present to Him, and that from that first moment the cross was, so to speak, planted in His Heart; that He accepted from that moment all the pains and humiliations which His holy humanity was to suffer during the course of His mortal life, as well as all the outrages to which His love for men exposed Him to the end of the centuries, by dwelling with them in the holy Sacrament.

“He then made known to me that the great desire He had to be loved perfectly by men had made Him decide to manifest His Heart to them, and to give them in these last days this ultimate effort of His love by proposing to them an object and a means so apt to engage them to love Him, and to love Him steadfastly. That in this He would open to them all the treasures of love, of graces, of mercy, of sanctification and of salvation that this Heart contains, so that all those who would want to render Him and procure for Him all the love and honor that would be possible for them, would be enriched with profusion of the treasures of which this divine Heart is the source, a fruitful and inexhaustible source.

“He assured me that He took a singular pleasure in seeing the inner feelings of His Heart and His love honored under the figure of this heart of flesh, such as it had been shown to me, whose image He wanted to be displayed in public; in order, He added, to touch the insensitive hearts of men. At the same time, He promised me that He would pour out abundantly on the hearts of those who honored Him, the treasures of graces with which His Heart is filled, and that wherever this image would be exposed for special honor, it would attract all kinds of blessings.

“But here is what caused me at the same time a kind of torment which was more sensitive to me than all the sorrows I felt: it was that, when this Heart was presented to me, He made me hear these words again: I have a burning thirst to be honored and loved by men in the Blessed Sacrament; and yet I find almost no one who strives, according to My desire, to quench My thirst, by offering Me some return.”