PERROUX, A.
The Spirit of Immalation through Love –
For an Approach to Dehonian Spirituality
Dehoniana 2004/1, 103-135
Per la citazione: DEH2004-06-EN
The Spirit of Immolation through Love
For an Approach to Dehonian Spirituality...
André Perroux, scj
1 “The spirit of immolation through love": this is one of the numerous
expressions by which Fr. Dehon pronounced an essential trait of the
spirituality which animated him and which he desired to transmit.
2 For him, nourished by the Word of God, which he received in the living
tradition of the Church, immolation was an integral part of the response of
love to love: the response of Jesus to the Father in the Paschal sacrifice in
which "Everything is Accomplished"; and in Him and with Him, our own
response of love.
3 This is a theme to which Fr. Dehon returned very often all through his
work. Obviously he did this within the context of the epoch in which he lived:
the theology, the emphasis, the practices and the language of Christian life.
We must be very attentive that we take this into account when we receive his
persistence to live by this theme in today's world.
4 The profound meaning of this immolation in the life of Jesus, as in our
own, is not something that can be dissociated from the significance of
oblation, sacrifice, obedience, reparation or from the many other words that
are frequently met in Dehonian work; in particular from the attitude of
abandonment, for which Fr. Dehon's principal references have already been
presented.
5 It is precisely as a complement, for a wider understanding, that these
pages on immolation are now proposed. In following the same procedure
that we used with 'Abandonment' - without trying to indicate in detail all
the passages, without insisting on either particularly explicit or literal
references, I have called upon the texts which seem to me to be the most
meaningful. I indicate their reference, often with a brief introduction on the
circumstances or the context, and then give a few extracts which are placed
in quotation marks: " ". The parentheses: (), in particular for the biblical
quotations, which he often failed to complete, are those of Fr. Dehon himself.
© Copyright riservato Centro Studi Dehoniani Roma – Sacerdoti Sacro Cuore di Gesù.
Consentita la riproduzione integrale in fotocopia e libera circolazione senza fine di lucro.
È vietato il plagio e la copiatura integrale o parziale di testi e disegni a firma degli autori – a qualunque fine – senza citare la fonte
(Repubblica italiana, legge 18/08/2000 nº 248).
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The square brackets: [], indicate what I have had to add to Fr. Dehon's texts
in order to render the reading easier. I have had to limit myself to the first
four volumes of "Œuvres Spirituelles" {Spiritual Works}. To avoid
repetitions and to be sure that this article is not too lengthy, I have regrouped
some texts, which are fairly similar in meaning: above all for "L'année avec
le Sacré-Cœur" (The Year With the Sacred Heart}, OSP 3 and 4.
6 "The spirit of immolation through love": I have retained this expression
for the title of these pages because these few words seem to well express the
crucial essence.
7 "Immolation" - This is a word which clearly says exactly what it means:
sacrifice, above all the sacrifice of the holocaust, mortification and
renouncement, the cross and death itself... Fr. Dehon employs all these words
abundantly. He draws them from the experience of the Chosen People, he
reads them in the spiritual interpretation made of this by the New Testament
and then by the Fathers of the New Church. For it is by contemplating the
transfigured face of the Resurrected One that everything becomes clear: the
Lord in His Paschal is the "reality" which brings about all the "images". He
is the Sacrificial Lamb, the true Paschal Lamb, in which redeemed humanity
reaches true liberty for a new condition marked by praise and the holiness of
existence.
8 Precisely speaking, it is a question of the "spirit" of immolation: it
radiates in our heart, along with what the Spirit of God teaches us; a Spirit
which, starting from the Scriptures, patiently educated the People of God, the
Christian community, to "understand" the scandal and the mystery of
redemption through humility and obedience to the point of total giving. Our
spirit must be one which invents and nurtures attitudes, which generates our
way of being, interpreted in the motivations and modalities of action. All this
could not be more concrete, but it takes its value in correlation to the extent
that it becomes flesh and makes real this spirit, this dynamism of heart.
9 This spirit is nothing other than love: "immolation through love". It is a
question of a love, which desires to go to the very extreme in its response,
because it draws inspiration and vitality in the love which He gave to the very
end in the gift of Himself. "God so loved the world that He gave his only Son".
"He who had loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the very
end". "Christ loved me and delivered Himself up for me". These phrases and
many others, which all awaken the same sense of marvel before the freelygiven and all powerful love, outline the major axis of Fr. Dehon's life.
10 It is unquestionable, and we know it well: our Founder was fully of his
time, a time in which the theology of redemption was strongly marked by
tension, that is, the alleged conflict, often amplified, between justice and
mercy; a time in which, for many, the reparation demanded by justice implied
suffering and death as expiation... We find all of this incorporated in many
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of his writings, a considerable amount of which were inspired by his various
predecessors. But when he is more personal, both in his innumerable
evocations of the life of Jesus according to the Gospel accounts, and in his
own meditation on the mystery of the redemption and the Eucharist, his
persistence can be doubted even less - although it may perhaps be less
recognizable: redemption is considered above all to be a mystery of
obedience, that is to say of listening and of giving through love.
11 God the Father, full of tenderness, gave us His Son who became one of
us in the authentic state of our present condition: in solidarity with a world
marked by sin and subject to the power of Evil, but given and sent to perform
a work of light and life - "So that every man who believes in Him will not
perish but will have eternal life!". Jesus came into this world, being born and
living poor, seeking solely the glory of the Father and drawing from His will
the nourishment which sustains the daily life of existence, in everything and
with regard to everything, being "meek and humble of heart" to "seek and
save that which was lost" - in a word, "to pass through life doing good" and,
in all this, calling and awakening the freedom of the Spirit which renews
hearts: how could such a choice of life not inevitably lead to a head-on clash
with the forces of evil?
12 It is the "straight and narrow way" of the Gospel, it is the harsh "going
up to Jerusalem" which Jesus takes resolutely, "setting His face" according
to the surprising precision of St. Luke (9:51). It is inevitable that this is going
against the current, this is playing the losing game in the eyes of the world.
But for Jesus, in the coherence of His love for His own to the very end, it is
even more: this is the decisive "hour", "the hour to pass from this world to
the Father". It is therefore playing to win in fidelity to God, the God who
gives life, the God who is communion and love, given and reciprocated.
Wisdom, yes indeed, and the power of God, but in a way that for us will
always remain scandal and madness: the madness of love. That is truly the
meaning of immolation. We are in no way talking about an unhealthy seeking
of suffering as such, nor of its dubious exploitation, as if it could become a
"cult" before a vengeful God: there is no chance that this will be found in the
Gospel, which is nothing other than the Good News of God for us. But what
can be found is the total fidelity in abandonment and trust in the gift of
measureless love. And could one proclaim a "Good News" that would be
more precious to our world of today?
13 "This Heart loved us to the point of madness... It seemed that God was
beside Himself for the violence of his love. Well, then! Let us not fear to be
beside ourselves also, to become crazy with love for God!" (Fr. Dehon).
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OSP 1:123
14 "La Retraite du Sacré-Cœur" {The Retreat of the Sacred Heart} is like
an education in the love of Jesus. After the meditation on Jesus in His zeal
for the salvation of the world - on Jesus who seeks friends, the apostles, to
join in His mission -comes the meditation on the Passion, on the greatest
lesson, on that love which gives itself without measure: the object of this is
to awaken people to be loving, in gratitude and in a spirit of sacrifice.
15 "My Passion teaches you of my love for my Father and for you, at the
same time as it teaches you of the price of your soul and the horror of sin... It
is for you a source of inexhaustible reparation, merits and graces. Draw on it
ceaselessly, it is a bottomless abyss... My Passion is also your consolation in
your sufferings. I suffered before you and more than you. Bear the cross
patiently with me... This is still the example of all virtues: charity, mildness,
humility, patience, hatred of sin, zeal and apostolate... Above all, learn to
love the spirit of sacrifice... I seek always souls which immolate themselves
on the cross for the kingdom of my Heart".
OSP 1:227-228
16 The infinite love of the Heart of Jesus calls for a response of grateful
love and of compassionate love, before the contempt and indifference of
many. This is compassion which will manifest itself through the spirit of
penitence and immolation. On the altar of divine love, which is His Heart,
Jesus offers Himself unceasingly and offers the world. "And this Heart
belongs to you, it is your treasure and your dwelling. Offer it often then to
the Holy Trinity. Offer all the sacrifices which it offers for you. Offer
yourselves and pray to be accepted and to offer yourself as victims of love".
Meditating on His mysteries, meditating on His Passion during the afternoon,
in union with His Passion and His death, we learn from Him sacrifice and
immolation.
OSP 1:432
17 Fr. Dehon summarized "the whole basis of devotion to the Sacred
Heart": in Christ, Son of God become one of us for our salvation, he
contemplates above all the loving Heart, prepared to give everything.
18 "'The Word was made flesh' (Jn 1:14). The Son of God became one of
us. He lived among us and we saw Him full of grace and truth... The Son of
God voluntarily became our brother and our victim... The Word responded
to the Father: Oh Father, hear I am...; and the Father adapted a human body
to His Son (Heb 10: 5-7) [Fr. Dehon followed the Latin version of the
Vulgate: 'corpus autem aptasti mihi']. But in this body, adapted to the Son of
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God and united in substance with the Word, there was a heart, a living loving,
suffering heart; a heart ready to immolate itself to replace the holocausts...
The sublime functions of our supreme Pontiff on the day of the Incarnation,
continued all through the life of the Man-God, on Calvary they were in full
function... He established the sacrifice of the Mass, which was to... renew the
bleeding immolation of Calvary and the adorations of the sovereign Priest
and the divine victim... The cross was the altar of this sacrifice... but the
center from which sprang adoration towards God and from which flashed
graces as far as us, that was the Sacred Heart of Jesus".
OSP 1:452-453
19 "The opening of the Heart of Jesus had, in the designs of Providence, a
mysterious meaning. The Heart of Jesus was open to us so that we could enter
in spirit into this holy Tabernacle of the Most High [according to Saint
Bonaventure]. In meditating on the Passion of the Savior, I transform myself
in Christ crucified, I immolate myself with Him, I decorate myself with His
precious blood. And thus I become worthy of the love of the Eternal and the
co-heir of Jesus Christ in the kingdom in which those beloved of God live,
those who have been attached to the cross with the Savior... We enter heaven
through the Heart of Jesus..., we taste there an advanced taste of heaven
because the love of the Crucified makes sweet the crosses we have to bear".
OSP 1:531
20 "All the Passion of Jesus is summed up in His Heart... The cross was in
His Heart before He was on Calvary, because during His life He burned with
desire to be baptized with the blood which He was to receive on the Cross...
The devotion to His divine Heart is not just a devotion of feeling, but a
devotion which must produce the love of the cross and of sacrifice. 'My Heart
is the fruit of the tree of the Cross', Our Lord seems to say to us; 'but to gather
this fruit, it is necessary to carry the cross as I did... to suffer and immolate
oneself every day...'. Our Lord wants men to think of His Passion and
meditate on it".
OSP 2:121
21 We give the Father the greatest possible joy and the greatest possible
glory in loving His Son Jesus, in offering ourselves to Him with the
dispositions of the heart which He had in offering Himself to His Father. This
oblation dilates the heart and makes everything easy "because nothing dilates
the heart as love does".
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22 "Those who give themselves to me in this way immolate themselves in
a perpetual holocaust, but in a holocaust of love. These are well-loved
children, because the only thing which attaches them to their father, is the
profound affection of their heart...".
OSP 2:144-145
23 The love with which we wish to respond to Our Lord implies the practice
of virtues. Far from dispensing with them, He brings them to perfection. That
is particularly valid for the offering of immolation.
24 "(Making Jesus speak) I gave my life not with the bitter resignation of a
victim, but with the most tender love, with the deepest affection. This great
love certainly deserves to be recompensed. This recompense, will you give it
to me if you come to me as a victim comes to his executioner, if you accept
daily immolation of your vows simply as a condemnation? No, it is through
charity which you can and must render your holocaust perfect and pleasing
to my Heart... Come to me with love, this is not doing without faith, it is
making it live... Nor is this coming to me with the grimaces of sentimentality
without substance, because to come to me lovingly, the great sacrificed one,
is to go to the model of all sacrifices; it is to come and draw, from my Heart
and from the treasures of my love, an unfailing strength, a support in
suffering and for all crosses".
25 The quotations, which follow, are from "Crowns of Love", OSP 2:175
- 516, in which the themes of oblation, of immolation, of the life of victim...
constantly recur. Particularly in the second and third Crowns, on the Passion
and on the Eucharist, pp. 291 - 400 and 401 - 516. Cf. also the references
already published on abandonment.
OSP 2:196
26 To accomplish a redemption, God sent His Son in flesh similar to ours,
flesh similar to sinful man (Cf. Rm 8:3). He gave His Son "sacrificing Him
for us, immolating Him to His justice in our place... The sacrifice of Abraham
was only a shadow of the sacrifice which God the Father made of His Son...
And it was to God that Abraham immolated his son Isaac, while God
immolated His own Son in favor of mankind. How much must it have cost
the infinite love of this Father to tear His own Son in this way from His breast
and deliver Him to us!... It seems that God was beside Himself for the
violence of His love. Well then! Let us not fear to be beside ourselves also to
become crazy with love for God... Let us be, to the ultimate extreme, the
friends, the lovers of God and of the Savior Jesus".
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OSP 2:205
27 The oblation of Jesus, His Ecce venio, was a continuous oblation, like a
vow of His Heart which religious vows imitate. "But the special act of
oblation of oneself in a spirit of love and immolation is a more formal
reproduction, a genuine continuation of this divine act. The entire course of
the life of Jesus was nothing other than the development and the performance
of this first act. Jesus is whole and entire in His Ecce venio, with all His heart,
all His love, all His merits, all His future mysteries...".
OSP 2:221
28 On the spirit of childhood which Jesus teaches us in the Gospel:
29 "The religious life demands the whole and continued sacrifice of oneself
to holy obedience. Becoming a child again, sacrificing more than one's will,
immolating one's reason, one's intelligence, one's heart, letting oneself be
carried, guided, led without questioning or reply, that is religious perfection".
OSP 2:228-229
30 With regard to the "hidden life' of Jesus in Nazareth - 30 years of life
hidden from the eyes from the world, "life hidden in God": "God desired this
all the time, it is the intimate, most principle union of all time with God. Life
hidden in God is the immolation of the heart par excellence, it is that which
perfects the dispositions of the profession of immolation... It is continual, or
almost continual, communication with God...".
31 "Only the people hidden in the Sacred Heart are truly victims of love for
God. This loving abandonment is more meritorious than extraordinary
mortifications. The only holocausts which are pleasing to God are those
which are united to the loving oblation of the Heart of Jesus, who alone is the
true author and the true Priest... Our sacrifices must be like this (like those of
the People of God): let us provide the victim, which is ourselves, bring the
wood for the sacrifice through our good will and the assiduous contemplation
of the mysteries of the love of the Heart of Jesus, then the divine fire will
descend from heaven, that is to say from the Heart of Jesus, and will consume
our hearts".
OSP 2:301-303
32 In the preliminary meditation to the second Crown, on the Passion.
33 This retreat on the Passion presupposes a fundamental disposition: "the
disposition for reparation, to trusting and loving repentance, to immolation
through love to the immolated Heart of Jesus".
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34 This meditation finishes with a prayer: "Such will be my disposition
towards you, oh my Master, during all these meditations on the Passion:
regret for having wounded your Heart, trust in your infinite goodness, and
with your grace the spirit of immolation through love. Wound my heart with
your wound of love".
OSP 2:305-307
35 "The Passion is the masterpiece of the love of the Heart of Jesus... We
must try... to penetrate the depths of this abyss of charity and arouse ourselves
to the love of the Sacred Heart in seeing how much He loved us... The Passion
of the Savior draws all its merit and all its cost before His Father not so much
by His outward sufferings and even His death, but by His Heart, by His love
which made Him give Himself in this way all to us... As the Sacred Heart of
Jesus has shown His love for us by so much suffering, we must be ready to
show Him our love, to suffer also the trials which Providence sends us... In
essence, it is not a matter of small or great crosses, it is only a matter of a
small or a great love... In loving and practicing ordinary mortifications, we
shall not seek exceptional mortifications for ourselves. We will accept those,
which the divine Master sends us. That is the character of abandonment and
of trust in the Heart of Jesus. It is up to the Sacred Heart to choose what He
wishes for us; it is up to Him to determine the manner, the time and the
duration of the immolation... See with what generosity all the disciples of the
Sacred Heart accept their pains! They smile under the hand, which strikes
them: how does that happen? Precisely because of their act of abandonment,
while those who immolate themselves instead of letting themselves be
immolated would be unceasingly distressed if Providence suddenly had come
to change the wood which they have chosen for themselves".
OSP 2:355-357
36 Very often, in these meditations on the Passion, the theme returns to the
response of love to the love of Jesus. That is truly what counts most for Fr.
Dehon. The word "immolation" does not occur often, nor does "reparation".
But persistence is constantly placed on the response of a love which offers
itself in everything, in gratitude and in compassion.
37 "This Heart has loved us to the point of madness, to the point of
exhausting itself for us. The souls, which love this divine Heart, therefore
remain, as one might say, in ecstasy before so much love... The
contemplation of the ingratitude of souls and particularly of chosen souls has
excited in us the love of compassion... For the friends of the Sacred Heart,
this consideration should dominate all others. All the other feelings, all the
other virtues do not completely satisfy the Heart of Jesus. He obviously wants
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repentance, penitence, mortification, but He requires particularly grateful
love and compassionate love. If the other virtues are precious stones which
decorate the immaculate gown of the Church, the love given to the Heart of
Jesus is the ruby which sparkles with the most fire".
OSP 2:358FF
38 "The friends of the Sacred Heart do not necessarily impose on
themselves the mortifications and terrible flagellations of the desert Fathers.
They enter the Sacred Heart and they become drunk with grateful and
compassionate love, but it is precisely because of this that they are ready to
generously endure exterior suffering, if Providence sends it to them. We do
not choose such-or-such kind of outward immolation, because this choice
depends on the all-loving will of the Sacred Heart to which we are
abandoned, and because the immolation of love is of itself all generosity and
ready for everything... It is not only with resignation, but with joy that we let
our body be attached to the cross; we do not attach it but we let it be attached.
We do not deal the death stroke, but like Isaac on the pyre, we await until our
Father wishes to immolate us...
39 "For certain souls the Sacred Heart demands effective immolation", for
example sickness... "When you have a cross, do not desire to change it for
another, accept it for what it is... Your dispositions will be perfect if you think
that you do not love suffering for the sake of suffering, nor the cross for the
sake of the cross, but that you love the Sacred Heart which has desired this
or that suffering, to send you this or that cross. Let us lose ourselves in this
divine Heart, lose ourselves in its love and its immolation, and then the cross
will become our treasure, to the extent to which the divine Heart wishes to
give it to us".
OSP 2:373
40 Joining with Mary, with Saint John, with Mary Magdalene and the holy
women at the foot of the Cross - they gave the most precious consolation to
Jesus: their compassionate love, which "was a martyrdom for their hearts.
They could not know worse torture than their very love for the Heart of Jesus,
because nothing is equal to that incomparable act of immolation: the
immolation of one's very heart, the most pleasing victim to the Heart of
Jesus".
OSP 2:375-377
41 "This is the great mystery of love, the center upon which converge all
the figures of the Old Testament, the object of all prophesies, the source and
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the channel of all graces, accomplished immolation! The Lord dies on the
cross!... We abandon ourselves in the same way to the love of the Heart of
Jesus through the profession of love to this divine Heart..., by the profession
of immolation in sacrificing to Him our actions and our satisfactory merits...
Everything is in this love, everything lies in this abandonment. Let the friends
of the Sacred Heart repeat this often, that they have no other thought, no other
desire!... Ah! that in abandonment and immolation which we make of
ourselves to the Sacred Heart, there is the desire to die of love for Him, even
formulated explicitly... Let us observe that our sweet Savior desired to die on
the cross. Our own cross is the Rule of Life we adopted in our consecration
to the Sacred Heart. Let us instantly ask for the grace never to leave it and to
finish our life in the observance of this Rule. For us that is the ultimate in
persevering".
OSP 2:381
42 On Saint Bernard's thought of the great mystery of our union to the
Sacred Heart and our dwelling in it. "...The fourth degree, even higher and
even rarer, consists of immolating oneself for God and for the Sacred Heart
directly as expiatory victims, in order to placate divine justice... The most
perfect union is achieved through the habitual life of love to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus".
OSP 2:411-413
43 On the preliminary meditation to the third Crown, on the Eucharist:
44 "...The Sacred Heart of Jesus, by its disposition of love and immolation,
always remains the same in all its states... In the Holy Sacrament, it continues
its life of love and immolation, as it does in the mysteries of His mortal life,
of His Passion and of His life in Glory. In the Eucharist the Sacred Heart is
the source of all supernatural life in the Church, of all the graces which work
in the members of the Church, taken singularly or in bodies such as the
religious orders, so that everything starts from the Heart and everything
returns there as to the divine center of love and life... Thus the contemplation
of the Eucharist has particular illuminations and graces for the priest who
feels himself led to repeat: 'May my heart be immolated in return!'. Because
all the life of a priest is summed up in immolation, in the way that the Sacred
Heart practices it in the Holy Sacrament ... What can one do then before this
love [of Jesus in the Eucharist], if not render Him love for love? What can
balance this immolation, if not an immolation of our heart and of ourselves
as complete as we are capable of making?... I unite myself to your retreat in
this Holy Tabernacle, oh my divine Savior... There you will teach me your
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love and your immolation, and I will learn to pay you back in loving you and
in offering myself to you".
OSP 2:424-425
45 In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, "the disposition of love and immolation
persists always. And it is by means of this disposition that He always offers
to God the Father, His merits, His suffering and His death for us, and that He
renews unceasingly the spirit of the Passion... He rejoices when, out of love
for Him, we bear the same cross, which He carries for love of us. We do not
choose this ourselves, because the victim does not immolate himself, but lets
himself be immolated, but we accept this with the greatest joy... The
disposition for Eucharistic immolation must exist in every heart devoted to
the Sacred Heart... Everything, which there is of strength and energy in the
Church, comes today, as always, from the Eucharistic Table... I feed myself
often on your flesh and your blood, oh my good Master, I must also feed
myself on the dispositions of your Heart and on the spirit of your
immolation".
OSP 2:426-427
46 "We find in the holy and adorable Eucharist... the Lamb which lives by
immolation" [Cf. the context]. Let us free our hearts through communion
with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, for too often "we are not hungry or thirsty
for love and we are not satisfied nor quenched. Ah! let us desire, let us desire!
We languish for not having desired enough. Let us forget everything, and in
order to forget everything, let us throw ourselves deeper and deeper into the
Heart of Jesus... Nothing will help us more than our profession of love and
of immolation well understood and well practiced..."
OSP 2:430
47 "The Church is the true Paradise of God on earth; it is made fecund by
a multitude of canals which bring it grace; but all these graces derive from
one single and unique source: from the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. It is the
Heart of Jesus which has formed the grace by its sacrifice of love and
immolation..."
48 Cf. OSP 4:259 - In "the great prayer for the priest", following the Last
Supper: "Father, I entrust you with my disciples... Protect them for my sake...
Keep them in truth and in holiness so that they may be able to fulfill their
mission. I send them into the world to convert it and sanctify it as you sent
me. I am now going to sacrifice myself and immolate myself for them in
order to fecundate their ministry. By the merits of my sacrifice they will
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receive the Holy Spirit, who will be their guide, their strength and their
sanctifier".
OSP 2:432
49 "If the priest wishes to be compatible with his divine mission, it is
necessary for the priestly Heart of Jesus Christ to take form in him, not only
in seed and in power, but in all its force and splendor: that is to say, with the
character of High Priest and victim which distinguishes it, with the spirit of
love and immolation through which the priest consecrates himself solely to
the love of this divine Heart, in immolating his heart for Him, and in Him
consecrating his actions and his priestly works with all their fruits and their
merits".
OSP 2:439-442
50 "The divine Master in the Eucharist is detached from the exterior life.
He contemplates, He loves, He adores the perfections of God; He immolates
Himself to the glory of His Father... He is all adoration, love, annihilation,
immolation, prayer; but everything takes place in silence, in the depths of
Himself and of the divinity... He lives, says Saint Paul [Heb 7:25]... to make
intercession in our favor [Ibid]. He interpolates, He intercedes, He prays for
us; in other terms, it is the act of love and of immolation, which never ceases
to produce. This interpellation, this mediation boils down to this: the
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus loves us and immolates itself for us...
51 "Loving God, loving one's brethren, offering to God for one's brethren
all the merits which one has acquired..., continuing always and without any
interruption His Here I am, I come and the act of love of the Incarnation, that
is the unique act of the Sacred Heart in the holy and very august sacrament
of the altar. It is always the Heart which thinks only of us, which lives only
for us, which has no other mission than to love us and to give itself for us
[Cf. Eph 5:2], and who in loving us, and interceding for us, in offering
Himself for His brethren, loves God His Father, because the love of God and
of one's neighbor, above all in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, are not two loves.
It is one perfect single act. It is in this way that the Eucharistic Heart is always
the Heart of our Savoir, of our Redeemer and of our Mediator...
52 "And this prayer which is hidden in silence, this incessant immolation
of an incessant love is the greatest act which can exist in a man's heart. Its
power has absolutely no limits. It obtains everything it desires: the infinite
glory of God and peace for men of good will [Cf. Lk 2:14]. It is impossible
that when the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus prays and intercedes it will be not
be heard. This is what produces the great works of holiness in the Church,
this is what engenders so many admirable things..., this is, in a word, from
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whence proceed the life and the fecundity of the Bride of Christ: it is the
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus loving, praying, offering itself up...
53 "In order to act in response to their glorious mission, the souls devoted
to the Heart of Jesus must enter into the spirit of their beautiful vocation...
One single act must dominate their entire life: the love of the Heart of Jesus
and the immolation of this divine Heart through love... Living, for me, is
solely the Sacred Heart of Jesus [Cf. Phil 1:21]. I would like, Lord, to be able
to say with Saint Paul: I no longer live, it is Jesus who lives in me [Gal 2:20]".
54 Cf. OSP 3, p. 692: "From His tabernacle Jesus does not speak to any
creature. No sound... but before His Father His silence is much deeper and
much more sublime... He is all love, self-annihilation, immolation, prayer,
but everything takes place in silence, in the depths of Himself and of the
divinity. What a powerfully loud language is this silence!... I would like in
my adorations to silence creatures in me in order to unite myself in the
adoration of Jesus towards His Father".
OSP 2:446
55 Fr. Dehon comments on the word of the Spouse, that is to say "the soul
which loves the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus" in Song 2:3: "I am seated in the
shadow of Him whom my desires call upon...".
56 "Ah! if my deeply beloved would come into my garden!... The garden
of my beloved is my heart, this heart where He has planted love, humility,
mortification. Ah! would that He come to gather the little merits which I have
amassed through my life of love and immolation, would that He come to feed
Himself on the ardent desire I have to possess Him! To these burning
aspirations, Jesus replies: Come rather, my sister, my bride, come into my
garden, come into my Heart... Come, my friends, eat and drink; intoxicate
yourselves, my very dearest ones [Is 55:1]...
57 "I sleep, adds the Good Savior, I sleep but my Heart is awake [Song 5:2].
I sleep because of my solitude and the Eucharistic silence, which I surround
myself with; I sleep but my Heart cannot sleep. This Heart is ceaselessly
awake, it is always immolating itself. May our own imitate it!...".
OSP 2:456-457
58 "The Sacred Heart of Jesus is always in the state of Sacrifice:
immolation for Him consists of the continual offering which He makes of His
love, of His merits, of His actions, of His sufferings and of His death, which
He never ceases to apply to us... The immolation was corporal and bloody
and could only be done once, the moment when He died of love on the cross,
but it has always existed, real and mystical, in the Sacred Heart of Jesus who,
correctly speaking, is love and immolation incarnate...
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59 "The Holy Sacrifice is nothing other than that of the cross; it is its
mystical renewal and its continuation, apart from the physical death, which
is not essential for a real immolation because the essential sacrifice consists
above all in the immolation of the heart... The offering [of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus in the Eucharist] is made for us, in order to apply to us all the fruits
of the immolation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which we receive always in
proportion to the dispositions, greater or lesser perfect as they may be, in
which we find ourselves... Ah! let us bring to the most Holy Sacrifice only
one desire, that of loving the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of immolating ourselves
with Him, of living by His life and solely for His love, and our prayer is
certain to be always and perfectly heard".
OSP 2:461-470
60 Speaking of the "chalice of consolation" in Gethsemane, Cf. Lk 22:42:
61 "Oh! let us fill this chalice with our tears, with our repentance, with our
immolations!" <p. 461>.
62 "My God, bless and make fertile my poor resolutions! I dearly wish, I
wish over and above everything to immolate on the altar of your Heart all my
life with all my desires and freedoms" <p. 468>.
63 "What victim does Christ offer to the Father? A victim of an infinite
price... The Heart of Jesus offers itself: it will be priest and victim. It will
immolate itself like a host of love, of gratitude, of reparation and of prayer.
It will immolate itself by dying of love, by giving its life, at the same time as
its executioners force themselves to take it from Him: I give my soul of
myself, He says, and no one takes it from me [Jn 10:18]" <p. 470>.
64 Cf. a text close in meaning: OSP 3:692, quoted further on. And Cf. p.
523, 524:
65 "How has this Heart loved us? In immolating itself for us... The Heart
of priest and victim, the Heart which bore witness of its love in sacrificing
itself for us on the altar of the cross... All its life it was adoration and love...
Outward immolation through suffering, humiliation, poverty; interior
immolation through love and adoration... Yes, that is love, that is the Sacred
Heart of Jesus which eminently plays the priestly role. It immolates itself, it
immolates the body it gives life to" <And Cf. OSP 5:305>.
66 "Oh Jesus, priest and victim... make me like unto you... May my priestly
heart immolate itself in its turn without reserve, for you" <p. 471>. "May my
heart immolate itself in return for this Heart which immolates itself always!"
<p. 506>.
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OSP 2:486-488
67 At the Holy Mass "we associate ourselves with our whole heart to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus which is offering itself and immolating itself to His
Father. In any case, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is nothing other than love,
reparation and thanksgiving, living and incarnate... [At the adoration of the
Eucharist], in the Holy Sacrament, the prayer of the Sacred Heart of Jesus...
is all love, reparation, thanksgiving; it endures always, ardent, burning, all
powerful, capable of making reparation for everything. Let us learn then to
unite ourselves to it, to take it and put it into our heart, so that it will live this
life of love and immolation, and that it will be consumed like the lamp of the
sanctuary".
OSP 2:489-491
68 This is a meditation on "Reparation and Immolation" according to Saint
Margaret Mary. The Saint of Paray was a "victim of love"; and "Our Lord
asked her further to offer herself as a victim of expiation to divine justice: ...
T seek for my Heart a victim, one that wishes to sacrifice itself to accomplish
itself to my designs, like a victim of immolation'. And the saint adds: 'my
amiable Savior gave me no rest until, in obedience to His orders, I immolated
myself to everything He desired of me, which was to make myself an
immolated victim to all sorts of sufferings... without any other claim but to
fulfil His designs'".
69 In the following meditation "Host of Love" <pp. 492 -494>, Fr. Dehon
comments on the act of offering by "Little sister Theresa of Lisieux" in 1895
[he wrote this in 1905]: "In order to live in an act of perfect love, I offer
myself as a holocaust victim to your merciful love, beseeching you to
consume me unceasingly... I wish, oh my Best Beloved, at each beat of my
heart, to renew this offering to you an infinite number of times...". And he
concludes: "And I, oh my Savior, what will I offer you?... I wish at least to
apply myself to living in the spirit of abandonment, of sacrifice and love,
which is the spirit of immolation in union with the Host of the Tabernacle".
70 Cf. p. 591, 592: "May it please the goodness of our God to multiply in
His Church the priestly souls who, all animated and living by the dispositions
of the Heart of Jesus, Apostle and High Priest, may be apostles first of all
through prayer, interior immolation, the all consuming ardors of consoling
love, and lastly (only lastly) through exterior works of zeal!".
OSP 2:512
71
At the end of "Couronnes d'amour" (Crowns of Love):
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72 "Each of the friends of the Sacred Heart must reproduce this divine Heart
in a special and distinct manner, according to his calling and the degree to
which grace calls him; but in all of them the Sacred Heart must live: that
Heart which loves always and which immolates itself always; that Heart
which forgets itself unceasingly; that Heart which never ceases to give itself;
that Heart which is, it is true, the Heart of a man, but which is also the Heart
of a God. That Heart which has never ceased to consecrate itself for us and
to us, and which is the first, the most beautiful and the greatest of the hearts
of oblates and of victims of love..."
OSP 2:529
73 At the beginning of the mediations on "Le Cœur sacerdotal de Jésus"
(The Priestly Heart of Jesus) <pp. 517 - 628>:
74 "Our Lord in comparing His sacrifice to those of the ancient law,
declares first and foremost that His Father has given Him a body to immolate
in place of the lambs and heifers, but He adds immediately afterwards that
the soul of this sacrifice or its directing law is in its heart: Cf. Heb 10:5, Here
I am, I come... His Heart is the heart of a priest. The sacrifice, the immolation
of Himself and the glorification of His Father, will be His work par
excellence, the dominant thought of His life, the constant inclination of His
Heart. His divine and human Heart will forever be the Heart of a priest: You
are a priest forever [Ps 110:4]. Your Heart must forever be the heart of a
priest".
OSP 2:537-541
75 "The very fact of the Incarnation of a God is an immolation and a
sacrifice. He only took this humanity upon Himself in order to sacrifice it...
(Cf. Heb 10:5)... Oh priests of Jesus Christ, be priests forever. May your heart
be immolated in all your actions for the glory of God and the salvation of
souls, in union with the divine Heart of Jesus. It is through His love, through
His Heart, that Jesus carries out His priesthood and that He immolates
Himself for the glory of His Father and for our salvation... It is charity, it is
Love-Priest, which has shed the blood and immolated the flesh of the divine
Lamb on the cross... It was not only for love of His Father that the divine
Priest desired to immolate Himself, it was also out of love of mankind".
OSP 2:594
76 In commenting on Saint Paul, 1 Cor 15:28: Then the Son himself will
also be subjected to the one... so that God may be all in all: "This is the end
of the mission of the Son. As one can see, this incarnate Son, this devout
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Priest of the Most High, never separates in His Heart, in His works, in His
immolation, in His triumph, from His Father whose glory is the final aim of
everything, and from the souls whose salvation is the substance of His glory".
L'ANNÉE AVEC LE SACRÉ-CŒUR (THE YEAR WITH THE
SACRED HEART) (1908 - 1909): OSP 3 AND 4
77 The theme of immolation, with or without the exact word, is covered
many time throughout all of these 426 meditations. It is, however, tackled in
a more occasional way, in quicker and less frequent reflections, rather than
the way it is in the preceding spiritual works. To avoid too many repetitions
the quotations used have often been regrouped according to the sense.
OSP 3:33-34
78 With regard to the incense which the Wise Men offered to Jesus: "Wish
only what this God desires and return all to Him for rime and for eternity,
that is a sacrifice which is pleasing to Him. This disposition to be ready for
everything, this 'laisser faire', this acceptation with love of everything which
may happen, like a will or a divine permission, that is a holocaust which is
dear to Our Lord... Has not Our Lord given the most perfect example of this
triple gift [gold, incense, myrrh] to his Father... Was not His will that of His
heavenly Father? He recalled this many times in the Gospel. We need only
to remember His Here I am, I come [Heb 10:7]... In these words are contained
the three sacrifices which sum up the whole of our vocation, our mission. 'My
God, you gave me a body to be sacrificed, to suffer, a Heart for loving and
for suffering also, a will for immolating as the most precious victim and the
most pleasing to God'. That is where the sacrifice offered every day to the
immaculate Lamb, and with Him to His Father should be. It is also the
disposition which Mary expressed with her Here I am, I am the handmaid
[Lk 1:38]. She gave herself up to divine love and she was ready to sacrifice
everything to the divine will".
79 P. 118, on the presentation of Jesus in the Temple: Jesus "will truly be
immolated for the holocaust and for sin... Here I am, I come...".
80 P. 125, with regard to the oblation of Jesus at the time of His
Presentation at the Temple: "God had requested the sacrifice of all the firstborn and He had accepted in exchange a lamb or two doves. For Jesus He
was to accept only a temporary and apparent ransom, and the victim was to
begin to immolate Himself in humility, in obedience and in work while
awaiting the great days of His Passion and His death... Holy victim, make me
a true oblate of your Heart... Here I am, I come to do your will".
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81 P. 160, to the doctors in the Temple, the adolescent Jesus explains that
"Christ is the true lamb of God (Is 53:11), He will bear the sins of all, He will
be immolated for all (Ps 22; Is 53; Dt 9)...".
82 Pp. 148, 149, concerning the 'first Passover' of the adolescent Jesus in
Jerusalem: "On this day thousands of lambs were sacrificed... Jesus offered
Himself as many times as He saw the lambs struck. He accepted death the
same number of times. This is an infinite sum of merits which He
accumulated for us... Mary meditated upon all this. It was she who brought
the Lamb without stain. He was to be left some time still in order to prepare
Himself, then He was to be immolated for the salvation of people... Jesus and
Mary prepared graces for the priests and the faithful...".
83 P. 220, once baptized by John the Baptist, "now Jesus is ready for His
messianic and reparatory mission. Priest and Lamb, He was to march to the
altar to immolate Himself when the day should come. His divine Heart had
no other ideal. What should be my feelings of gratitude and love? Should I
refuse to immolate myself, like Jesus for souls, in a life of work and
sacrifice?".
84 Pp. 257 and 262, 263: "God desired that the divine Lamb should be
immolated at the time of the Passover, when the figurative lamb was
immolated and when one recalled the deliverance from Egypt... Jesus wanted
to be the Lamb of the true Passover, the Lamb which takes away the sins of
the world and which delivers from Egypt or the kingdom of Satan...
85 "The old law had its redeeming blood, the blood of the lambs immolated
in Egypt to save the houses of the Israelites... And it is this saving, image of
the redemption of the world through the blood of the divine Lamb, which is
recalled each year...".
86 The rest of the text meditates on the Last Supper of Jesus, the Paschal
meal, the image of the Eucharist which Jesus ardently desired (Lk 22:15):
that which, as immolated victim, He accomplished in the Paschal sacrifice as
described before <p. 263>.
87 Pp. 178, 179: "The great religious act is the sacrifice. The Holy Family
attended sacrifices for thanksgiving and prayer, victims for sins... Without a
superhuman force, could Jesus and Mary have contemplated at Passover the
immolation of so many thousand lambs? ...They were spiritually offering the
true Lamb, He whose death would truly be redemptive and fecund. 'Take
Him', says Mary to God the Father, 'immolate Him. Fiat, Fiat'. 'If it is not
possible', said Jesus, 'that this chalice may pass from me, strike and immolate
the lamb'".
88 P. 204, with regard to the crown of thorns: "It was necessary that
everything in Jesus was immolated to the glory of His Father. He was spared
nothing, neither in His soul nor in His body...".
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89 P. 341: "It is as the sacrificed Lamb that Jesus reigns in heaven. 'He who
was put to death', says Saint John, is worthy to receive all honor and all
power' [Rv 5:12]. I have seen', said he, 'the immolated Lamb on the throne'
[Ibid. 6]".
OSP 3:46
90 Reflecting on the hidden life of Jesus in Nazareth: "In Nazareth, there
was hardly a life less glorious in the eyes of the world than the daily work
done by Jesus, earning His daily bread with the sweat of His brow. But this
humiliation was precisely for the salvation of the world... His Sacred Heart
was immolated in silence. He was accomplishing the will of His Father who
had sent Him... It is thus that those who offer themselves as victims to the
Sacred Heart, following His example and with His grace, must abandon
themselves to the divine will in the hidden life...".
91 Cf. Ibid. pp. 56, 57: "In the mysteries of His hidden life [of Jesus], what
do we read in His Heart? We read there the annihilation of self, humility,
silence, immolation and love... The example of Jesus teaches us silence and
immolation ... Let us immolate ourselves to the divine will manifested
through our Superiors, through our Rules, through the inspirations of grace.
Love: this is all that we will find in the Heart of Jesus. He did everything for
love of His Father and for us. Let us do everything for love of Him".
OSP 3:108
92 "The blessed Margaret Mary once again proposes for our imitation the
life of humility and silence of the Infant-Jesus, His life of immolation, of
sacrifice and of love... Following His example we should place ourselves
immolated on the altar of the Heart of His holy Mother, and we will sacrifice
to her the powers of our soul, both in renouncing that which pleases us, and
in doing that which mortifies us. It is love, which was the principle of the
self-annihilations and immolations of the Infant-Jesus. Let us too live on the
spirit of love..."
OSP 3:229-230
93 Regarding the life of sacrifice: "I see Jesus as an innocent victim, as a
Lamb immolated on the altar for the salvation of men".
94 He is the "immolated Lamb during His mortal life: He offered Himself
to His Father as soon as He entered the world... Here I am... (Heb 10:5 - 7)...
He was the mediator of adoration and love between those created and His
Father. He was more than anything the mediator of justice, the victim of
reparation...".
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95 He is "immolated in the Eucharist and in heaven. He wished to remain
victim and host. That is why He offers Himself on the altar and He dwells in
the Eucharist. He is victim there, through a work of self-annihilation, for an
act of supreme humility. He is immolated by a mystical sword... I receive
Him in my heart in order to unite myself with His immolation, with His life
as host... We will not resemble Jesus and we will not share in His grace except
to the extent of our immolation".
96 He is "immolated in His associates. We are baptized within the cross.
We must die with Jesus to be glorified with Him (Rm 8:17). Associates of
Jesus Christ, we must have the same destiny as our Leader. To resemble Him
is our glory. He has indicated to us the way of salvation, we must follow it...
The time of Lent is particularly the time of sacrifice...".
OSP 3:272
97 In Gethsemane: "Our Lord takes with Him only three disciples, who are
like the assisting ministers of sacrifice. Taking part in the sufferings of Jesus
Christ is a favor reserved for privileged souls. It is a great grace to receive
the spirit of sacrifice and immolation in union with Jesus".
98 P. 467: "Your sadness will be changed into joy (Jn 16:20)... Lord,
change my sadness into joy through the gift of repentance, sacrifice, the spirit
of immolation and reparation".
OSP 3:328-330
99 Meditation on the Annunciation: "It is in this day that Our Lord said His
Here I am, I come and that Mary said her Here I am, I am the handmaid".
"Here I am, I come, Jesus' Rule of Life... Here I am, I am the handmaid,
Mary's Rule of Life... These words express abandonment, docility towards
grace, conformity to the divine will, sacrifice and immolation... In these
words is to be found the whole vocation of souls vowed to the Sacred Heart,
with their objective, their duties, their promises. This sentiment, this
disposition, these words said and felt are sufficient in all situations, in all
events, for the present and for the future..."
OSP 3:392-393
100 On the Resurrected Jesus inviting Thomas to living faith: "To those
souls He calls especially to spread the love of His Heart, Jesus says today:
'Put your hand in my Heart today with Thomas, be no longer unbelieving but
faithful. I require of you more than a common faith, I require a special faith
towards the love of my Heart and we, we have believed in love [1 Jn 4:16]. I
require a living and delicate faith, a persevering faith, without weakness or
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wavering, a faith which manifests itself through works of love, reparation and
immolation'... Blessed are we, if we have believed with a living and true faith.
Let us spend ourselves as Thomas did in the apostolate spreading the love of
the Sacred Heart and the spirit of reparation and immolation".
OSP 3:431
101 Jesus Himself comments in Jn 14:16, 17: 'my Father will give you
another Advocate': "The Holy Spirit will give you the light and the grace to
fulfill your mission as apostles of the Sacred Heart. It will give you
comprehension and the taste of the mysteries of my Heart, of my love and of
my immolation. It will give you the strength and the zeal to work for the
accomplishment of your mission, in spreading this life of love and
immolation according to your grace. It will let you know the path which I
have followed, the path of the cross, of sacrifice and immolation. It will lead
you in my footsteps, It will make of you that which you must be, victims of
my Heart...
102 Pp. 455, 456: "Let us arise and go [Jn 14:31]. Let us go in the service of
Our Lord, let us go to devotion, to sacrifice. Let us go out of ourselves, let us
go to the Heart of Jesus, to His love, to His imitation, to His service; a
constant union with the Heart of Jesus in the spirit of love and immolation".
OSP 3:580-582
103 With regard to Saint Sophie Barat, Foundress of the Dames du SacréCœur (Religious of the Sacred Heart), a teaching Congregation in which Fr.
Dehon's mother received an education which would leave a profound mark
on her son:
104 "Love and immolation to the Sacred Heart, that is the entire program of
the saintly Foundress of the Dames du Sacré-Cœur, as it was the program of
Margaret Mary. It is my vocation, it is my duty, since I have heard the call
which the Sacred Heart addresses to His friends. It is necessary that all my
actions are done in this spirit".
OSP 3:686
105 "As Christ, although pure and perfect in Himself, is the head of fallen
humanity, He will offer to His Father a sacrifice of expiation to make
reparation to the glory of His outraged Father. But what victim will He offer
to His Father?... The Heart of Jesus will offer Itself. Priest and victim, He
will immolate Himself like a host of love, of gratitude, of reparation and of
prayer. He will immolate Himself in dying of love, in giving His life at the
same time that His executioners force themselves to take it from Him: 'I give
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my soul on my own', he says, 'No one takes it from me' [Jn 10:17,18]. This
adorable Heart desired at the same time to glorify His Father, save our souls
and win our hearts through the intensity of His love. And loving us to the end
and without limits, He desired to perpetuate His sacrifice, to multiply it over
the entire earth and eternalize it in heaven. Victim offered from the first
instant of His conception, He sacrificed Himself on Calvary, He immolates
Himself in the Eucharist, He offers Himself to heaven 'He lives forever to
make intercession for us'(Heb 7:25)".
106 "The first think we see in the immolated Heart of Jesus is an act of
adoration and of love, and in order to express this love, infinite selfannihilations" (OSP 4:413).
OSP 4:82
107 Like Mary Magdalene, "let us seek Jesus always, seek Him everywhere.
Let us seek Him not just to rejoice in Him, to receive freely-given and
extraordinary graces, but to understand His love, to imitate His example, to
immolate ourselves with Him. The angel said to the saintly woman: 'fear not,
you seek Jesus who was crucified' [Mk 16:6]. We no longer have anything to
fear if we seek the crucified Jesus. We cannot deceive ourselves if we seek
Jesus on Calvary in humility and immolation. One can encounter illusion in
spiritual consolations, there is nothing to fear in obedience and sacrifice, in
the humble service of Jesus and in fidelity to our Rule of Life...".
OSP 4:205
108 "I did not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners' (Lk
5:32)... T take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but rather in the
wicked man's conversion, that he may live' (Ez 33:11). How encouraging all
these words are!... Jesus is always ready to forgive. Let us only go to Him...
In every instant, He is offered on the altars in some part of the world. He is
immolated for us. He offers His blood, His Passion, His death. Let us be
confident! He honors our confidence, it rejoices him...".
OSP 4:251
109 With regard to the prophetic figures of the sacrifice of Jesus: "The ManGod... The divine Lamb was immolated in these figures and in the explicit
faith of the patriarchs and the Israelites. In Revelation Saint John shows us
an immense crowd of all ages and all nations in adoration before the Lamb
wounded in the Heart, and singing their canticle to God and to the Lamb [Rv
7:9 - 12]. It is not only in the divine design that the Lamb of God was
immolated and that His Heart was pierced for all eternity; it is also on the
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earth, at the altar of the true God and in the faith of true believers; in figurative
and prophetic immolation under the ancient law; real and bleeding on
Calvary; real again, but not bleeding in the Eucharist. The immolation of the
divine Lamb is the greatest fact in history. The priesthood is the highest
mission".
110 P. 387: Commenting on Rv 5:9 - "You are worthy, Lord, of all honor,
of all power, of all love, because you were immolated and you ransomed men
through your blood. Your death has become your claim to glory, you triumph
because you have been immolated. It is your goodness, your mercy, it is of
your love which the angels and the saints sing [Here follows a long quotation
from Rv 5:11 - 13]. Shall I be the only one, Lord, not to praise you?"
OSP 4:270
111 "It is as the soul of reparation that the holy Virgin Mary was manifested
at La Salette... Her clothing was symbolic: work garments and the
instruments of the Passion that indicates humble and modest work accepted
in a spirit of reparation, the abnegation of the will, sacrifice, immolation,
abandonment, bearing the crosses".
OSP 4:318FF
112 Numerous meditations for the month of October are consecrated to
devotion to the Sacred Heart according to Saint Margaret Mary. The themes
of reparation, of immolation, of consolation, recur often. Only a few of the
most significant passages are to be found here:
113 "The principle of this devotion [to the Heart of Jesus] is none other than
the overflowing love of God, love attempting yet a new effort to overcome
evil... Total consecration of our being to love and to the service of Our Lord,
thirst for immolation and sacrifice, that is what this little devotion must
provoke..." <p. 319>.
114 "... It is this entire sacrifice, this immolation of oneself, which Margaret
Mary always recommends... This immolation is consummated through the
habitual union with this divine Heart" <p. 355>.
115 "Our Lord... ceaselessly made use of Margaret Mary as a victim for the
interests of His Heart, and she gave herself up without reserve to this
immolation with holy enthusiasm" <p.372>.
116 The mediation for October 20tn concentrates entirely on immolation, pp.
375 - 377.
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OSP 4:425FF
117 During the month of November, the meditations concern devotion to the
Sacred Heart as envisioned by Saint Gertrude and Saint Mechtilde. Once
again, many themes utilize significant aspects of immolation, although the
word itself is practically unused. Instead we read of the praise of adoration
and abandonment to the good pleasure of Jesus; conformity with Him to the
will of God through love; the sanctification of our days through union with
the Heart of Jesus and to His intentions; humility and trust in the tenderness
of His mercy; the fervent desire to grow in His love and to find there joy and
strength; daily fidelity in "small things". Here are a few extracts:
118 "Christ is the natural mediator between God and men. He is also the
sovereign priest. In this double role, He gives to God and He gives to men:
to God the glory, adoration, praise, thanksgiving; to men the grace, pardon,
resurrection, eternal life. These sublime functions commence on the day of
the Incarnation, they continued through all the life of the Savior, they were
fully exercised above all in the last days of His life, when He offered His
blood and His life on the altar of the cross and He instituted the Eucharist and
the priesthood of the new law to perpetuate His sacrifice. But the center from
which these adorations and homages towards God sprang, and from which
flashed the grace of pardon and of sanctification for our souls, is truly the
altar of sacrifice" <p. 442>.
119 "Everything for you, Lord, for your love, for your glory. 'What do you
want me to do?' (Acts 22:10). That will be my habitual disposition..." <p.
447>.
120 "That which is no less urgent in order to maintain the sacred fire of
divine love is to sacrifice our heart well, in departing from all outside
affection not in conformity with our duty and with the will of Jesus. The great
solicitude of a soul passionate about the Sacred Heart is to love Him alone
and all the others for Him" <p. 467>.
121 "I truly feel, Lord, this loving compassion for you. I suffer all the
outrages which were performed upon you. I accept the pains, which your
Providence will send me. I offer today and I will offer frequently all your
expiations and all the merits of your Passion" <p. 470>.
122 "I will be faithful in little things. I will be faithful to my Rule, to my
vows, to my Rule of Life. I will be for Jesus a faithful, devoted and assiduous
friend. I will renew this resolution before my principal actions" <p. 500>.
OSP 4:581FF
123 The theme of immolation often recurs also in the meditations on the
mystery of Christmas: the humbling of the Word in the Incarnation, for Jesus,
as for Mary and Joseph, the poverty and the humility of His birth, Jesus'
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Dehoniana
intention of coming among us, for us and for our salvation, the persecution
which pursued Jesus from the start of His life... Here are a few examples:
124 During the journey to Bethlehem, imposed by the edict of the emperors:
"The angels went in procession with Our Lord. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were
not at all sad about this disgrace [His birth in poverty, the lack of any room
in the inn]. It was a question of obeying and preparing infinite graces for us.
They went with joy, as Mary went with joy to show charity towards Saint
Elizabeth [Lk 1:39]. It is thus that Our Lord had to carry the cross until the
end of His life: "He bore His cross with joy" [Heb 12:2; Fr. Dehon read the
text in the traditional Latin version]. Every step brought them closer to our
salvation. They went to the house of bread, Bethlehem, to take there the bread
of life. Through obedience and immolation, embraced with joy, they prepared
graces for souls and especially for the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart" <p.
581>.
125 "Although this feast of Christmas is essentially joyous, the spirit of
immolation and reparation must not be absent from it; Our Lord came to us
to save us, to bring us peace and joy, but in what conditions of humility,
poverty, sacrifice did He come? Little child, He was a little victim and He
taught us immolation as the path to grace and salvation" <p. 586, 587>.
126 With regard to the simplicity of the shepherds, the first to whom the
mystery of Christmas was manifested: "Our practical, daily, constant life,
does it respond to our beautiful vocation, which demands of us pure love,
reparation and immolation? Let us learn from the shepherds a new lesson of
simplicity, of faith, of docility before grace. Let us remember everything
which Our Lord has asked of us in order to respond from now onwards with
fidelity. In this way, this Christmas will truly be a new spiritual birth for us.
Let us today also take a look at the little victims immolated by Herod, the
holy innocents. Let us immolate ourselves through the sword of sacrifice,
obedience, and abnegation" <p. 596>.
------------------------------Fr. André Perroux, S.C.J. (Province of Francophone Europe), after
having been Vicar General to Fr. Panteghini (1979 -1991), he was a member
of the Study Center, particularly in order to study and to update the
spirituality of the Congregation. His principal task has been to participate in
deciphering and putting into computer the manuscripts contained in the
Dehonian archives, in particular the abundant correspondence.
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