The Devotion to the Sacred Heart Of Jesus. 24.

BY THE REV. H. NOLDIN, S.J. 

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN.

REVISED BY THE REV. W. H. KENT, O.S.C

3- One revelation which B. Margaret records in her letters affords us a deep insight into the nature of the devotion of the Sacred Heart and the designs of Our Lord. It was His desire, she relates, that Louis XIV., king of France, should consecrate himself to the adorable Heart of Jesus, in order that Christ the Lord might hold supreme sway over the heart of the king, and through his instrumentality over the hearts of the magnates of the realm. He desired that a church should be erected and a picture of the Sacred Heart set up in it, that the king and all the court might pay homage to it, and finally that the king should procure from the Holy See the institution of a Mass in honour of the Heart of Jesus.

Pere de la Chaise, a Jesuit, who had great influence with Louis XIV., was commissioned by our divine Lord to acquaint him with His wishes and designs, and prevail upon him to carry them into execution. This was intended as an admonitory call to the king to turn to God and make use of his power for the welfare of the Church. The promises Our Lord made to him provided he would comply with His wishes were magnificent and wonderful. One would have thought the king would surely be induced to amend his ways, and devote himself to the service of the divine Heart. Unhappily it was not so; he did not comply with Our Lord's demands, and the royal house of France has had bitterly to atone for his rejection and neglect of grace.

For us, however, the reason why Our Lord desired to have homage paid to Him by the king and court of France has a deep and important signification. He declared it to be His wish to be honoured in the dwellings of princes and monarchs to the same extent that He was dishonoured and humiliated in them at the time of His Passion; and that He would experience as much gratification on seeing the great ones of the earth humbling and abasing themselves before Him, as He, did pain when He stood in their presence an object of their supreme con tempt. The homage of the king and his courtiers would have been a reparation for the insults which the Son of God met with in the dwellings of rulers, during His Passion more especially.