3nd Stage - God so loved the world
God so loved the world
After the first two introductory steps, let's delve into the first part of our journey by diving into the message of Paray.
The events at Paray-le-Monial took place at the end of the 17th century. Three major apparitions of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary summarise the message that was delivered there, intended for all people. They occurred between late December 1673 and June 1675.
Three main dimensions can be identified in this message: a declaration of love, presented in this third stage; a complaint («love is not loved») and a request («return love for love») in the next stage.
This third stage therefore covers the first dimension of the Paray message: the declaration of love
The Heart of Jesus: A Heart Passionate with Love
01 A heart passionate about love
This statement is most developed in the first great apparition. Jesus expresses himself thus: My divine Heart is so passionate with love for mankind, and for you in particular, that since it can no longer contain within itself the flames of its ardent charity, it must spread them by means of you, and manifest itself to them to enrich them with its precious treasures that I am revealing to you. (Autobiography, § 53)
02 And Marguerite-Marie gives witness
He revealed to me the wonders of his love, and the inexplicable secrets of his sacred Heart, which he had always kept hidden from me until he opened it to me for the first time, but in a way so effective and sensitive that he left me no room for doubt.
03 Marguerite-Marie describes
Thus the second great apparition: It was then that He revealed to me the inexplicable wonders of His pure love, and to what excess He had carried it in loving men. (Autobiography, § 55)
04 The best-known expression
This love is found in the third great apparition. Jesus said: This is the Heart that so loved mankind that it spared nothing to the point of exhausting itself and consuming itself in order to show them its love (Autobiography, § 92).
Several aspects fuel our prayer
Jesus expresses a «passionate» love for us. It is not a distant love; it is a burning, ardent love for each one of us. It is a love «that spared nothing», as the Gospel expresses it: «Jesus, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end» (Jn 13:1).
Jesus has an immense thirst to communicate to us the love of his Heart. We are not talking here about our efforts to attain or merit God's love, but about the Heart of Jesus, «no longer able to contain» all the love he has for us, to the point where «he must pour it out». The Heart of Jesus is consumed by a thirst: the thirst for his love to reach us and set us on fire. We can contemplate this, and be moved by this completely irrepressible aspect of Jesus' desire for us.
Jesus says in the gospel: «I have come to set fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!» (Lk 12:49). The fire of his love: «As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.» (Jn 15:9).
Jesus says that his love is «for people, and for you in particular». This «for you» concerns each one of us. It's as if Jesus were saying: my Heart cannot rest until what I have done for all «men» takes on a personal form, a «particular» root in your life. At Paray-le-Monial, Jesus tells us that the love he has for all people, the salvation he works for all people, the presence he maintains with all people... he wants this to take on a very personal reality in each of our lives.
Jesus discovered to Saint Margaret Mary the secrets of his Heart and the marvels of his love, so much so that she could never doubt it again. This is a grace that we can ask for here at Paray-le-Monial. It is the grace received by Saint Margaret Mary, it is the grace received by thousands of pilgrims, it is the grace of the Heart of Jesus: to encounter the personal love of Jesus for me.
Marguerite-Marie experiences this grace through two very expressive gestures.
01 She rests for several hours on Jesus' breast
In the manner of Saint John, the beloved disciple (Jn 13:23). She hears the Heart of Jesus. She hears his love. And she lets herself be gripped: She recounts: «He let me rest for a long time on his breast, where he revealed to me the wonders of his love and the inexplicable secrets of his Sacred Heart which he had always kept hidden from me until then.".
02 Jesus takes the heart of Margaret Mary
And he plunged it into his own, aflame, before returning it to me, all incandescent. Here is his account: He asked me for my Heart, I begged him to take it. He placed it in his adorable one, within which he made me see it as a tiny atom consuming itself in that ardent furnace, from whence he withdrew it, like a blazing flame in the shape of a heart, and returned it to me in the place from which he had taken it.
We will certainly not live these experiencess
In the same way, but we can ask for the same graces: to rest on the Heart of Jesus so that he may reveal to us his passionate love, for me in particular; and to ask that he immerse our hearts in his own Heart, to inflame them with his charity...
