I'm Burning for You

John 15:9-17

Phrases that spoke to me today:
• as the Father loves me, so I also love you
• remain in my love
• love one another as I love you

Applying the Word to My Life:
Margaret Mary was sick for years as a child, and during that illness she promised the Blessed Virgin Mary that if she recovered, she would give her life to religious life. Then she got better and discovered that the promise was harder to keep than it had seemed from a sickbed.

She liked being young. She enjoyed dressing well, going out, being noticed, and the ordinary pleasures of life. Her mother wanted her settled in the world, and Margaret Mary began to believe the promise she'd made as a sick child might not bind her. Then, after a night at a ball, she had a vision of Christ scourged, reproaching her for how little she'd answered the love He had shown her. Eventually, she chose the convent and entered the Visitation community at Paray-le-Monial.

There, while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, Margaret Mary began experiencing Christ with an intensity she had never known. What overwhelmed her was His love. She came to understand His Heart as burning with love for humanity, pouring itself out freely even when that love was ignored or returned with indifference.

That's where today's Gospel begins to sound less like a beautiful saying and more like the center of everything. Jesus says, "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love." Margaret Mary was discovering what those words meant when they became personal. Christ wasn't merely telling humanity that it was loved. He was showing her a love so real that she became convinced other people needed to know about it.

That conviction wasn't immediately welcomed. Some of the people around her doubted what she was experiencing, and Margaret Mary had to keep discerning whether she could trust what was happening. Then the Jesuit priest Claude de la Colombière arrived. He listened carefully, questioned her, and came to believe that God really was at work.

The Sacred Heart isn't first a demand that we love Jesus more. It's a revelation of how much Jesus already loves us.

Yesterday we went inward because God dwells there. Margaret Mary lets us see the Heart of the One we meet. His presence isn't cold or distant. His love is already turned toward us.

But Jesus doesn't say only, "Remain in my love." He also says, "Love one another as I love you." What we receive in prayer is meant to become visible in the way we treat the people around us.

Margaret Mary had to live that out in a convent where some of the sisters treated her as a visionary and a problem. Her answer was obedience, humility, and steady charity toward the people who opposed her. In time, even some of her harshest critics came to recognize that something real was at work in her.

Most of us won't be doubted for seeing visions, but all of us have someone who's hard on us: the coworker who dismisses us, the relative who keeps score, the person who's decided what kind of person we are. If Christ's love is becoming ours, that's one of the first places it should show. Not because they've earned it, but because we received it first.

We can only give away the love we're willing to receive. But if we really receive it, we can't keep it to ourselves.

Margaret Mary spent the rest of her life helping the Church understand what had become clear to her.

Before Christ asks us to give Him our hearts, He shows us His.

Then He teaches us to love with it.

My Response for Today:
Today I'll receive Christ's love, then give some of it to someone who needs it from me.

ABOUT ST. MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE
Name: St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (Marguerite-Marie Alacoque)
Lived: July 22, 1647, Lhautecour, France – October 17, 1690, Paray-le-Monial, France
Feast Day: October 16
Title: Visitation nun; Apostle of the Sacred Heart
Read more: Franciscan Media · New Advent: St. Margaret Mary Alacoque