Third Elevation
Solitary Heart
First complaint of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus to the indifferent soul
I
Reflection. – Woe to the one who is alone, said the Holy Spirit; Vae soli[1]. Isolation is not in the order of Providence. God, the infinite perfection, has divine relationships, three persons are in Unity by essence: his tres unum sunt[2]. The lonely heart is therefore always a wounded heart, deceived in its affections, scorned in its devotion, or disappointed in its hopes; it has withdrawn from men, or men have withdrawn from it, and it is alone!
II
Jesus. – I have not withdrawn, it is you who have left me; « my delight is to be with the children of men »[3], and they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug themselves cisterns without water[4]. I came to live with them on earth, and they killed me; I poured out all the blood of my heart on them to save them: I wanted to overcome them with love, I gave them back that same heart, resurrected from the tomb; and once again I left it on the earth, no longer in Judea only, as before; no longer on a single point of the globe where they must come from afar to pay me the homage due to me, but beside each of my people, at the door of their dwellings; not in an ark of gold, but captive in their damp and cold tabernacles, I, the Lord your God, the Most High, the Mighty King of heaven and earth! And there I have stretched out my arms in vain for eighteen centuries to a rebellious people whose passions are carrying them away from me[5].
I am alone in my temple; not only is the church where I reside often deserted, but sometimes the doors are closed. Who thinks of me with love?… My heart is alone !…
III
The soul – Vae soli! And it is on you, O Jesus, that we ourselves, in exchange for your incomparable love, made this anathema fall, when your heart had brought you in the tabernacles of the Eucharist to remain with us, to spare us!
And we have only returned you bitter ingratitude!
Many souls, it is true, like shining and burning lamps, keep you faithful company day and night; but what is that, alas! compared to the great number of those who should surround you? And still, do they all bring you the consolation that your heart desires?
The loneliness that makes you suffer is not so much the absence of creatures as the isolation of the heart: who would not prefer to be alone than to live with an enemy, or only an indifferent one? And it is with enemies, with indifferent people, that, indifferent myself, I left you, Jesus, while your Heart, as if in mourning under its Eucharistic veils, remained alone in its prison of love.
Ah, what consoles me is that your prison, O Jesus, in spite of our cruelty in making it unworthy of you, has, in its darkness and isolation, avenues to heaven, where myriads of angels come to praise you; what shall I say, it is heaven itself, since it contains you.
The souls who have not left you, also know the paths that I no longer know. Alas! why have I lost track of them? Woe to those who lack the heart of the Heart of Jesus; they deserve this anathema: The light of his tabernacle will be covered with darkness, and the lamp that shone above it will be extinguished[6].
Lord, Lord, no, please do not let the wick that still smokes go out, I will wake up from my slumber, and from now on I will maintain the perpetual fire that you ask for before your altar,[7] that is, the continuous prayer before your Eucharistic Heart, O Jesus, in the way that you yourself command.
[1. Eccl. IV, 10.
[2] 1 John V, 7.
[3] Prov. VIII, 31.
[4] Cf. Jer. II, 13.
[5] Cf. Isaiah LXV, 2.
[6] Cf. Job XVIII, 6.
[7] Cf. Lev.,VI, 5.