Eighth Elevation
Outraged Heart
Sixth Complaint of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus to sinners
I
Reflection. – Formal contempt is the height of contempt. To outrage someone who loves us is the last degree of odious cruelty, the last term of moral abasement. But when the one who loves us assumes all the superiorities, all the titles to affection, all the rights to recognition, the insult becomes the paroxysm of a guilty insanity, and the unfortunate one who assumes the crime reprehends himself: humiliata es usque ad inferos[1].
II
Jesus – Verbum iniquum constituerunt adversum me[2] : they have raised against me an iniquitous word. As a wife offends her loving husband, so the house of Israel has offended me[3]. I have done nothing but good to you, O you who are far from me, and yet you have made me sad. But I did not come only to bring you the grace of salvation, I wanted you to have it more abundantly[4] and to share in it, receiving from my heart a heavenly food which glorifies them from this life, depositing in them a seed of immortality[5]. And now, by your sins, you are defiling these bodies, which have become my members, and you are making them serve iniquity rather than respecting them and attaching your hearts to mine. You did not want to serve the Lord your God: non serviam[6], you said, I will not serve, preferring to lead you alone.
Alas, have you been more truly free, and is your happiness perfect? Instead of serving only a wise and good Master who gave you peace, you made gods of all your guilty passions and suffered as slaves their insatiable demands.
Now, in pursuit of the happiness that has fled, you run screaming: « peace ! peace ! » [7]. But alas, there is no more peace for the impious,[8] my heart has been moved,[9] and my heart, which from its tabernacle hears you and follows you, knows incomparably better than you all the evil you are doing to yourselves, and all the evil you are preparing, if your sin, in spite of my appeals, remains always without repentance.
Ah, since you are not happy, at least try now to find that which can give you peace,[10] open your eyes and your hearts, recognize your sin and be converted,[11] you rebellious children, return to me[12] your father, and I will heal the harm you have done by turning away from me.
Oh, faithful shepherds, go after them before they go further away, go quickly, gird up your loins[13], find them, return them to me.
And you, devoted souls, who know the ways of my heart, its desires and its ardent love, do effective penance for this lost people: Daughters of Zion, clothe yourselves with cilices and ashes and weep[14] with me; save them, for I do not want to be consoled until my lost sheep have been brought back to me. Oh, then no one will take them from my hand! Et non rapiet eas quisquam de manu mea[15].
III
The soul – 0 Jesus, you are really the good shepherd, and you have many times and in many ways given your life for your sheep[16]. Ah, yes, my Savior, to resist you, to insult you is indeed madness, but alas, a monstrous madness which is aware of its acts and which unites in each of them many crimes … the executioners who crucified you on Calvary were guilty, certainly, and foolish, but they were ignorant mercenaries, crude instruments of a hatred foreign to their will, and after all, blind executors of your secret dispositions in the mystery of our redemption. The merits of your blood had not yet purified them, the law of grace had not opened their eyes. They were cruel, yes, but truly men without reason; and this is precisely why your prayer was raised for them to your Father: « Forgive them, they know not what they do.[17]
How different, alas! is our condition, and what excuses can we find for a folly as enlightened as ours? We who have received the infused graces of holy Baptism, and who, from our childhood, have for the most part known your holy law; we who have been nourished with the flower of wheat[18] and who perhaps at one time have known, pressed upon your heart, the ineffable sweets of your Eucharist; we, protected, led, sustained in the various phases of our life by the innumerable prodigies of your Providence; we are the ones who have offended you!
Ah, if we are not among those who have devastated your pavilions and your tabernacles,[19] how much more have we upset your heart and offended your holiness by allowing sin to devastate the temple of the Holy Spirit which you have built in each one of us, to make it the place of your rest! You, whom the heavens cannot contain[20], and who wanted to choose my heart as the living tabernacle of yours, a heart that is already so narrow and into which, unfortunate as it is, I have let sin enter!
O Lord, my God, O Creator, have compassion on your inconsiderate creatures. See, we do not understand ourselves; we do not know what we want, and we distance ourselves from that which we seek, love and desire, when we instinctively seek that which can satisfy us.
It is here that your mercy must shine; how great, God of goodness, is the request I am going to make of you: Listen to it, I beg you, for mercy’s sake, still love those who do not love you; open up to those who do not knock; heal those who not only take pleasure in being sick, but work to become sicker … you said, O sweetest Jesus, that you came to convert sinners: here they are, O my God, have mercy on those who have no mercy on themselves …
Listen only to your heart, O Jesus, it is our advocate, and save us (St. Therese).
9th Elevation: Heart unknown to men
[1] Cf. Is. LVII, 9.
[2] Cf. Ps. XL, 9.
[3] Cf. Jerem. III, 2.
[4] Cf. John X, 1.
[5] Cf. Sap. XV,3.
[6] Cf. Jerem. II, 2o.
[7] Cf. Jerem. VI, 14.
[8] Cf. Is. LVII, 21.
[9] Cf. Jeremiah. XXXI, 20.
[10] Cf. Luke XIX, 42.
[11] Cf. Eccl. XVII, 21.
[12] Cf. Is. XLIV, 22.
[13] Cf. Jerem. I, 17.
[14] Cf. Jeremiah. VI, 28.
[15] Cf. John X, 28.
[16] Cf. ibid. 11.
[17] Cf. Luke XXIII, 34.
[18] Cf. Ps. LXXX, 17.
[19] Cf. Jerem. IV, 20.
[20] Cf. III Reg. VIII, 27.