It was during the reign of Louis XIV, the 'Sun King of France', when the French court was at the very height of its splendor, and Versailles was the cultural centre of Europe. Many of our commonplaces nowadays originated during this time.
If you look at the icons of the Greek Church, from a very early period, you will see a common theme: the representation of "Chrístos Pantácrator" : "Christ the Creator of All". This, I believe, is a true representation of one aspect of the Creator, and doubtless appropriate for that particular age. Christ looks powerful, remote, inaccessible except through personal devotion.
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In the 17th Century, Our Lord appeared in France to a young nun, Margaret Mary, and told her, 'I am speaking to you because you are the dumbest person I can find. If I could have found a dumber person than you , I would have asked her instead.
"I wish you to go to the King of France and tell him that it is my wish that the emblem of the Sacred Heart of Jesus be added to the flag of France. And I wish for the Kingdom of France to be formally consecrated to Me in the Name of My Sacred Heart."
"And tell the Holy Father that I wish a new Feast to be established in the Church: the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus".
"I will bless the house in which the Image of My Sacred Heart is exposed and venerated".
Margaret Mary did these things to the best of her limited ability – not personally.
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The Feast of the Sacred Heart is set for the Friday of the week after Corpus Christi. This year (2026) it is on 12 June.
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But note well: four hundred years before this, St Gertrude was given a preview. She had been taken as an orphan to a Benedictine Monastery and raised by the nuns. We will not here describe her life, except to mention that Our Lord told her that she was one of the nine people in the world at that time who satisfied Him completely with her love and her life.
One evening, in the small hours of the night, Gertrude was devoutly reciting Matins when she felt the palpable presence of S. John next to her. He was at the Last Supper, reclining on the Breast of Jesus. Gertrude was invited to participate. For a long time she rested there, hearing the beating of the Heart of Jesus. It was communicated to her that Jesus, although the Son of God who was eternally begotten of the Father, and who had personally witnessed the Creation of the World, yet had a human Heart that was deeply wounded by coldness, rejection, ingratitude.
At length Gertrude addressed John,
"Did you feel these joyful pulses, also?"
He replied,
"Indeed I did, and furthermore, my heart was filled to overflowing."
Gertrude responded,
"Why, then, did you not record these things in your wonderful Gospel"?
He replied,
"It was my task to record, for the Church yet young, a Word from the Eternal Word, whose words, indeed, will not be fully comprehended until the End of Time:
**but the language of these Joyful Pulses will be reserved for the Last Ages, when the world, grown cold in the love of God, will again be revived by these sweet Mysteries, and the contemplation thereon."**
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Louis XIV did not do as Our Lord had asked. Nor his successors.
**And one hundred years later, ***to the very day*** when he had received this message, the Assembly of the French Revolution voted the Monarchy of France out of existence. His descendent, Louis XVI, carried out the Act of Consecration in a forest, on the run: but it was too late: Heaven's deadline had expired. Within weeks he and his nearest and dearest were guillotined: and the modern, godless state of public life, became officially emplaced.
++ Just to mention: in our home the Image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus looks down from our walls on the living room and on the kitchen. And there are certain ways of talking and behaving that are simply not easy to carry out with Our Lord of the Sacred Heart looking down.
But even apart from that: "As for me and my household: we will serve the Lord."