Sainte Margaret Mary 16th October
“If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.I have told you this so thay my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.”
Just in the same way the vine nourishes the branches by the sap, Jesus never stops wanting to spread his Love in us. This Love is so overflowing, that he only asks of us to spread it around us. Jesus makes us dizzy, since he asks us to love one another as he loved us, as he loved as the Father loved him. It is to dwell in the unfathomable depth of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knows what makes man act as he does, he spoke to us of love and we want to dwell in love. The apostles remained in Jesus’ love for it is Jesus who has the words of Eternal Life. In order to love us, Jesus doesn’t want for us to reach perfection. Again, it is his Love which will bring this about. A loving heart makes the hardness of our hearts melt, all thoses resistances to love, and it establishes us in love. This Love is peace, joy, gentleness, silence : ’In his image and in his ressemblance, he created them, man and woman he made them’, in order to live in His Love. Jesus is Love, and in an unbelievable gentlenes and a great humility, he reveals the Father’s Love to us. Saint Margueret-Mary has us penetrate in this love of Jesus Christ come into our flesh. Jesus had God’s Love beat in his human heart and he offered himself in this way to humanity. In each one of us, the desire to love infinitely and to be infinitely loved comes from our origins. As soon as we encounter a heart that loves, the difficulties in our life are flattened out, worries fade away, at last a conversion comes about in our hearts.
“This is my commandment : love one another, as I have loved you. No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if yu do what I command you. I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know a master’s business; I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have learnt fom my Father.”
We realise that the verb to love is reduced to the feeling of love which is volatile and by definition something inconstant. We orientate our love in the
mystery of Jesus so as to make it grow in love which is an act that commits our whole being, an act of will, an act of the gift of one self, capable of going beyond all of the most contradictory feelings which can assail us. Jesus, in his humanity,expresses the total gift of himself which accomplishes fully his Father’s will. The friendship between Jesus and ourselves is the response to this love that is loved out in daily life. To love is to make people come alive, it is to live so that the other lives so that he can seek himself find himself say who he is; it is to make another exist until time runs out. Jesus’ Love doesn’t let us rest, there is no greater love than giving one’s life. Today, Jesus manifests his Heart to Margaret Mary who understood her vocation in this love. She entered into all sorts of trials, and Mary healed her from her illness. She was taken up by Jesus’ Love : ’If you are faithful to me, I shall no longer leave you, I shall teach you to know me and I shall manifest myself to you.’ God’s patience, his Infinite Love will go right to the end of all obstacles, thus bringing the whole of herself to himself. Jesus loves us all with an infinite Love, so we can love Him as he has loved us. “Jesus has me (Margaret Mary) rest on his divine bosom where he has me discover the marvels of his love and the unexpressable secrets of his Sacred Heart which He had always hidden to me.’”You did not chooe me; no, I chose you ; and I commissioned you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last ; so that the Father will give you anything you ask in my name. My command to you is to love one another."
When Jesus is waiting for Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane and when he sees his friend drawing near , he who had betrayed him for a few coins of silver, surrounded by all these soldiers, it is hard for us to imagine that he felt for him at that instant a feeling of love towards him, but he nevertheless did love this man Judas right to the end, just as the Father loved him ; he loved him as far as giving up his life for him on the cross, yes indeed, for him too. Jesus gives us the source of this love : ’Dwell in my Love!’ And so Jesus’ joy finds an echo within ourselves and our life, full or painful, begins to let a passage for true life. Jesus said to Margaret Mary : ’ My heart is burning for mankind and for you particularly.’ This priviliged love of Jeus is like a sun shining on precious pearls; the more the pearl shines the more it shines onto othrs and making them to shine too. ’And for you in particular, ’ says Jesus to her, ’no longer being able to contain the flames of my ardent charity, I must spread them through you and they have to manifet themselves to them so as to enrich them with my own treasures.’ Indeed, God’s Love is the only one that can
really heal us. Jesus’ Love joins us so that we begin to love in our turn the One who loved us so much. He will give us brothers to love.