The Sacred Heart in Ursuline Spirituality

 

Today we keep the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Before the apparitions of Jesus to St Margaret Mary this devotion can be found in the spirituality of a seventeenth century French Ursuline, Blessed Mary of the Incarnation. It features in her Apostolic Prayer found below. In it are to be found many echoes of St Angela's Prayer given in Chapter V of her Rule.

 

" By the Heart of my Jesus, who is the Way, .the Truth and the Life,

I approach Thee, O Eternal Father.

By this divine Heart, I adore Thee for all who love Thee not;

I love thee for all who love Thee not;

I acknowledge Thee to be my God for all who,

wilfully blind, out of contempt, refuse to acknowledge Thee.

By this divine Heart, I would render Thee the homage which all thy creatures owe Thee.

In spirit I go round the wide world in search of all the souls

redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus.

I embrace them all to present them to Thee by Him and by Him,

I ask for their conversion.

Oh! can it be , Eternal Father, that thou wilt allow them to remain in ignorance of my Jesus?

Wilt thou suffer that they should not live for Him who died for all?

Thou seest, O Heavenly Father that they live not as yet!

oh ! give them life by this divine Heart.

 

On this adorable Heart, I present to Thee all who labour for the extension of the Gospel,

in order that by its merits they may be replenished with Thy Holy Spirit.

 

On this Sacred Heart, as upon a divine altar I present to Thee especially..........

.....................................................

Thou knowest, Incarnate Word, my beloved Jesus, all that I would ask Thy divine Heart, by Thy holy Soul. I ask it of Thee, when I ask it of Him, because Thou art in Thy Father, and Thy Father is in Thee.

Deign to do all this together with Him.

I present Thee all these souls; make them one with Thee. Amen