Jean Croiset

“ It is, above all, burning with love for man; always open to pour out on them every sort of grace and blessing; always full of compassion for our evils; always urged by the desire to make us partakers of Its treasures, and to give Itself to us; always ready to receive us, and to be to us a refuge, an habitation, a Paradise even in this life. For all this, He finds nothing in the heart of man but hardness, forgetfulness, contempt, ingratitude. Are not these motives to induce Christians to honour this Sacred Heart, and to repair so many insults and outrages, by manifest proofs of their love? ”

“ Why cannot I, oh my God, wash with my blood every spot where Thy Sacred Heart has been so horribly outraged, and the greatest proof of Thy love received with such incredible contempt. Why cannot I, by some new kind of homage, humiliation and annihilation, repair so many sacrileges and profanations? Why cannot I, for one moment, be master of the hearts of all men, that I might repair, in some manner, by the sacrifice of all of them to Thee, the forgetfulness and insensibility of all those who refuse to know Thee, or who, though knowing Thee, have loved Thee so little? ”

“ It is not then death, which terrifies Him, and makes this chalice so bitter, but the ingratitude of those very men, who will not profit by His death. I have desired, Eternal Father, and more than ever I desire, to give liberty to slaves, but I have never desired to make ungrateful men. The outrages I am about to endure from my enemies, do not alarm Me, but the contempt, that I foresee my own children will show Me, afflicts Me, the blindness of the first moves Me, but the enormous ingratitude of these last, pierces My Heart with grief. ”

“ And yet, without this pure and true love of Jesus Christ, there is no solid devotion, no perfect virtue.
"My God!" exclaimed a great servant of God, "what confusion and disorder is this? At one time we are cheerful, at another sad; to-day we are kind to every one, to-morrow we are like a hedge-hog, that no one can touch without being pricked." This is a clear proof of a want of virtue. It is a sign that nature still reigns in us, that our passions are not mortified. A truly virtuous man is always the same. ”

“ Are we astonished, then, with all this, that we have neither spiritual consolations nor sentiments of devotion, after ten or twenty years spent by us in the exercise of virtue and the practice of good works? Do we lament that we make no progress, that we are always imperfect, that the use of the Sacraments is of little profit to us, that we do not know what sensible devotion is? That secret pride which we nourish in the depth of our heart, dries up, as it were, the fountain of the greatest graces. ”

“ Permit me, oh Lord to say to Thee, that however great may be the benefits Thou hast granted me, Thou hast not yet given me enough, if thou hast not given me Thy love. Give me, my divine Saviour, a heart like Thine. Give me Thy Heart." Truly, a Priest, who does not feel the effects of a sacrifice, which has power to cancel the sins of the whole world, has great reason to fear. My God! what graces dost Thou not shower on a well-disposed soul! Who can explain the sweetness that Thou makest us experience at the Altar. ”

“ This sad view plunges His Heart into an abyss of grief; He sees that heretics, refusing to believe that He has loved us to such an excess, will make use of this excess of love, to outrage Him most cruelly; and also those impious men, professing to believe in Him, will commit horrible sacrileges. If this Divine Saviour had done for demons, the hundredth part of what He has done for men, would He have been so ill repaid? O my Divine Saviour, these insults and this ingratitude have had power to trouble Thee, and shall I never be touched by them! ”

“ It is evident that the love of Jesus Christ cannot exist at the same time with a vice so opposed to it. How can our blessed Saviour, who would have the first of the beatitudes, the foundation of the spiritual life, and the first step to be taken in the path of virtue, to be that spirit of humility which He Himself has chosen, in preference to all the other virtues as His own special characteristic; — how can He be greatly loved by those who so little resemble Him? This sincere humility of mind and heart is the distinctive character of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Alas, Lord! he whom Thou lovest so tenderly, is sick. Can I doubt of Thy love, after all Thou hast done for me, and all that Thou now dost? If thou lovest me, canst Thou see my infirmities and not heal them? But, above all, canst Thou see that I love Thee so little, without inflaming my heart with the sacred fire of Thy love? Even though Thou shouldst refuse me all the rest, couldst Thou deny me Thy perfect love? ”

“ No, no, Lord; it shall never be true that Thou art so universally abandoned; it shall never be true that Thou canst not find any one to participate in Thy sorrow. I ask of Thee, oh Lord, that Thou wouldst pour, from Thy Heart into mine, one drop of that torrent of bitterness with which Thine was inundated, at the sight of so much ingratitude and so many insults, that, if I am not happy enough, to be able to blot out my sins, by the shedding of all my blood, I may be at least afflicted enough, to wash them away continually by my tears. ”

“ Should we not desire to be better loved by men than we ourselves love Jesus Christ? Would it be sufficient if our friends showed us no more affection than we evince towards this loving Saviour? Should we desire that persons, whom we think we have obliged, should feel for us the same gratitude we show Him? And should we allow our children and our servants, to be as little respectful in our presence, as we are, in the presence of Jesus Christ in His Churches, at the foot of His Altars? ”

“ This must be your treasury from which you are to draw all that you may require in order to become rich — purity, pure love, fidelity. But the most precious and the most abundant riches this treasury contains are, humiliations, sufferings, and an ardent love of the greatest poverty. The esteem and love of these things is so precious a gift that it is only to be found in its original source, the Heart of a God made man. All other hearts, however holy and noble, possess it in a greater or less degree; only as they seek it with more or less diligence in this treasury, the Heart of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Jesus Christ alone is sovereignly perfect. Everything in Him is equally amiable.
There is nothing in Him, but what ought to win all hearts to Him. In Him, we find united all the advantages of nature, all the riches of grace and of glory, all the perfections of the Divinity. We discover abysses, a boundless space as it were, and an infinite extent of greatness. In a word, this God Incarnate who loves us so tenderly, and whom men love so little, is the object of the love, the homage, the adorations and the praises of the whole Court of heaven. ”

“ We fear that if we had an ardent love for Thee, we should feel nothing but disgust for all that we have loved, and that we still love. In a word, we seem to fear that we shall not be able to help loving Thee. But regard not, oh my Saviour, these sentiments that arise within us, and which we detest as soon as we perceive them. Give us only Thy love with thy grace, and we shall be rich enough. How soon shall we, disgusted with everything else, if, opening to us Thy Sacred Heart, Thou allowest us but once to taste the sweetness that is experienced in loving Thee. ”

“ The ardent love, the tender devotion, and the lively faith with which we communicate must be a mark of our sincere desire to repair, as far as we can, the coldness, the incredulity, and the irreverence with which so many have communicated. Moved with sensible grief at seeing Jesus Christ so little loved, and even outraged in the adorable Eucharist, we must receive Him as an angry God, Whom we wish to appease by this action; as an offended Saviour, with Whom we wish to be reconciled; as a Spouse, disgusted by our indifference, Whom we desire to love perfectly for the future. ”

“ He sees all our weaknesses, and bears with incredible goodness all the miseries of those He loves. He forgets them, and appears not to perceive them. His compassion goes so far as to give comfort to those souls who are too much afflicted at them. He does not desire that our fear of displeasing Him should go so far as to disturb us and torment our minds. He would have us avoid the smallest faults; but He does not even wish that we should be disquieted at great ones: He desires that joy, liberty and peace of heart should be the eternal portion of those that truly love Him. ”

“ The work of Redemption is fulfilled. Nothing but His excessive desire of being continually with us, obliges Him to work this constant miracle, and this compendium of all His wonders; His immense love making it, as it were, impossible to Him to be separated from us. Jesus has ascended to His Father: why does He every day return invisibly on earth, if not because He cannot separate Himself from men, and His delights are to be with us? Who would ever have thought that Jesus Christ could have loved us to this excess? ”

“ Can we still retain any feeling of humanity, and not be all inflamed with love for Jesus Christ, at the sight of such a benefit? A God feels tenderness for man, takes delight in him, and is solicitous about him! A God desires to unite Himself to us, and desires it to such an extent as to annihilate and immolate Himself daily, and to wish that we should feed upon Him every day, without being in the least changed, either by the indifference, the disgust, or the contempt of those who never receive Him, or by the coldness and the faults of those who receive Him often! ”

“ Creatures shall have no part in it. Do Thou, then, my loving Jesus, be my Father, my friend, my Lord, my All. Since Thou art pleased to be content with my heart, how can it desire anything but Thine? I wish, in future, to live only for Thee. Receive then, oh loving Saviour of the world, the sacrifice made to Thee by the most ungrateful of mankind, to repair the injury which, up to this time, I have not ceased to do Thee by offending Thee. ”