We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus
for the good works which God has already designated
to make up our way of life.

Ephesians 2: 9-10

There are those who will look at the above passage and declare it harks back to Jansenism or Calvin, where eternal life depends upon God’s decision, not free will.

Claude de la Colombiere and Margaret Mary Aloque knew better, as do we. Love is not love if coerced; unfit for both the giver and receiver. Let us take a look at these special friends of the Sacred Heart, and of one another.

Claude was the third child of the notary Bertrand La Colombiere and Margaret Coindat, born on February 2nd, 1641 at St. Symphorien d’Ozon in the Dauphine, southeastern France, according to the Vatican news services regarding saints/ lit/doc. Later, the family moved to Vienne, where Claude began his early education, and completed his studies in rhetoric and philosophy in Lyon.

Probably, it was there that Claude began to consider life as a Jesuit, though he had once noted he felt a “terrible aversion for the life embraced,” understandably so. Here was a young man, highly literate, accustomed to an active social life among the nobility, choosing to follow the Christ, who identified with the poor, cared for the broken-hearted, welcomed the stranger, and spoke of a Kingdom without borders.

While studying theology in Paris, he tutored the children of Colbert, the minister of finance for Louis XIV, until someone found an uncomplimentary note about the minister’s fiscal policies on Claude’s desk, and the tutor was sent packing.

Yet, the future Jesuit did nothing half-way when he became a novice at Avignon in 1660, where he pronounced his first vows and completed his studies in philosophy before teaching grammar and literature there for five years.

On February 2nd, 1675, Claude made his solemn profession and was named rector of the out-of-the-way College at Paray-le-Monial, not, one would have thought, an auspicious start for the talented, pious follower of St. Ignatius.

However, his superiors had been searching for someone to act as the spiritual director for a humble religious of the Monastery of the Visitation, Margaret Mary Aloque.

She had been born six years after Claude, on July 22, 1647, into an upper class family. After her father’s death, when still a small child, she attended boarding school, staffed by the Urbanist Sisters at Charollles, where she loved the peace of the convent life, and was able to receive her First Holy Communion. Because of a rheumatic problem, she returned home and was bedridden for four years.

Some of her father’s relatives moved onto the farm, and took over the house, but when her eldest brother came of age, he was able to retrieve the property, and the home belonged to the family once more.

The family wanted Margaret Mary to marry, and she considered it carefully, but at the age of twenty, possibly inspired by a vision, she entered the convent of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial, and made her profession at the age of twenty-two. She was assigned to the infirmary as her task, and, apparently, she wasn’t very good at it. I have an idea she was kind, which is always good medicine.

The first vision of the Sacred Heart occurred on December 27, 1673, when she was kneeling at the grille in the chapel, and the Lord told her that the love of His heart must spread and be manifested to his people, and He would grant her the graces to help Him.

A series of revelations covered a period of eighteen months. When Margaret Mary told her superior about them, Mother de Saumaise reprimanded her for her presumption. Margaret Mary was distraught, collapsed and became so ill it appeared she might not live.

The Superior invited some theologians who happened to be in town, including a Jesuit and a Benedictine, to hear the story. They pronounced her delusional. But Father Claude declared otherwise, and he helped to spread the devotion to the Sacred Heart wherever he went.

The four volumes of his sermons and one of his retreat notes published two years after his death, show how faithful he was to that mission.

Before sailing for London, he promised to continue his spiritual direction of Margaret Mary by correspondence. He also must have considered the fact that he might be facing martyrdom. Because of the trumped-up charges of treason, known as the Titus-Oates plot, Catholic laity, priests and Jesuits in particular, were subject to imprisonment and execution on the whim of anyone looking for a bounty from Charles II.

As the preacher to the Duchess of York, Claude would be the most visible and vulnerable Jesuit in the realm. But he would gladly preach to a special lover of Christ, for the Duchess, Maria D’Esta, a daughter of the Italian Duke of Modena, had wanted to be a nun, but was persuaded by the pope to marry the 40-year old English widower, James, Duke of York, later, King James II.

The future queen of England mother of seven, was only 15 when she asked, “Why couldn’t I have been born in a hut somewhere? Then I could have picked the life I wanted.” (Jesuit magazine, Company, summer, 1992).

How grateful she must have been to have had Claude offering Mass in the palace, preaching and acting as her confessor. She, too, became devoted to the Sacred Heart and pleaded with the pope to establish a feast, but this was not done for a number of years.

Did Charles II ever drop in to visit his sister-in-law, to listen to her account of Claude’s sermons? Doubtful. Although Charles’ mother was Catholic, he had been baptized Anglican, and had been schooled by his teachers in the philosophy that he should take religion just seriously enough to impress the masses, no more.

Claude could have played it safe and restricted his preaching to the palace, but he chose to preach openly in the churches, knowing spies were present among the faithful.

Sure enough, in 1678, a friend whom Claude had helped, turned him in as a traitor for the sum of 100 pounds.

He was imprisoned in a small, underground cell of the King’s Bench prison, where many prisoners died of neglect and malnutrition. In January of 1679, his health broken, probably from tuberculosis, the saint was deported, and returned to Paray in poor condition.

On February 15, 1682, the first Sunday of Lent, toward evening, Claude suffered the severe hemorrhage which ended the life that had been dedicated to bringing souls to God along the gospel way of love and mercy.

Margaret Mary was appointed assistant and novice-mistress by a new Mother Superior who was more sympathetic towards her. Opposition was lessened after an account of her visions was read aloud in the refectory from the writings left by Father Claude, who had made known to the world the nun’s remarkable experiences.

When she was forty-three, while serving a second term as assistant superior, Margaret Mary fell ill. She received the Last Sacraments, saying, “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the Heart of Jesus.”

The Sacred Heart is known by millions, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, as the symbol of the Divine Shepherd’s care for his flock, everywhere, and for all time.

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