All lovers of the Sacred Heart were delighted to see in the year
of grace 1920 the long wished for canonization of Blessed
Margaret Mary Alacoque, whom God raised up in recent centuries to
revive the fire of devotion to the divine Heart of our Lord,
which had well-nigh been extinguished by the frost and drought of
the Jansenist heresy. The devotion to the Sacred Heart is too
often spoken of and thought of as a "modern" devotion, and in one
sense it is such. The life-work of St. Margaret Mary has not only
given that sweetest of devotions a much greater vogue and a
deeper intensity throughout the world, but it has even in our own
times led to still further and wider developments, such as the
beautiful and providential practice, whose world-wide spread we
owe to the blessing and encouragement of Pope Saint Pius X-I mean
the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home, which, thank
God, is becoming yearly more popular in our own country. But the
present book will show that in another sense the devotion is by
no means "modern." As will be seen, the first part consists of
copious translations from the marvellous mystical revelations of
a lover of the Sacred Heart of a much earlier century, the
Benedictine nun St. Mechtilde (1241-1298), whose enraptured
utterances surpass in some respects those of her better known
friend and disciple the great St. Gertrude, and whose
significance as the type of mystic theology has been immortalized
by Dante in his mighty epic. It will not fail to be observed how
extraordinarily similar a great deal of the inspired language and
profound imagery of the Saint of the thirteenth century is to
that of the one who was canonized last year; although I am not
aware that there is evidence of Margaret Mary having been a
student of the works of her illustrious predecessor. It is surely
both significant and instructive that our divine Lord deigned to
make known the mysteries and treasures of the unhomable abyss
of His divine Love in a manner so similar, often identical, to
two of His chosen spouses, at an interval of several centuries.
The pious translator of the following treatises, however, very
truly remarks that in the revelations of the earlier of these
Saints, the mystic doctrines of the Sacred Heart are presented
more especially for the guidance and edification of the chosen
few, especially of the inmates of the cloister, called to the
more hidden life. On the other hand, the cult of the Sacred Heart
in these last three centuries has become, and is becoming daily
more and more, the common property of all the children of the
Church, of the laity as well as of the clergy and the religious,
of the working man and woman as well as of the theologian, and
even of the little children as well as of Christians of mature
years. And that recent form of it to which I have alluded above
-the Enthronement in the home, whether the palace or the
cottage-has further widened it to become the property and the
privilege not merely of the individual soul, but of the whole
Christian family. May every reader of these pages pray for her
who in the midst of grave ness and pain during her last
illness compiled them out of her abounding love to the Sacred
Heart of our Blessed Lord.