2023-06-08 07:01:00
June 8, 2023 / 12:01 a.m.
Every June 8, the Church remembers Maria Droste zu Vischering, universally known as Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart, religious of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, who was instrumental in consecrating Pope Leo XIII the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“It is impossible to resist the voice of God”
Maria Droste zu Vischering was born in Münster (Germany) on September 8, 1863, the day of the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. Along with her came a twin brother, Max. Her parents were fervent Catholics and belonged to the German nobility, remaining faithful even during the difficult years of the “Kulturkampf” (“Cultural Combat”, 1871-1878), in which the German Empire legally and culturally harassed the Catholics of the country.
In her early childhood, Maria learns to play the piano and lives a serene childhood with her family. From these days comes her encounter with the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She receives her First Communion together with Max in April 1875 and months later, in September, she is Confirmed. Her first religious concerns pass through her head, although without much solidity.
In 1878, Mary was struck by a sermon on the great commandment of the Law, of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Saint Matthew: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul”. She herself relates what those words aroused in her soul: “At that moment I thought: I have to become a religious! I would have preferred that my ears had not heard it, but it is impossible to resist the voice of God”.
A heart open to the Spirit
By 1879, while in the boarding school of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Riedenburg, Maria understood a fundamental truth that would mark her for the rest of her life: “I began to understand that without a spirit of sacrifice, love for the Heart of Jesus is only an illusion. “, writes the blessed.
At the age of 20, while praying, Maria listens to a voice that tells her: “You will be the wife of my Heart.” On August 5 of that same year, 1883, Maria expressed to her parents her definitive desire to become a religious.
“You will be the wife of my Heart”
Ten years after hearing the sermon that changed her life, in 1888, Maria entered the convent of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd in Münster, responding to an inspiration that the Sacred Heart aroused within her.
In 1889 he took religious habits, the same day -January 10- in which the Carmelite Saint Therese of the Child Jesus did the same in Lisieux. The blessed herself adopts the name of “Sister Mary of the Divine Heart”.
Consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart
Sometime between 1887 and 1888, Sister María, at the express request of Jesus himself -who continued to reveal his will to him through interior locutions-, wrote a letter addressed to Pope Leo XIII to request the consecration of humanity to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Pope Leo XIII not only agreed to the request, but also expressly stated that this had been “the most important decision of his pontificate.” On May 25, 1899, the Pope published the encyclical “Annum Sacrum” (Sacred Year) in which he explained the need to consecrate the world to the Sacred Heart of Christ. Sister Maria received the news with deep joy, however, her health was deteriorating and she would not live to the day the consecration took place.
On June 8, 1889, Sister María gave her soul to the Lord in Porto (Portugal), in the mother house of the Congregation, after suffering paralysis for three years. Only 3 days later, on June 11, the Holy Father presided over the ceremony of Consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
To the definitive encounter of the Heart that loved so much
On the Solemnity of All Saints, November 1, 1975, Sister María was beatified by Pope Saint Paul VI, on the 300th anniversary of the revelations of the Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret María Alacoque, by whose side Blessed María del Divino Corazón stands out as a great apostle of the mercy of the Sacred Heart of Christ.
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