Saint Mary Magdalene can obtain the gift of true repentance for all those who invoked her

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How Our Lord Pierced Magdalen’s Heart During the Passion


Revelations of St. Mechtilde
The Love of the Sacred Heart

Chapter 9 – How Our Lord Pierced Magdalen’s Heart During the Passion

Faithful souls followed our Lord when the disciples took flight. Later on, the Sacred Heart was to ask for consolation to repair so many injuries and so much ingratitude, but first it loaded them with great graces. The most highly privileged was Saint Mary Magdalen: she was also the most loving.

On the day of Saint Mary Magdalen’s feast, Mechtilde saw our Lord sweetly folding the humble penitent to His Sacred Heart. Mechtilde was astonished, remembering the words, “and incorruption brings near to God” (Wisdom 6:20) and here was Magdalen! But our Lord reassured Mechtilde: “The intensity of love that she bore Me on earth,” He said, “is the measure of the union which associates her with Me in heaven.”

And Mechtilde cried: “Oh, dearest Lord, teach me how I may praise you as the loving Saint does.” Our Lord replied: “You must do it in the five wounds that love imprinted in her soul at the time of My Passion. When I was hanging on the Cross and near the end, seeing My eyes, which had so often looked with mercy on her, about to close in death, Magdalen’s heart was pierced as with a sharp arrow. She also saw death about to close My ears which had so often listened to her petitions; she witnessed the sorrow and tears of My Mother whom she tenderly loved for My sake. She then received another wound in her breast which was moved by compassion. She then saw My lips, which had so often said kind words to instruct and console her, above all those words Your faith has made you safe, go in peace (Luke 7:50), grow white in death and become incapable of speech. She again felt her heart pierced. Shortly afterwards, seeing My Heart and being moved again to great love for Me, her heart was pierced again. And at last, when she saw Me, her life, her joy and all her treasure, without whom she seemed unable to live, dead and laid in the tomb, her soul dying, so to speak, by the violence of its love, succumbed under inexpressible sorrow.”

Mechtilde saw Magdalen standing before our Lord. Her burning heart shone with the brightness of the sun and illumined her whole body. Heaven showed her that this fire had been kindled in Magdalen’s heart for the first time when she heard Christ say: “Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace” (Luke 7:50). It was so strong in her that from that time all her thoughts and actions were changed into it. Mechtilde also understood that in every soul consumed by divine love all its actions, thoughts, or sufferings, like branches thrown into the fire, are changed into the fire of love and increase it constantly by feeding it. If also other combustible matter, such as venial sin, is thrown in it is also consumed and destroyed. This soul would be entirely aflame, and on leaving the body the evil spirits would not dare to approach it. But they who are not burning with this fire, I mean divine love, whatever they may do, will not be able to destroy their sins. The evil they do will weigh them down and be a heavy load at the hour of death.

According to this doctrine, with what a great love must Magdalen’s heart have been filled! This holy fire had been enkindled on the day she was forgiven, but it had grown every day while she followed Jesus, listened to His words, and imitated His virtues. What had it become after she had received the five wounds in her heart at the time of the Passion? What was it after our Lord’s appearance to her on the morning of the Resurrection? What was it at the end of Magdalen’s life after her long years of penance in the Cave of Saint Baume?

She is one of the lovers of the Sacred Heart and her mission is to gain for it disciples from amongst the lost sheep. And Mechtilde teaches us how it is done: “She seemed to see, springing from our Lord’s feet, two trees covered with leaves and fruit, signifying the fruits of penance that Magdalen gathered, and distributed with joy to all who sought her help.” Mechtilde understood that she had obtained at our Lord’s feet the privilege of obtaining for all those who invoked her the gift of true repentance, and Saint Mary Magdalen said to her: “Every one who gives thanks to God for the tears I shed over the feet of Christ, and for my having washed those sacred feet and wiped them with my hair; and who praises Him for the love He then poured into my soul and heart, so in flaming me that I could never again love anything else; and begs tears of true repentance and the infusion of divine love, will see our Lord listen willingly, because of my merits, to his pious requests. Before death his sins will be forgiven and he will increase in the love of God.”

Sinful souls who have sullied your hearts like Magdalen, do you not feel great comfort in hearing such words? You, too, can reach the Heart of God. You can also burn with the same love as Magdalen and receive the same wounds!

Prayer to Saint Mary Magdalen

I give you thanks, O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, for all the tears that Blessed Mary Magdalen shed at Your feet, for washing them with her hands, wiping them with her hair, and for the love with which you so entirely inflame her body and soul, filling her heart so that she never loved any other thing than Thyself. Therefore, I beg of Thee, Lord Jesus, that by her great merits you would grant me the tears of true repentance and fill me with Your divine love, so that before death all my sins may be forgiven by Thee, Jesus, Saviour of the World, King of glory, who lives and reigns with the same God, Father and Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.