| Why do we celebrate First Friday and what is its significance? |
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This one had me for a time, but with a little help from my friends! Background Information: Margaret Mary Alacoque born in Burgundy, France 1647. After an ailing and unhappy childhood she entered the Visitation Convent in 1671. A series of [alleged] private revelations took place during the years 1673 - 1675 to a nun of the order of the Visitation of Our Lady in which there was revealed to Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque [ later Saint ] the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The first apparition took place on December 27th, 1673 while St. Margaret Mary was at prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and in her autobiography she says, "I felt myself wholly penetrated with that Divine Presence, to such a degree that I lost all thought of myself and of the place where I was, and abandoned myself to this Divine Spirit, yielding up my heart to the power of his love, he disclosed to me the marvels of his love and the inexplicable secrets of his Sacred Heart he opened to me his Divine Heart in a manner so real and sensible as to be beyond doubt, by reason of the effects which this favour produced in me, fearful, as I always am of deceiving myself in anything that I say of what passes in time." These revelations accidentally became known to the other nuns, some of whom looked upon them as delusions. But there is evidence that St. Margaret Mary discussed these overwhelming spiritual experiences with her religious superiors and with her confessor, and that finally the community approved. In subsequent private revelations in June 1674, St. Margaret Mary speaks of her experiences which occur on the first Friday each month, and she speaks of the Sacred Heart as being, "represented to me as a resplendent sun, the burning rays of which fell vertically upon my heart, which was inflamed with fire so fervid that it seemed it would reduce me to ashes. On one occasion Jesus Christ presented himself to me, all resplendent with glory, his five wounds shining like so many suns." In subsequent 'revelations' St. Margaret Mary is instructed: "In the first place you shall receive ME in Holy Communion as often as obedience ( to your confessor and superiors) will permit you. You shall moreover communicate on the first Friday of each month. Later still St. Margaret Mary is instructed that the Friday after the Octave Day of the Feast of Corpus & Sanguis Christi be set aside as a special feast in my honour. Thus it was the the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was begun. Pious devotions were encouraged locally and eventually taken up by the local Church, leading eventually to the institution, in 1856, of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the universal Church. Sodalities and prayer groups, and Religious Institutes were formed, dedicated, with special devotions to the Sacred Heart. The faithful were encouraged to imitate St. Margaret Mary in making their confession and Holy Communion on the first Friday of each month. Significance: St. Margaret Mary is not the only woman, or man for that matter, to have had unique and special spiritual experiences. The sceptic might account for these by saying they were due to delusion, wishful thinking, mental sickness or some other impairment, or even malicious design. But throughout the history of the Church there does appear to be a constant thread of well documented occasions when individuals underwent a deep spiritual experience - real enough for them to describe, and in many cases bringing them much pain and suffering which they endured rather than reject their experience and deny that it happened. Such events are of their very nature private revelations and the Catholic is not obliged to believe them. During this period of historical development it was a rare event for the faithful to take Holy Communion at Mass possibly out of an intense , and possibly misplaced, sense of unworthiness. One of the effects of the devotions associated with these private revelations of St. Margaret Mary, was to encourage the faithful to greater piety and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord present in the Eucharist. So increasing numbers came to obey the Lord's command given at the Last supper, "This is my Body, my Blood, take it and eat, drink, it all of you" Some of the imagery of 'burning hearts' and ' wounds' for some may be off putting and the cheap tawdry stautes and pictures that may be seen do not always enhance the reputation of the church, and may even detract from the special nature of the love that the Lord has for us, 'his people'. That said, there have been undoubted benefits to the spiritual lives of many who follow the practice of this private devotion. These private revelations of St. Margaret Mary are not obligatory articles of Catholic faith. Maybe in the end the devotional practice of the First Fridays, is very much a product of the era in which it started, and led the Church to develop a fuller understanding of the personal nature of God's love, and of the meaning and all important practice of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. Peregrinator Ignotus |