350 YEARS OF THEIR APPEARANCES
Letter from the Bishop of Tarazona, Mons. Vicente Rebollo, for Sunday, June 9, 2024
We are in the month dedicated to the Heart of Jesus, whose feast we celebrated last Friday. This year has special relevance since we are celebrating the Jubilee on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of his appearances to Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque.
The opening of this jubilee year took place on December 27, 2023 since another December 27 in the year 1673 appeared for the first time leaving the following message “my divine heart is so full of love for men and for you in particular who, no longer able to contain the calls of his ardent charity, feels forced to spread them through your mediation.”. It will conclude on June 27, 2025, solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The motto for this jubilee year is “give love for love”. It is divided into three parts corresponding to the three apparitions to Saint Margaret. In the first we are invited to introduce ourselves into the heart full of the love of Jesus through the Eucharist, we are proposed as a means to promote Eucharistic worship through adoration. There are many parishes in our Diocese that dedicate time throughout the week or month to this devotion, by carrying out the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Hours, and Night Adoration. Continue like this, offer the faithful this possibility of grow in the intimacy of God’s love through the adoration of Jesus Eucharist.
The second message to consider for this Jubilee corresponds to the second apparition that took place at the beginning of the year 1674, Saint Margaret tells it to us “He made me see that his ardent desire to be loved by men and to save them from the path of perdition led him to form that plan of manifesting his Heart to the world. AND those who sought to love him, he would enrich them with the abundance of the divine treasures of his heart”. In light of this message we are invited to contemplate the redemptive value of the offering of the heart of Jesus, reparation and trust.
For this reason, a congress was held in Rome with the motto “repair the irreparable”. Reparation involves receiving the love of Jesus and loving Him in turn as a way to compensate for the indifference and offenses that He suffers. Only by receiving love from him, we can love. Pope Francis in the speech he gave to the participants said, “reparation to be Christian, to touch the heart of the offended and not to be a simple act of commutative Justice presupposes the following attitudes, admitting guilt and asking for forgiveness”.
Beautiful words to fill this jubilee year with content open to forgiveness and love that always springs up again in our hearts if we ask God for it and are open to reconciliation with our brother as a realization of this reparative love.
The third moment will be celebrated next year with the motto “We consecrate ourselves to your Heart”
We ask, through the mediation of Saint Margaret, that this jubilee open us fully to merciful love that springs from the Heart of Jesus, may we love him with more intensity every day.
+Vicente Rebollo Mozos.
Bishop of Tarazona
