Today, the Church remembers one of the great promoters of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of being a victim soul (one who offers their life as a reparation for their own sins and of others) especially for the clergy, Blessed Mary (Marie) of Jesus Deluil-Martiny. Our ministry is blessed to have a relic of her bones- "ex ossibus", which we reverently care for in our Custody. Marie Deluil-Martiny was born in Marseilles, France, on May 28, 1841, and was baptized the same day. The eldest of five children, she inherited from her father, a deeply Christian lawyer, the courage that allowed her to overcome the difficulties of life. From her mother she received an ardent faith combined with a great gentleness of heart. Nevertheless she had a proud and domineering temperament. When the time came for her first Communion, to ensure her proper preparation her parents sent her as a boarder to the Visitation Convent in Marseilles. One day during recreation, Marie all of a sudden stopped her playing and, taking a friend aside, said, «Imagine, Angelique, at this very moment the Blood of Jesus is flowing at the Altar for the world!» And for several moments she remained absorbed by this thought that had flashed across her mind. Marie made her first Communion on December 22, 1853, and received the sacrament of Confirmation on January 29, 1854 at the hands of Saint Eugene de Mazenod, the bishop of Marseilles. Around the age of 15, while still at school, she gathered together a group of students called the «Oblates of Mary,» that she thought of as a little religious order, complete with rule, novitiate, and profession. The group was discovered by the Superiors and dissolved. At the end of her studies, Marie made a retreat that was decisive for her vocation. «Jesus Christ is the only One to love,» she wrote in her journal. «At my death, I would like to have loved no one but Him. ... To live properly in the world, I must abhor sin and flee its occasions, hate the world and what is of the world ... Come and follow me, Jesus said. O God, how beautiful these words are! ... It is mine if I want it!» It was around this time that she had the grace of meeting the Curé d'Ars, Saint John-Marie Vianney, and of speaking to him about her vocation. She felt very clearly that Jesus was calling her to be entirely His, and so refused several proposals of marriage. The first Saturday of September, 1867, Marie was in prayer in a church when Jesus spoke to her: «I am not known, I am not loved... I wish to make souls for Myself who understand Me... I am a torrent that wants to overflow and whose waters can no longer be held back!... I wish to make Myself cups so as to fill them with the waters of My love... I am thirsty for hearts who appreciate Me and who enable Me to fulfill the goal for which I am here! I am insulted, I am desecrated. Before the end of time, I want to be compensated for all the insults I have received... I want to distribute all the graces that have been refused...!» Marie was deeply saddened by the world's refusal of Jesus. She wrote, «The world no longer wants Him. Today, some blush at Him, while others hate Him and scorn Him. They try to chase Him from hearts and from society. To these dishonors, scorn, and satanic profanities, let us answer loud and clear: He must reign!» On December 8, 1867, Marie made, with the permission of Father Calage, the vow of virginity. In September 1868, in front of a statue of the Virgin of La Salette in tears, she received this inspiration: «The Blessed Virgin wants victims who, in union with her pierced Heart and with Jesus sacrificed, interpose themselves between the crimes of men and the Justice of God...» The following month, she made this beautiful prayer: «O Jesus, receive me from the hands of the Most Blessed Virgin and offer me with You, sacrifice me with You... I offer myself for this sacrifice as much as You wish and my weakness allows... I will consider all the crosses, all the sufferings that Your Providence sends me as proofs that You have accepted my humble offering.» At the start of 1869, Marie put into writing a complete summary of her future work: «Just as Mary on Calvary, united to the Eternal Priest, offered her Divine Son, and then renewed this offering through the hands of Saint John, the Daughters of the Heart of Jesus, united with all the priests in the world, will offer the Eucharistic Jesus sacrificed on every altar. They will especially offer the Blood and Water that came forth from the divine wound of the Sacred Heart. They will be the adorers of the Eucharist solemnly exposed in the chapels of their convents, and will dedicate themselves to surrounding Him with the most profound signs of respect and love. This will be their life, their reason for being...» It took time for God's plans for Marie to unfold fully. Finally, the moment came for them to be realized. But the political situation made a foundation in France impossible. Therefore, with the help of a Belgian prelate, Monsignor Van den Berghe, she founded the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Jesus in Berchem-lez-Anvers, Belgium, on June 20, 1873. Taking the name Mother Marie of Jesus, she took the veil and a white habit on which were embroidered two red hearts surrounded by thorns. In the spirit of Our Lord's message to Saint Margaret Mary, the goals of the new institute were the following: to make reparation for the sins committed against the Heart of Jesus, to offer Him a continual thanksgiving for all the graces He continues to lavish on the world, and to offer to the Most Holy Trinity the precious Blood of Jesus Christ so that His reign might come in the world. The best way to realize these aims would be the cloistered life, centered on the divine office and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Every day, the nuns of the new institute would recite the seven last words of Jesus on the Cross, words of Redemption and a source of holiness for souls. To compensate for man's ingratitude for divine graces, they would recite the Magnificat several times a day. Wanting to open the doors of religious life to those whose health could not endure the austerities of older orders, Mother Marie of Jesus placed less emphasis on bodily penances than on interior mortification and renunciation through obedience. She preferred the mortifications that appear on their own: «The sufferings caused by heat or cold,» she wrote, «are good windfalls for a mortified soul. To say nothing on these occasions is a precious mortification, because no one sees or notices it; everything is for Jesus alone.» Our Lady had told her: «For the future institute, the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the celestial offering of the Divine Victim sacrificed on the Altar, will compensate most excellently for the corporal mortifications that some constitutions can no longer bear.» The constitutions of the new institute were approved in 1876 and, on August 22, 1878, the foundress and the first four Religious made their perpetual vows. Mother Marie of Jesus still had a desire to plant the institute in her native land. In June 1879, a foundation was established at «La Servianne,» the property she had inherited from her parents, close to Marseilles. From then on, Mother Marie of Jesus' life was divided between the administration of her convents and a voluminous correspondence. Her natural kindness was enriched with a mother's tenderness; her solicitude watched over every detail of her Daughters' lives. If one of them was sick, she would spend entire nights by her bedside, caring for her with her own hands, suggesting pious thoughts to her. She wrote to one of her Daughters: «Isn't it ridiculous for us to spend our time thinking about ourselves, admiring ourselves, or complaining, getting upset over our little troubles which seem so big to us, limiting ourselves by groaning over our misfortunes, when the great plans of God and the salvation of souls are calling us, when we have a God to love and serve, and souls to help and save? We are like a man who, in the middle of a terrible fire that is burning down his house, and that is going to kill his mother, his father, his children, instead of hurrying to put it out, is in a corner wailing that his clothes got soiled from carrying buckets of water, and is busy picking off, with lamentations, each bit of ash that got on his clothes. Oh! That is what we do when, in the midst of this unhappy world that is trying to burn down the Church and that insults Jesus Christ Our Lord, we spend our time complaining about our ills or our own trials, etc. We shrink in on ourselves when we could expand in embracing God, and become saints by serving His cause through our renunciations and sacrifices. A good flap of the wings and, with the aid of grace, let us rise up, let us leave the earth—above all, leave ourselves—and no longer see anything but Jesus!» In November 1883, Mother Marie of Jesus hired an assistant gardener, twenty-one year old Louis Chave, to pull him out of poverty. But soon, he showed himself to be lazy, rude, and demanding, and moreover, was involved with the anarchists. On February 27, 1884, Ash Wednesday, he waited in ambush on the grounds of La Servianne, in a spot the Religious passed during their recreation. He sprang out and, as the Superior spoke a kind word to him, grabbed her head and shot her twice at point-blank range with a revolver. Wounded in the carotid artery, Mother Marie of Jesus collapsed, murmuring, «I forgive him... for the Institute!» She died shortly thereafter. Buried in the family vault, then transferred to Berchem in 1899, her body was exhumed on March 4, 1989 for her beatification. It was found intact and flexible. Today, the Congregation of the Daughters of the Heart of Jesus has convents in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and a foundation in Croatia. After the foundress' death, the influence of her community led to the establishment of «the Association of Victim Souls,» which has had thousands of members, including Saints Pius X and Maximilian Kolbe, and Blesseds Charles de Foucauld, Columba Marmion, Edouard Poppe and Marie-Joseph Cassant. During the beatification of Marie Deluil-Martiny, on October 22, 1989, Pope John Paul II summarized her spiritual journey in these words: «At a very early age, she was moved by the world's offenses against Jesus' love and Society's all too frequent refusal of God. At the same time, she discovered the greatness of the gift Jesus gave the Father to save mankind, the abundance of love that radiates from His Heart, the fruitfulness of the blood and water that flow from His open side. She was convinced that she must participate in the redemptive suffering of the Crucified in a spirit of reparation for the sins of the world.» (Biography copied with permission from the Abbey of St. Joseph de Clairval, France) Prayer of Blessed Mary of Jesus"Allow me, my sweet Master,
to give myself to you and your adorable heart by your own hands. Receive and accept thus this gift of mine, the total and unconditional surrender that your Grace makes me offer You with all of myself: my heart, my soul, my mind, my will, my freedom, my thoughts my affections ... everything that interests me, belongs to me or is dear to me, for the present and the future, for time and eternity. Make me and all that you want. Use me, render me useless to a corner, console me, pardon me, I have nothing else to see, nothing to desire or prefer, but You. Here I am thrown today like a small drop of water in the ocean of love of the Sufferings of your Heart, O Jesus, to be rolled and carried by Your sacred waves according to the order of Your will, forever . In exchange for the acts of humility that I offer you, give me the grace to never take my offering back: to love you without reservation and without ceasing and to perfectly fulfill your holy will. " Comments are closed.
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"All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. Indeed, the communion of Saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose names we know. All of us belong to the communion of Saints, we who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we who draw life from the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood, through which he transforms us and makes us like himself. Yes, the Church is alive – this is the wonderful experience of these days. "
(Pope Benedict XVI, Homily on the Mass of Inauguration to the Petrine Ministry, 24 April 2005) NOTE:This ministry does not entertain requests nor for information to obtain the relics which appear in this website. Guide For Relic ClassificationWe strive to provide English translations of the terminology used to label relics. However, there may be a need to consult the original term to avoid confusion.
Please go to this page for a short guide to relic classification. Instagram Feed/BlogArchives
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