St. Claude La Colombière: "Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ"

Introduction

One of the requests found in the revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) was that of a consecration to the Sacred Heart.  Though devotion to the Sacred Heart existed before St. Margaret Mary—perhaps most prominently in her older contemporary, St. John Eudes (1601-1680)—this request for consecration was new.  Even her confessor and spiritual director, St. Claude La Colombière (1641-1682), who was inclined to this devotion, and who came to accept her revelations, seemed to be wary of this consecration at first; yet he did, in time, come to fulfill Our Lord's request.  He probably did not do so in June 1675, when he was with St. Margaret Mary in Paray-le-Monial—at that time, he may have only made the act of reparations, or "honorable amends" (amende honorable), also requested by the Lord—but he most likely made his consecration sometime before a spiritual retreat in London in 1677, though it is at the end of his notes from this retreat that his first editors placed the text of his formula of consecration.  The text of St. Claude's offering (§§150-152 of his Retreat of 1677) is translated below; I have also recently translated selections from his Christian Reflections.

 

Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

St. Claude La Colombière

 

This offering is made to honor that divine Heart, the seat of all virtues, the source of all blessings, and the retreat of all holy souls.

The principal virtues one intends to honor in It are: first, a most ardent love of God, His Father, joined to a most profound respect and to the greatest humility that ever was; second, an infinite patience in evils, an extreme contrition and sorrow for the sins with which It was laden, the confidence of a most tender son allied with the confusion of a most great sinner; third, a most sensible compassion for our miseries, an immense love, despite those same miseries and notwithstanding all those movements, each of which was at the highest point it could be, an unalterable equality caused by so perfect a conformity to the will of God that it could not be troubled by any event, however contrary it appeared to His zeal, to His humility, to His very love, and to all the other dispositions that He had.

This Heart is also, as much as It could be, in the same sentiments, and, above all, always burning with love for men, always open to pour out upon them every kind of grace and blessing, always touched by our evils, always pressed by the desire to give us a share in Its treasures and to give Itself to us, always disposed to receive us and to serve as our asylum, our dwelling place, our paradise in this life. 

For all this, one finds in the heart of man only hardness, forgetfulness, contempt, ingratitude: He loves, and He is not loved, and one does not even know His love, since one does not deign to receive the gifts through which He willed to witness to it, nor listen to the tender and secret declarations about it that He willed to make to our heart.

As a reparation for so many outrages and for such cruel ingratitudes, O most adorable and most lovable Heart of my lovable Jesus, and to avoid, as much as it is in my power, falling into a like misfortune, I offer You my heart, with all the movements of which it is capable, I give myself entirely to You; and, from this hour, I protest most sincerely, it seems to me, that I desire to forget myself and all that can have a relation to me, to remove any obstacle that could hinder my entrance into that divine Heart that You have the goodness to open to me, and into which I hope to enter, in order to live and die there with Your most faithful servants, all penetrated and embraced by Your love.  I offer to this Heart all the merit, all the satisfaction of all the Masses, of all the prayers, of all the acts of mortification, of all the religious practices, of all the acts of zeal, of humility, of obedience, and of all the other virtues that I will practice until the last moment of my life.  Not only will all this be for the honor of the Heart of Jesus and Its admirable dispositions, but I also most humbly pray It to accept the full donation that I make to It, to dispose of it in the manner that will please It and in favor of what will please It; and as I have already yielded to the holy souls who are in Purgatory everything in my actions that is capable of satisfying divine justice, I desire that this be distributed to them according to the good pleasure of the Heart of Jesus.

This will not hinder me from fulfilling the obligations I have of saying Masses and of praying for certain intentions that obedience prescribes to me, nor of applying, through charity, Masses to poor people or to my brethren and friends who might ask them of me, but, as I will then make use of a good that does not belong to me, I intend, as is just, that the obedience, charity, and other virtues that I practice on those occasions be all for the Heart of Jesus, for whom I will have decided to exercise these virtues, which, consequently, will belong to It without reserve.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, teach me perfect forgetfulness of myself, since this is the only way by which one can enter into You.  Since all that I do in the future will be Yours, make it so that I do nothing that is unworthy of You.  Teach me what I ought to do to reach the purity of Your love, the desire for which You have inspired in me.  I feel in myself a great will to please You and a great powerlessness to reach this end without a great light and a most particular aid, which I can expect from none but You.  Do Your will in me, Lord; I oppose it, I feel this well; but I would prefer, it seems to me, to not oppose it.  It is for You to do all, divine Heart of Jesus Christ; You alone will have all the glory of my sanctification, if I become holy; this appears clearer than day to me; but this will be a great glory for You, and it is for this reason alone that I want to desire perfection.  So may it be.

 

Source: Blessed Claude La Colombière, Écrits spirituels, ed. André Ravier, 2nd ed. (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1982) 173-175.

Regarding the date when St. Claude made this offering, see Georges Guitton, Perfect Friend: The Life of Blessed Claude La Colombière, S.J., 1641-1682, tr. William J. Young (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1956), 161-165. 

Translation ©2025 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.