Jean de Bernières-Louvigny: "The Heart of Jesus Is a Rich Treasury for the Christian Soul"
Introduction The Sacred Heart was not a new concept when it was revealed to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), though the official consecration and liturgical feast requested through those revelations was new. A number of St. Margaret Mary's near-contemporaries wrote about the devotion, such as St. John Eudes (1601-1680) and Jean de Bernières-Louvigny (1602-1659). Bernières was a lay Third Order Franciscan who founded a hermitage in Caen; he also served as a treasurer for the same region, and he provided financial support to the still-young Church in Canada, particularly through his relationship with St. Marie of the Incarnation (1599-1672). Among his writers, the greatest is the Interior Christian , published posthumously in 1661. It was a great favorite of St. Claude La Colombière and others; however, its influence among Catholics fell drastically when Bernières was posthumously condemned as a Quietist in 1689, and his writings placed on...