We will now deepen our understanding of the message of Paray. After discovering how Margaret Mary experiences the love of the Heart of Jesus for her in the third step, let us now listen to the complaint He addresses to her in this fourth step.

1.The Complaint of Jesus

During the first apparition, Margaret Mary has the vision of the heart on a throne of flames surrounded by thorns. Jesus tells her: “If you only knew how thirsty I am to be loved by humanity,” and “I thirst, I burn with desire to be loved.” This is a complaint: love is not loved! These are the thorns! The subsequent apparitions will provide precious indications about these “thorns.”

From the second great apparition, Jesus expresses the pain that His immense love receives in return: “Only ingratitude and indifference, coldness and rejection for all my eagerness to do them good… This pains Me far more than anything I suffered during My Passion.” (Autobiography §§ 55-56)

This complaint will be further elaborated in the third great apparition: “In return for My love, I receive nothing but ingratitude from most, through their irreverence and sacrileges, and through the coldness and disdain they show towards Me in this Sacrament of love. But what pains Me even more is that it is hearts consecrated to Me that treat Me this way.” (Autobiography, § 92)

Some Aspects of This Complaint of Jesus

1. It is interesting to note that it is in 17th-century France, where all the French are practising Catholics and where vocations abound as never before (with 120 seminaries in France welcoming thousands of seminarians), that Jesus complains of not being loved.
2. The message appears even more relevant today in a secularised society where God has become estranged, where we live as if God does not exist. Is this not a striking example of ingratitude and indifference?
3. Jesus expresses that it is the attitude towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist, His “sacrament of love,” that causes Him the most suffering, especially from the baptised, who are “consecrated” through the consecration of baptism. He speaks of “coldness” and “disdain” towards the Eucharist. Let us ask for the grace to become aware of Jesus’ thirst to be loved; that each person’s love matters to Him; that each lack of love is a suffering for Him. “I thirst, but with such a burning thirst to be loved by humanity in the Holy Sacrament, that this thirst consumes Me; and I find no one who endeavours, according to My desire, to refresh Me by returning some love for My love.” (Letter 133). We are all concerned by this painful complaint.
4. The Lord speaks of the “sacrileges” against the Eucharist committed particularly by the consecrated, namely religious and priests. This complaint can be understood in light of the sacrileges committed by priests at the court of France, as the first “black masses,” ritualised by Abbé Guibourg, are taking place at this time. This is the infamous poison affair that will erupt a few years after the apparitions in Paray and horrify the entire of France.
5. However, it is not only the Eucharistic Body of Christ that is profaned by these sacrileges. It also refers to the other profanations suffered by the most vulnerable in their bodies. I think particularly of the bodies of young children who have been sexually abused by criminal priests, with the scandals that have come to light in recent years. “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to Me.” It is Jesus Himself who is affected when the dignity of the poor is demeaned. As Ben Sirach the Wise says, “Do not the tears of the widow flow down the cheeks of God?” (cf. Sirach 35:18). How many tears still flow down the cheeks of God as our world witnesses numerous abuses against human dignity, even within the People of God?

2. Returning Love for Love

To Saint Margaret Mary, Jesus reiterates His passionate love for all humanity and complains of not being loved in return. This would be somewhat overwhelming if there were not also a request that could be summarised as: “At least you, love Me.” It is about returning love for love. This is what Saint Margaret Mary testifies: “I received from my God excessive graces of His love and felt touched by the desire for some return and to give Him love for love.” (Autobiography, § 92)

To make this concrete, Jesus makes her several requests:

• To welcome Him, to make room for Him in her heart, and to signify this concretely by carrying the image of the Sacred Heart on her, and by displaying an image where she resides. This is the enthronement of the Sacred Heart, which we will return to.
• To receive Holy Communion as often as possible, particularly on the first Fridays of the month.
• To live the “Holy Hour” every Thursday from 11pm to midnight. This involves keeping Him company while He suffers His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, allowing oneself to be moved by His suffering of love and empathising with Him, and to obtain mercy for sinners along with Him.
• That a great feast of His Sacred Heart be established for the whole Church. He requests a communion of reparation on this occasion, which means receiving Holy Communion with a special attention and love, which will console all the offences made against His Heart in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This feast will be definitively established by Pope Pius IX in 1856.

Ultimately, the response of love that Jesus asks for is to give oneself entirely to Him, to consecrate oneself to Him. In the next step, we will enter into the second part of our journey, explaining what consecration is.