“Here kitty, kitty…”
A tiny black kitten watched me from between the shrubs, keeping a safe distance in the long morning shadows of Newark’s Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
I was waiting for the Knights of Columbus to arrive and prepare to carry a 150-pound reliquary into the towering stone church. Inside were the relics of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the cloistered French nun whose encounters with Christ helped spread devotion to the Sacred Heart throughout the world.
But at that particular moment, I was occupied with the cat.
I broke off a piece of my muffin and tossed it toward the little fellow, expecting him to sniff it and lose interest.
This wasn’t a seagull, after all.
He pounced on it, and every crumb disappeared.
So I tossed another piece.
And another.
And another.
Until I was standing outside a cathedral holding an empty muffin wrapper, wondering how an animal weighing about two pounds had managed to eat my entire breakfast.
Apparently, a hungry kitten on the streets of Newark doesn’t hold out for Fancy Feast.
For a moment, I considered bringing him home to surprise my wife. Our anniversary was the following week, and nothing says “I love you” like a stray kitten that eats muffins.
You could picture it. The scrappy little cat. The warm house. Regular meals. A family to fuss over him.
But with the food gone, he bolted.
And as I watched him disappear, I thought about everything we could have offered him, if only he’d had a bit more faith.
Of course, he couldn’t have known that. I was a stranger. And whatever had taught him to keep his distance might well have kept him alive.
Still, there I stood, wanting to offer him a home, while he hurried back toward city streets.
And then a thought came to me.
How often do we do that with God?
Saint Margaret Mary, whose relics were arriving, spent much of her short life trying to help people understand the love being offered to them.
She was born in Burgundy in 1647, and she experienced loss and hardship early on. Her father died when she was a child. A serious illness left her bedridden for years. But despite it all, in 1671, she entered the Visitation monastery at Paray-le-Monial, where she offered her life to God.
Between late 1673 and June 1675, she experienced the series of apparitions for which she’s remembered. Jesus revealed His Heart burning with love for humanity, and also His deep sorrow at the indifference with which His love was often received.
Among the words she recorded were these: “and for you in particular.” Dilexit nos, 119–124
That’s it right there.
It’s possible to believe that God loves the world and yet somehow loves you a bit less. You know your history. You know what you’ve done, what you’ve failed to do, and the things you keep promising to change.
But “you in particular” leaves very little room to hide.
Saint Margaret Mary’s experiences brought her opposition, including within her own community. But with the support of her spiritual advisor, St. Claude de la Colombière, she persevered. Her mission helped spread First Friday Communion, the Holy Hour, and the call for a feast honoring the Sacred Heart.
Each offered a way to respond: to spend time with Christ, receive Him, seek forgiveness, and return His love.
She died in 1690, at just 43.
More than three centuries later, the Knights of Columbus brought her relics from France to the United States for the bishops’ June consecration of the nation to the Sacred Heart. Their travels had now brought them to Newark, where they were available for veneration September 4–6, in a cathedral bearing the name of the devotion she’d helped carry into the world.
[Details of upcoming stops are listed below.]
A woman who’d lived behind monastery walls was still helping people draw closer to Christ.
And outside, I was beginning to see the kitten’s resistance as a metaphor.
I understand wanting to keep a little distance. We pray for help, but surrender is another thing. We have plans. Responsibilities. People depending on us. Sometimes we’d like to know exactly what God intends before we agree to follow Him.
Preferably in writing.
So sometimes we accept some Grace, offer a quick thank-you, and hurry back to managing everything ourselves.
But The Sacred Heart asks something of us that can feel terribly vulnerable: to believe, to accept, that we’re loved enough to entrust ourselves to Him.
Completely.
That trust won’t spare us every sorrow. Saint Margaret Mary’s life makes that clear. But it allows us to bring our sorrows into a relationship with Someone who loves us through them. We can stop treating every burden as something we must carry alone.
And we can begin with the very thing we’re reluctant to hand over. The worry that follows us into prayer. The sin we’re ashamed to confess. The resentment we’ve been feeding for years.
We can let Him close enough to touch it.
I keep thinking about the distance between that kitten and me. Just a few feet, really. Yet there was no way to explain the life that I’d imagined for him from the other side of his fear.
I hope he finds a home. I hope someone gets to discover what he looks like when he’s well fed, safe, and asleep in a patch of sunlight.
His part of the story is beyond me now.
But ours isn’t.
God is love. Cats are cats.
So don’t be like the kitten.
Accept the Love offered.
The Love that burns within His Sacred Heart.
And never doubt that it’s“for you in particular.”
Upcoming stops…
Learn more about the heroic, faith-filled work of the Knights of Columbus HERE.
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