Blessed Marie of Jesus Deluil-Martiny

From the Desk of Fr. John Horgan……..

A Saint for this Week: Feast Day: February 27

Blessed Marie of Jesus Deluil-Martiny was born on May 28, 1841 in Marseille, France. Her family was outstanding in its religious piety and her father, a lawyer, defended the rights of the Church and religious orders during many difficult years. Marie was an intelligent and lively child, educated by the Religious of the Sacred Heart. During her late teens and twenties, she experienced the death of her brother and two sisters. Although deeply committed to many religious works, she was unsure of her calling and sought advice from St. John Vianney. Eventually, she found a good spiritual director who helped unite her religious devotions to the Eucharist and the Sacred Heart with her new and remarkable insights regarding interior participation in the Mass. In 1873, she founded a new religious institute, the Daughters of the Heart of Jesus, at Antwerp, Belgium. She and her nuns dedicated themselves to daily adoration of the Eucharist, union with the Masses offered throughout the world, and the acceptance of all sufferings in reparation for offenses against Jesus in the Eucharist and for the sake of the sanctification of priests. Mother Marie’s spiritual understanding of the Virgin Mary, St. John, and the Holy Women beneath the Cross developed into a new appreciation for the laity’s inner union with the priest at the altar. This was her special “charism,” a unique understanding and insight given to her by the Holy Spirit, recognized by the Church and transmitted to her spiritual daughters and sons. After only 11 years of religious life, Mother Marie was murdered by a young man whom the Sisters had hired as a gardener out of charity. Having become a Freemason and an anarchist, he shot her to death on Ash Wednesday, February 27, 1884 as she walked in the convent garden. Her dying words were, “I forgive him. . . For the sake of this Work. . . For this Work.” Her Christ-like love and pardon were recognized by her beatification in 1989. Now her nuns have six monasteries throughout Europe where they live their life of Eucharistic adoration and offering. Many saints and holy people have benefited from her spirituality and associated themselves to her Order, including St. Pius X, St. Maximilian Kolbe and Blessed Columba Marmion.

Father John Horgan has been close to these Sisters since the early 1980s and celebrated his First Mass in the Roman cloister of these nuns; he served as vice-postulator of her Cause for Sainthood and was at her beatification. A painting of her hangs now in the Jesuit Room.

Blessed Marie is the first Zelatrix of the Guard of Honor, originator of the medal and composer of the Guard of Honor Hymn.

Let us Pray:

Sacred Heart of Jesus, you who, after having shed all your blood to save humanity, only ask human for their love, you have planted in our hearts the desire to make known the devotion of the Guard of Honor in Vancouver. Ask your divine Mother to accompany us and guide us in this mission.

Oh! Merciful heart, sustain your Honor Guards. Help us to be persistent in our prayer, bless our country and the world and help us to have the zeal to proclaim your love and make known the movement that wants to console your abandoned heart. We ask this through the intercession of Blessed Marie of Jesus Lentuil Martiny. AMEN