The life of St. Claude La Colombière is a model of what it means to seek, in everyday life, to serve the Heart of Christ and his Church with care and passion.

The life of St. Claude La Colombière, SJ, is intimately linked to the spirituality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Fr. Claude, a French Jesuit priest, was the superior at the Jesuit house in Paray-le-Monial. Additionally, he had the mission of spiritually accompanying the nuns of the Visitation Monastery. When he went to that community, he began to hear the confessions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and listened attentively to her account of visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The conviction grew in St. Claude that her visions were inspired by the Holy Spirit. For this reason, he advised her to accept the messages and the words of Jesus with humility.

Pope Pius XI, who beatified him, says, “It was with the support of Claude La Colombière that the religious saint took her enterprise to a successful conclusion; because of his ardent zeal, to…the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he not only proved to be a skillful director of souls, but also a man filled with the Spirit of the Lord and a witness of the will of God in all circumstances.”

At the time of his canonization in 1992, Pope St. Paul II recalled that the saint “completely surren-dered himself to the Sacred Heart, always burning with love.” May St. Claude inspire us in the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network to live united to the Heart of Jesus, led by his example and en-flamed by his zeal for the mission of Jesus.

• Leonardo Damasceno
  Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (Brazil)