The terrible plague that was stopped by a consecration to the Heart of Jesus

On one occasion, the residents of the city of Marseille, in France, carried out what could be the first public consecration and adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in order to get rid of the deadly bubonic plague.

All this on the recommendation of the venerable Sister Anne-Madeleine Remuzat, who had a revelation from Christ himself.

In an article of National Catholic Registerthe Catholic writer Susan Klemond recalls that the venerable Sister Anne-Madeleine Remuzat, who continued the mission of Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque to promote devotion to the Sacred Heart, received a revelation from Jesus in which she asked him for the consecration of Marseille, your natal city.

Anne was born in Marseille in 1696, and at the age of nine she received permission from her parents to enter the monastery of the Grandes Maries, of the Order of the Visitation. As a nun she continued the mission of Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque, visionary of the Sacred Heart, to encourage this devotion.

Sister Anne-Madeleine founded an association dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, approved by the Vatican in 1717, to thank Christ for his love and to make reparation for the affronts she had suffered in her earthly life and which she still receives in the Eucharist, Klemond notes.

According to the Catholic writer, in 1718 about 60 people who had gathered to worship Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in a local church saw the face of Christ in the priest for more than half an hour.

On that occasion, God revealed to Sister Anne-Madeleine that the city of Marseille would be punished if it did not repent of its immorality.

Klemond recalls that in addition to the moral relaxation of the citizens of Marseille, the heresy of Jansenism had taken root in France. This heresy holds that man’s free will is incapable of any moral goodness and that Christ died only for a small group of people who received grace from birth.

In 1713, Pope Clement XI condemned the Jansenist errors, but some people in France did not accept the condemnation.

In May 1720, a ship from the Middle East brought the bubonic plague to France and began the Great Plague of Marseilles.

Given the increase in infected cases, a quarantine was established and churches had to close. But Sister Anne-Madeleine’s monastery was saved, and during that time her community did many acts of charity, Klemond says.

The Catholic writer points out that, with the permission of her superior, Sister Anne-Madeleine asked God to show her how he wanted her Sacred Heart to be honored so that the plague in Marseille would end. As specified by the San José de Clairval abbeyJesus Christ told the nun that he wanted a solemn party to honor his Sacred Heart.

It was thus that the then Bishop of Marseille, Monsignor Henri de Belsunce, instituted the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Diocese of Marseille and consecrated the city on November 1, 1720. As Klemond notes, it was probably the first consecration and public adoration to the Sacred Heart.

Clairval Abbey details that since the consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the illness gradually decreased. But it indicates that the people did not reform their lives and that in 1722 the plague reappeared. It was then that Bishop de Belsunce ordered processions for the Body of Christ and the new feast of the Sacred Heart.

The councilors of the city of Marseille, who had not attended the consecration and the Mass of 1720, participated in the processions of 1722, according to narration Visitation Spirit. In September of that year the plague ended. In just two years, the bubonic plague caused the death of about a thousand people in the city of Marseille and its surroundings.

In 1730 the Venerable Anne-Madeleine Remuzat died and her cause for canonization is open.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team on June 22, 2022. Originally published in the National Catholic Register.