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by Ottavio De Bertolis

The image of the furnace is no longer familiar to us, and this explains why we struggle to understand it. In the ancient world, that of the Holy Scripture, it was much more common: something similar has also remained in our world, for example if we imagine a wood-fired oven, of those seen in some restaurants, or a blast furnace, these gigantic systems where metal is melted and temperatures reach dizzying heights.

Looking into that oven we only see flames: what we see there is a lake of fire. Let us therefore imagine an inexhaustible blaze of fire: as you will notice, this is a profoundly biblical image, it is the same burning bush that Moses saw.

And so the Heart of Christ is that flame that never burns out, an infinite source of light and heat, a fire that purifies, a mysterious and fascinating light. It should be noted that this is precisely the image that Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque leaves us, when she describes the visions she had: «I remain at her feet like a living host, which has no other desire than to be immolated and sacrificed, to be consumed in the pure flames of his love, where I feel my heart dissolving as in a fiery furnace." Here she is attracted by her infinite beauty and power, and her resistances are dissolved and she is profoundly liberated from uncreated love. Again, she writes that Christ asks her for her heart, places it inside her and shows it to her "like a small atom that is consumed in this fiery furnace". In the same apparition, Jesus confides to the Saint: "My heart is so full of love for men [...] that, no longer being able to contain within itself the flames of his ardent charity, I must spread them", almost continuing what he said: "I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already lit" (Lk 12, 49).

These images used by Margherita Maria certainly also reflect a certain sensitivity, typical of her time, and a particular language, moreover inspired by the spirituality of Saint Francis de Sales: we do not necessarily have to make them our own, but we can understand them first and foremost starting from Scripture. And so the saint's experience seems to me very similar to the image with which her love is described: «her flames are flames of fire, a flame of the Lord; great waters cannot quench love, nor rivers overwhelm it" (Song 8, 6): here human love is seen as an image of divine love, a burning bush, an inexhaustible flame. Again, Jeremiah says: «in my heart there was like a burning fire, closed in my bones; I tried to contain him, but I couldn't" (Jer 20:9), such was the strength of the Word that vibrated in him.

So for us too, approaching the Heart of Jesus is approaching the fire; His word, the Sacrament of the love that leaves us, is a light that illuminates, a flame that burns every sin, a heat that melts every coldness and gives life back to every creature, a heat that expands within us and that renews, consoles and heals .