When I was growing up, every 4th of July was a great celebration. We often marked Independence Day by inviting friends over to our house. We would feast on the buffet of delights my mom would prepare, including brats, fruit pizza, or ho-ho’s decorated like firecrackers. If other children were in attendance, we would prepare some games and prizes or we would decorate hats and have a parade around our semi-circle driveway. As the evening advanced, we would light the fountain fireworks we had purchased at one of the local pop-up stands found in grocery store parking lots. After our humble driveway spectacle of noise and color, we would sit on lawn chairs facing the park across the street from our house, and as it grew dark, with a cup of popcorn in hand, we would watch the real show— our city’s fireworks display— with “ooo”s and “ahhh”s as we felt the loud bangs in our chest and saw the glimmer of lights over the waters of Lake Winnebago.
One year, one of our store-bought fireworks did a little dance upon being lit and ended up lighting our bush on fire. We always kept a bucket of water nearby, so there was no real danger, but to my young and impressionable self, I imagined the house burning down and felt panic. Fireworks were fun. Fire was not. I suppose that as a school-educated child I had been taught the importance of “stop, drop, and roll” many a time by that point in my life. We were not a camping family, accustomed to bonfires with s’mores, although we did have a wonderful fireplace upstairs in our great room and I never felt afraid of being burned by it. Still, in my brain that evening, fire equaled danger.
I start with this story because God’s word in Scripture, along with the images He chooses in order to reveal His mystery, relies on human words that mean something to us, that touch upon our stories, our memories, our experiences. I can imagine for those who were devastated by the wildfires in California, as in other places around the world, fire equals danger is an understatement. For many people, fire amounts to destruction and death.
What, then, do we make of the God who calls himself “a consuming fire?”1 Is He to be feared like fire that is dangerous, destructive, or deadly?
To our modern ears, this might sound like a strange question to ask. God has often been made out to be as gentle as a dove or perhaps as gooey and soft as the Pillsbury Doughboy. It seems we are far from the days in which we entered God’s presence with a silent reverence, let alone fear and trembling.2 However, for those who lived in the times of Jansenism, which flourished in France between the 1600-1700’s, as well as for those influenced by the aftermath of its theology, this question about who God is and what He demands was as serious as sin. The answer that Jansenism provided might surprise us today.
Those who professed and practiced the tenants of Jansenism were known for their moral rigorism and harshness. They believed that only perfect contrition made one worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist and that severe penances were necessary to atone for sin. As a result, most people did not receive communion. They never felt they were pure enough to come in contact with God. They were afraid of the fire, so to speak. I guess you could say that they lived interiorly in a constant state of “stop, drop, and roll.”
Into this time period and beloved country of France, entered a humble religious named Margaret Mary. While praying before the Blessed Sacrament, on December 27th, 1673, Jesus revealed His Heart to her and spoke these words3:
“My divine Heart so passionately loves all people and you in particular, that, no longer able to contain the flames of its burning charity, it has to pour them forth through you, and it must manifest itself to them, to enrich them with its precious treasures, which I am revealing to you, and which contain the sanctifying and salutary graces necessary to snatch them from the abyss of perdition.”
St. Margaret Mary heard the message clearly: The flames of burning charity could no longer be contained. This is quite a different message than if God had told her the fires of divine wrath and justice could no longer be contained. That might have been the message a Jansenist would have expected at that time in history, but it wasn’t what God said to Sister Margaret.
This revelation reminds me of Moses. Moses was no stranger to fire. Right before God called Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt, God spoke from the bush which was blazing, but not being consumed.4This theophany would be an important revelation, not only for Moses, but for the Church fathers who would come to see in this bush a symbol of the human nature of Jesus not destroyed by the divine nature, as well as an image of Mary as the Theotokos, or God-bearer, holding the fire of Christ within her while not being consumed and destroyed.
Moses would need to experience such a fire before encountering the trials of the desert. He would need to remember the warmth and light when the people of God turned away from the Lord and made a golden calf. This critical moment, found in Exodus 32, was a test of Moses’ heart. While Moses was on the mountain encountering the Lord, the people were down in the depths of the valley and reveling in sin. We read5:
“the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go down at once to your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, “This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” I see how stiff-necked this people is,’ continued the LORD to Moses. ‘Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.’”
Take a moment to imagine what it was like for Moses to hear these words and to receive this image of the blazing and consuming wrath of God after all that He had experienced when God first revealed Himself at the burning bush.
When Moses was first called by God, the message was loud and clear: “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry… Therefore I have come down to rescue them…”6 God spoke a message of love and compassion. Notice the shift in language from God saying, “my people,” and revealing his purpose to “rescue” them, to what He later says to Moses, calling them “your people” and revealing his purpose to destroy them and to make a new, greater nation, from Moses. That shift is not an accident. God seems to test Moses’ heart and memory. Moses responds with humility and faith.7:
“‘Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and so strong a hand? … Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people…’ So the Lord relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.”
Moses, faithful to God, is faithful to His people by interceding for them and asking for mercy. Mercy, indeed, would be the theme to which Moses would return again and again in prayer.
After this testing of the heart of Moses, only one chapter later in the book of Exodus, something extraordinary happens. Moses prays to God for three things: to know God’s ways so that he might find favor with God, that God might accompany Israel on its journey, and that he might see the glory of the Lord.8 To each of these requests, the Lord says “yes,” because Moses has found “favor” with God and is “His intimate friend.”
Moses has proven himself, not only a faithful leader of Israel, but a faithful friend of God. This is significant. In conforming his heart to the Heart of God, He has become more than a servant. He has become a friend. For those familiar with the Gospel of St. John, we can immediately think of what Jesus said to His apostles on the night of the Last Supper: “I no longer call you servants, I have called you friends.”9 Moses, in finding favor with God and being introduced into His intimacy, is prepared to receive a new revelation of who God is. This time, it is not an angel in a burning bush that he encounters, but the glory of the Lord passing by. God promises Moses,10
“‘I will make all my beauty pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce my name, “LORD”; I who show favors to whom I will, I who grant mercy to whom I will.’”
True to His promise, that very next day, the Lord reveals Himself to Moses by proclaiming his name11:
“The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”
Fire and mercy. Friendship and intimacy. The word of God, revealed to Moses in the fire and in the proclamation of His name, would continue to seek out other friends.
Speaking of mercy and friendship, let me return now to France. There was another humble, French nun, who responded to the Jansenist influences of her time. Her name was Thérèse and it was on the 9th of June in 1895 that she offered herself to Merciful Love. We read in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul the following account12:
“This year, June 9, the feast of the Holy Trinity, I received the grace to understand more than ever before how much Jesus desires to be loved. I was thinking about the souls who offer themselves as victims of God’s justice in order to turn away the punishments reserved to sinners, drawing them upon themselves. This offering seemed great and generous to me, but I was far from feeling attracted to making it. From the depths of my heart, I cried out:
‘Oh my God! Will Your Justice alone find souls willing to immolate themselves as victims? Does not Your Merciful Love need them too? On every side this love is unknown, rejected; those hearts upon whom You would lavish it turn to creatures, seeking happiness from them with their miserable affection; they do this instead of throwing themselves into Your arms and of accepting Your infinite Love. O my God! Is Your disdained Love going to remain closed up within Your Heart? It seems to me that if You were to find souls offering themselves as victims of holocaust to Your Love, You would consume them rapidly; it seems to me, too, that You would be happy not to hold back the waves of infinite tenderness within you. If Your justice loves to release itself, this Justice which extends only over the earth, how much more does Your Merciful Love desire to set souls on fire since Your Mercy reaches to the heavens. O my Jesus, let me be this happy victim; consume Your holocaust with the fire of Your Divine Love!’”
Saint Thérèse and Saint Margaret Mary both understood the fire of God in a way that did not make them draw back in fear, but rejoice in hope and long to be one with their God. Both were drawn into the intimacy of His love, becoming faithful friends of God.
Another humble nun, this time from Poland, was given the opportunity to discover these same flames. To St. Faustina Kowalska, Jesus revealed His Divine Mercy, speaking of the “flames of mercy” that were burning and how He longed to pour them out:13
“Let the sinner not be afraid to approach Me. The flames of mercy are burning Me—clamoring to be spent; I want to pour them out upon these souls.”
Flames of mercy. Flames of love. Flames which burn but do not destroy. Flames that Jesus wishes to spread upon the whole earth. Flames which bring salvation.
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing.” -Luke 12:49
Jesus is clear about what He desires. He desires fire. This fire does not equal death and destruction, but life and salvation. This is a Fire that is warm, luminous, loving— a fire to fill our hearts and homes with the presence of God.
Is a blazing fire safe? Not really. Is a blazing fire calm and controllable? Not exactly. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in which the character Aslan, a lion who Lewis used to represent Jesus, is described not as “safe” but “good,” and not tame, but “wild.” I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a good and wild God of fire than a gentle dove or soft Pillsbury Doughboy.
I’m no longer a child who panics at the sight of fire, who fears that the house will burn down at the slightest flame. I am now an adult who knows that Jesus looks at her with “eyes like flames of fire,”14and wants to experience His gaze of love sear into my soul. So as we approach the 250th anniversary of Independence Day, I pray for myself and for my country, the United States of America, consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and on this Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, I pray:15
O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:
You know the longings of our hearts, and you desire that we enjoy friendship with you.
From your pierced side, you have poured out the wellspring of life, for which we thirst.
Your heart burns with a love for all people to return to a right relationship with you.
We celebrate the abundant gifts you have given this nation, founded on the self-evident truths that our Creator has endowed all people with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We make reparation for the offenses against you and against human dignity that have taken place in this nation.
May our hearts be united to yours, so that our families and communities enjoy peace and happiness; may broken relationships be reconciled, injustices repaired, and the wounds of our land be healed.
May your holy Catholic Church serve as a sign, pointing all people to your infinite love.
O Desire of Nations and Center of History, we ask you to bless these United States of America.
Who live and reign with God the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
—On the Occasion of the U.S. Bishops Consecrating the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
- Cf. Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29 ↩︎
- Cf. Philippians 2:12 ↩︎
- As quoted in The Sacred Heart: A Love For All Times (Goldstein, 2025), p.30 and attributed to Cristiani, Saint Margaret Mary, p.82-83. ↩︎
- Cf. Exodus, Chapter 3 ↩︎
- Exodus 32:7-10 ↩︎
- Exodus 3:7-8 ↩︎
- Exodus 32:11, 14 ↩︎
- Exodus 33:12-17 ↩︎
- Cf. John 15:15 ↩︎
- Exodus 33:19 ↩︎
- Exodus 34:6 ↩︎
- Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (3rd Ed. Translated by John Clarke, OCD, ICS Publications, 1996), p.180-181 ↩︎
- Saint Faustina Maria Kowalska, Diary of Divine Mercy in My Soul ↩︎
- Cf. Revelation 1:14 ↩︎
- https://www.usccb.org/prayers/prayer-sacred-heart-jesus ↩︎
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This post was first published on Into the Heart of Mercy and is reprinted here with permission.
Image: Unsplash
