The Rev. David Bechill of Christ the Good Shepard Catholic Church in Lincoln Park shared the story of St. Margaret Mary Alacogue, "who is responsible for the modern devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” the church bulletin reported.

“When I was in my last years of theology school at the seminary, I read the "Autobiography of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque,'” Bechill told the Michigan church in its bulletin

The brief autobiography “contains many truths of the spiritual life as well as many gems that cast light on how Jesus’ own heart burns intensely for us,” Bechill told parishioners in the bulletin. It was written under “obedience to her spiritual director,” the priest notes.

He quotes from section 36 of the book, “As I asked my mistress to teach me how to make a mental prayer for which my soul hungered so greatly, she could scarcely believe that, having entered religion at the age of 23, I knew not how to make it."

She was told to place herself before the Lord like a blank canvas. St. Alacoque didn't understand what she was told, but she didn't ask about the meaning.

Then “an interior Voice said to me: ‘Come, and I will teach you,’” the Rev. Bechill said she stated, the bulletin reported.

Upon her prayers, the Lord led her to understand that her soul was the canvas where he would paint the features of how he suffered in his life. The Lord spent his life in live, silence, solitude and privation before it was consumated and sacrified, the Rev. Bechill said St. Alacoque said, the bulletin reported.

"Can you let that blank canvas be your own heart where Jesus will imprint, form, shape, and mold it according to his passion, death, and resurrection?,” the Rev. Bechill told the church in its bulletin.