Pearls from the Casket of the Sacred Heart

In linking together this chain of antique pearls drawn by sainted fingers from the casket of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it would seem to us that the chaplet were incomplete without some special mention of that pearl of great price, that blessed Margarita, for whose purchase the heavenly Merchant gave all that He had, to the end that He might possess it entirely and forever.

In the letters of a saint, in the written conceptions of a heart closely united to God, and weighing every Word in the balance of truth and purity of intention, we have assuredly the mirror of a just soul reflecting in its shining beauty the unbroken image and likeness of its Creator.

Moved by these considerations, and opining that the Infinite Wisdom, which never acts without a purpose, must have had some special design in inspiring and preserving the letters of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Compiler of this little work has seen fit to collect the principal part of those holy epistles within its pages, and to add thereto the maxims and practices of their saintly writer. May the perusal of her fervent words, may the imitation of her zealous practices inflame the heart of the reader with the same fire of divine love that glowed in the breast of the Blessed Margaret, and won for her from our divine Lord Himself the title of the beloved disciple of His Sacred Heart!