Many years ago, I overheard a few parishioners – elderly ladies - ruminating about the value of the Life in the Spirit seminar. Most of them were anxious to try it. They had heard that many people who had done it had received so many gifts, they were certain to go to heaven.

One rather quiet, uninvolved lady in the group said to the others with a smile: “That good for all you. I don’t worry about going to heaven at all. I always make First Friday.”

What this dissenting parishioner referred to is a practice initiated by St Marguerite Mary Alacoque, a Sister of the Visitation, in Paray-le-Monial, France, over three hundred years ago, which is still relatively popular in most parishes. More people come to morning Mass on First Fridays than on any other weekday in the month.

St Marguerite reported to her confessor that in a series of apparitions, Jesus had revealed to her his infinite love for humanity, and his hurt over the coldness of humanity’s response.

She said that Christ sought to encourage devotion to his Sacred Heart through a number of promises (generally counted as 12), the final one being this: “In the excess of the mercy of my heart, I promise you that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the first Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die in my displeasure or without receiving the sacraments; and my heart will be their safe refuge in that last hour.”

Church authorities added a few conditions. Confession was required, and communicants were to have the proper dispositions, namely, love and reverence. They were also to receive the Eucharist with the conscious intention of making reparation to the Sacred Heart, and in order to warrant the graces of Christ’s promises.

A critical view of the devotion may regard it as skirting close to Pelagianism, the fifth-century heresy that presumes that we can effect our own salvation. But in fact, the focus of the devotion is Jesus himself, not the devotee’s exertions, and the real guarantee is that we will be encouraged to discipleship through the frequent reception of the sacraments.

The language employed by many seventeenth century saints is not the most captivating kind of discourse. Even saints like St Thérèse of Lisieux, born much later, suffer in this way.

St Marguerite Mary often appears particularly overwrought, as though she were greatly unhappy in her convent, and invented conversations with the Lord to make herself special. As is often noted, however, the Jesus who speaks to mystics hardly ever sounds like the Jesus of the gospels.

The language he uses is theirs, not his own. St Marguerite’s confessor was convinced of her genuineness and veracity; and so was Pope Benedict XV, who canonised her.

First Friday devotions do not flourish as they used to before the Council, but they have not died. Why have many people remained so faithful to them, even though they may have completed the nine consecutive Fridays too often to mention?

One reason is that they believe that Jesus will be true to his promise, and they take him at his word. Whatever may happen to them, he will be with them in their last hour, wherever and whenever that may be.

Another reason is that Catholics once easily understood the place of discipline in a life of prayer. Many of the older devotees have been so habituated to this, they couldn’t stay away if they wanted to.

Sociologists have often puzzled over the paradox that the religion that demands least from its followers has a hard time attracting followers; whereas those that make some demands on discipleship gain in numbers.

The reason is not that more people are masochists than we think. It is that they grasp instinctively that a spiritual life of any worth entails some cost. As we say in Trinidad, “good ting no cheap, and cheap ting no good!”

A third reason for the survival of the devotion is that it represents a graphic reminder of the heart of the paschal mystery. The sacrifice of Jesus, which we are shortly going to commemorate again, is a sacrifice of total love.

We never respond to it as we ought, and the devotion reminds us that our need for conversion is permanent. The number nine also reminds us of the length of the period of gestation, for a new heart to be born.

Nine months – Advent and Incarnation. The messages of devotion are not all conscious. Some of its meaning is also subliminal and unconscious.