Book Review: Consoling the Heart of Jesus

I had many big plans for Lent this year, but I found that a couple weeks in, I started  to feel burnt out.  I tend to overwhelm myself with ideas and information, and, as always, I overdid it.  I ended up doing nothing at all, and feeling very guilty.  And then I received Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Michael E Gaitley, MIC for review from The Catholic Company. I was so blessed by this book.    It’s meant to be a do-it-yourself retreat that can be done in a weekend.   I, and I’m sure most people, don’t have a whole weekend to be alone and read a whole book straight through uninterrupted.  However, this is the sort of retreat you can do in whatever little snippets of time you can find.  And it is EXACTLY what I needed this Lent.

This book helped to understand many things that just hadn’t really occurred to me before.  The first half of the book is the actual retreat–which is really a retreat about mercy.  It uses excerpts from the works of St. Therese and St. Faustina to explain how we can console the heart of Jesus.  Now there’s a concept I’d never considered–that Jesus is continually suffering and needs to be consoled.  Michael E. Gaitley explains this beautifully, and in ways that anyone can understand.  You do not need a degree in Theology to understand this book.   Even a tired, frazzled mom can get so much out of it.  I especially loved the meditations–I’m a very visual person, and being able to “see” Christ as I was praying really helped me to focus.

The second half of the book are appendices containing Rules for the Discernment of Spirits (for little souls), excerpts from the Diary of St. Faustina, and references and notes.  It’s not essential to the retreat to read this half of the book–it’s more for afterwards, to help you continue–sort of like you’re Fourth Day, (for those familiar with Cursillo.)  This book could really be you’re entire Lenten sacrifice.  In fact, I think I’ll be rereading it next Lent.