God loves everyone. And because God is perfect, He loves us with the greatest and most perfect love that can ever be achieved. As a result of this great love, He wants us to be happy with Him forever in Heaven, for Heaven is the ONLY place where we can be TRULY happy.

Just because God loves us and He wants us to go to Heaven, though, doesn’t mean that we’re automatically going there. Why not? Well, let me give you an example. Let’s pretend that you had a robot. Now, you would give your robot all sorts of commands, and it would always do them. Now, it never did them because it knew that you were its master and that it was bound to obey you. It never obeyed you because it loved you and wanted to make you happy. It just did it; it didn’t have a reason. Now, let’s say that you had a friend and you asked him to do something, and because he loved you and wanted to make you happy, he did it. Now, you would most certainly appreciate what your friend did more than what your robot did, right?

Well, it’s the same way with God. God doesn’t want a Heaven full of robots; that is, a Heaven of people who had no free will, a Heaven of people who did what God told them to do just BECAUSE. He wants a Heaven of people who choose to love and obey Him on their own. That is why people don’t go to Heaven automatically. We ALL have to work at getting to Heaven.

Now, the road to Heaven is NOT easy. Fortunately, God knows this; and in fact, He wants us to go to Heaven more than even we OURSELVES want to go there. He has given us many devotions to help us get to Heaven, and one of them is the

Nine First Fridays

This devotion was given by Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun in France who lived during the 17th century. This devotion of the Nine First Fridays consists of attending Holy Mass and receiving Holy Communion in reparation for those who do not receive Our Lord, who do not love Him and who wound Him by their sinful lives. This is to be done on the First Friday of the month for nine months in a row.

And what has Our Lord promised to those who complete this devotion? Well, He said to St. Margaret Mary that, “I (Jesus) promise you, in the excessive mercy of My Heart, that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who communicate on the First Friday of Nine consecutive (in a row) months, the grace of final penitence (that is, final repentence); they shall not die in My disgrace, nor without receiving the (Last) Sacraments. My Divine Heart will be their safe refuge in this last moment.”