Each
time that we gather around the Lord’s table for mass as a community of faith,
we celebrate the love that God has for us in a special way. Today’s solemnity of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus always falls 19 days after Pentecost, which is always on a Friday. The
Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the most beloved religious devotions in our
Church, as it sees Jesus’ physical heart as a symbol of the love that he has
for all of humanity. Many saints have
contributed to our understanding of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, especially St.
Margaret Mary Alacoque of the Visitation Nuns of Holy Mary. Her visions of Jesus in the 17th
century conveyed this message: “Look at this Heart which
has loved men so much, and yet men do not want to love Me in return. Through
you My Divine Heart wishes to spread its love everywhere on earth.”
As
we contemplate Jesus’ Sacred Heart, our own hearts are touched by his death on
a cross, by the way the soldier thrust a lance into his side, out of which
blood and water flowed. St Augustine
wrote about how Christ became the door for our salvation, how that door was opened
for us by his death and resurrection, by the soldier’s lance that opened up his
side. We choose where we want to enter
Christ, where we can enter from his side as he hung dying upon the cross, the
side from which the blood and water flowed.
The purification we receive from Christ is the water that flowed from
his side. The redemption we receive from
Christ is the blood that was shed for us.
In
his encyclical On Devotion to the Sacred Heart, Pope Pius XII calls the Sacred
Heart of Jesus “a symbol of that divine love which He shares with the Father
and the Holy Spirit but which He, the Word made flesh, alone manifests through
a weak and perishable body, since in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead
bodily." May the Sacred Heart of
Jesus call us to a life of holiness today.
May it call us to true devotion and love for Christ Our Savior.
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