(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 5 June 2010)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
To Jesus through Mary. So it is that our devotion to Mary last month leads us to Jesus in the month of June, which is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Fr. Thomas Williams (ZENIT, 26 Apr 2010) said that devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus is “devotion to Jesus himself,…and, in a particular way,
to the love of God in human form”. Pope JPII said that in the Sacred Heart of
Jesus “beats God’s infinite love for everyone, for each one of us
individually.” [cf. Neilson, 1988] It is a celebration of the love of Christ’s
Sacred Heart, the love of God who sacrificed Himself for us. Thus, Pope
Benedict XVI said, the devotion is absolutely important “for our faith and for
our life in love”.
The Holy Father said that devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
means:
“adoring that Heart which,
after having loved us to the end, was pierced by a spear and from high on the
Cross poured out blood and water, an inexhaustible source of new life”. (Angelus, 5 June 2005).
When we adore the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist, we adore the
Sacred Heart of Jesus. Fr. Richard Neilson wrote in his beautiful article The Sacred Heart and the Eucharist, that
the Sacred Heart, the Holy Eucharist, and Love itself, are one and the same
thing. I quote him further:
“…for in the Eucharist
dwells Jesus, in Jesus His Heart, and in His Heart is infinite love. The
Eucharist can be explained only by love; the love of Jesus is the love of His
Heart, and so the Eucharist is explained only by the Sacred Heart.” (Neilson, June 1988)
Tomorrow’s Corpus Christi celebration is one of God’s giving of Himself in the Eucharist. So it is that when we visit the Blessed
Sacrament, and gaze upon the One "whom they have
pierced" (Jn 19: 37; cf. Zc 12: 10), we receive from Him “life and holiness”, “peace
and reconciliation”, and all the graces of His Sacred Heart. Didn’t Jesus say in Mt. 11: 29, “Learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly
in heart”? Only then can we be
transformed to live our lives for others and be God’s instruments. Pope Pius
XII in his famous encyclical, Haurietis
Aquas, declared that “devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the most
effective school of the love of God…”
Jesus revealed to St. Margaret Mary, that in the Garden of Gethsemane,
His great suffering was due to men’s ingratitude, especially towards the Blessed
Sacrament. Do you know, brothers and sisters, our Lord thirsts to be loved in
the Blessed Sacrament? When we pass Him by in the tabernacle without a thought
of Him, receive Him unworthily in Holy Communion, or do not bother if we
receive Holy Communion or not, we grieve our Saviour so. As reparation, Jesus
asked for Communion every first Friday, as part of the devotion to His Sacred
Heart.
This devotion also calls for consecration of ourselves to the Sacred
Heart as an act of offering and binding ourselves to Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo
XIII, Annum Sacrum, 1899)
By now, you must have known this quote
of the Curé of Ars: "The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.” Out
of His infinite love, Jesus instituted the priesthood, to remain with us in the
Blessed Sacrament. Fr. Neilson wrote: “In His priests, Christ
perpetuates Himself, living through them unceasingly His life of love for all
mankind.” Therefore, “…It is especially to priests that the Sacred Heart wishes
to show His love so that they can communicate it to the world.” It is in the
Heart of Christ that priests can achieve the ideal holiness that they are
especially called to. As Pope JPII once pointed out, it is no coincidence then,
that the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests is also
celebrated on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
As the special Year for Priests ends on the Solemnity next Friday,
let us pray that priests and seminarians may spiritually “enter into the Heart
of Jesus”. May they then become, as our present Holy Father said, “men of true
love, mercy, humility and patience, renewed in holiness and pastoral zeal”.
Amen.
References:
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