May the Lord give you peace and health in the Holy Spirit.
We celebrate the solemnity of Sacred Heart of Jesus.
We reflect from Hosea 11:1,3-4,8-9; Ephesians 3:8-12,14-19; and the Gospel John 19:31-37.
We celebrate the heart of Christianity that is love.
We experience tangibly in a special way the love of God in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The symbol of love of Jesus shared in a vision to St. Margaret Mary.
A young man enquired the master, “I know that we are commanded to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength. But I know that my heart, soul, mind, and strength have bad parts in them. So how can I love God?” Intensely, looking at the young man the master replied, “It seems you will just have to love God with the bad parts too.”
Heart is the symbol of love. It is the culmination of the Paschal Mystery of Christ right after celebrating the Holy Trinity, Body and Blood of Christ, today the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Give one’s heart is the highest form of expression of love. The iconic symbol of love as heart is associated with love. One of the Greek poets expressing his agonizing love as mad heart. There are so many emojis containing a heart and it is still evolving expressing dynamic true love. As the heart pumps blood continuously throughout the body, so love of Jesus for the entire mystical Body of Christ.
Innocent XII, Benedict XIII, Clement XIII, Pius VI, and Pius IX and Leo XIII pope devoutly fostering the most excellent form of devotion and the veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In the Encyclical Of Pope Leo XIII, On Consecration To The Sacred Heart (Annum Sacrum, No.8), “The Sacred Heart a symbol and a sensible image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love one another, therefore is it fit and proper that we should consecrate ourselves to His most Sacred Heart-an act which is nothing else than an offering and a binding of oneself to Jesus Christ, seeing that whatever honour, veneration and love is given to this divine Heart is really and truly given to Christ Himself.”
There are many signs we can identify and relate with the loving and caring Heart of Jesus by changing of water into wine at the marriage feast at Cana, the feeding of the 500 people, healing the sick, the blind and restoring dead to life.
In a pinpointed way, in the Gospel of John, we find the piercing of the side of Jesus.
In most of the house, and in our personal rooms we have the image of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. We feel we are loving watched, cared, and loved by the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The unconditional love of Jesus assures us all no matter who we are and what we have done, we have a special place in the Heart of the Saviour.
God loves us not by our merits but mere love.
“Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” (Eph.3:17).
We cannot measure the depth, height, and length of Christ’s love for us, but we can believe it and emulate it in our life.
Blood and water flowing from the Heart of the Saviour according to the Gospel of John, it is the only Gospel that reports this, is a special sign of salvation and the meaning and mission of Christ on earth. It is linked to the Sacrament of Baptism and Eucharist.
“They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as over a first-born” (Zech 12:10).
We celebrate today in remembering the pierced Heart of Jesus as unique symbol of Love.
In the First Reading from the prophet Hosea presents God as a loving parent who cared and demonstrated love by leading them from slavery to salvation reaching the Promised Land. “I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him I gave him his food. My heart recoils from it, my whole being trembles at the thought. I led them with reins of kindness, with leading-strings of love.”
St. Paul makes a beautiful prayer. “Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ” (Eph.3:18).
Even if we have hurt Him, He still loves us without measure.
His Holiness Pope Francis beautifully puts it. ‘It is easy to love God. But it is difficult to allow him to love us. ‘
There is so much to love indeed. C.G. Jung exhorts us, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” We cannot go on harbouring hatred in our heart and boast we love God. In truth, we hate ourselves that we are not comfortable of before we hate the other. Hermann Hesse reprimands, “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” May the Sacred Heart of Jesus bless each one of us.