Today
in this beautiful Vistandine chapel dedicated to the two hearts, we ought to
begin by pondering the meaning of Jesus' sacred heart. It is noteworthy that we
have never had a feast of Jesus’ sacred brain, even though it was hypo-statically united
to the word of God. We've
never had a celebration of Jesus’ sacred hands, even those they saved us in a
carpenter's shop in Nazareth, reached out to touch and heal so many, and were
pinned to a tree for our redemption. We've never celebrated Jesus’ sacred feet,
even though they traversed the holy land to bring us the good news, were washed
with a sinners tears, anointed with a friend's aromatic nard, and wiped with her
hair. No, we've only celebrated Jesus’ sacred heart, and done so for two
reasons.
First,
the heart, in biblical terminology, symbolizes the center and entirety of a
person. To say that a person has a good heart or has no heart is to talk about
the person's overall character. To focus on Jesus’ heart is to focus on her
entire humanity.
Second,
the heart is obviously an organ of love. To ponder Jesus’ heart is to meditate
on the love that flowed from that heart, pierced for our offenses, as we read
about in the gospel today. The devotion to the sacred heart of Jesus
is a devotion to Jesus’ merciful love. It's from this heart that, as we sang in the
responsorial psalm, we draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation. And
today we come to drink from that live giving stream to the dregs, because we know
that that stream is meant to be a spring welling up inside of us to life
eternal but we also know that a heart can be wounded, that a heart can be
broken, when love is not reciprocated.
That's
what we encounter in today's first reading, when Jesus, speaking about his
people, said I "took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with
bands of love; I fostered them like one v/ho raises an infant to his cheeks; yet,
though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.
My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred." even then he refused to punish, because "I
am God and not a man,
the holy one present among you; I will not let the flames consume you.''
instead fie wanted to bring his people to conversion, so that they might receive
his life, live in his love, and share it. That message of conversion was the
mission of all the prophets. But just as with the people of Israel who took God's
incredible love and saving deeds for granted.
So
have we! When Jesus appeared in the
16705 to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in Paray-le-Monial, he said, "Behold
this heart that has so much loved men that it has spared nothing, even
exhausting and consuming itself in testimony of its love. Instead of gratitude,
I receive from most only the difference, irreverence, sacrilege, and the
coldness and scorn that men have for me in the sacrament of love."
The
sacrament of love to which he is referring is the, holy Eucharist. That's why
pope emeritus Benedict xvi back in 2oo7 when he gave us his apostolic exhortation
on the Eucharist called it,
"sacramentum caritatis,''
Or
"The sacrament of
love."
Jesus
said that in response to his pouring out his heart for us in the Eucharist, He
received from most only apathy, impiety, frigidity, contempt, and desecration.
These are unbelievable words! But it got even stronger. "What I feel the
most keenly,'' Jesus lamented, "is that it is hearts that are consecrated
to me that treat me in this way.'' this obviously applies to priests and
religious who take Jesus for granted.
But
it applies to every baptized Christian, who through baptism has been consecrated
to the lord. It's one thing when so many in the world take Jesus’ gift of
himself for granted, but when Christians, all the more Catholics, who know that
the Eucharist is Jesus’ body, blood, soul and divinity, neglect him, who
prioritize soccer games, or Sunday cartoons, or work over him, it wounds him.
That's why in reparation for the offenses against his heart, he asked for three
different Eucharistic devotions.
The
first would be the feast of the sacred heart on the Friday after Corpus Christi,
to unite the sacred heart specifically to the feast of Jesus’ body and blood.
Second he asked for people to come to mass and
receive him worthily on first Fridays, a day especially dedicated to the sacred
heart.
And
on the Thursday before, he asked for us to spend time in Eucharistic adoration
as he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. If we wish to have a devotion to
the sacred heart of Jesus, we need to recognize both the reality of his person
as well as the depth of his merciful love in this great sacrament
But
I also believe that Jesus teaches us even more the way we can love him and
repair the damage done by ourselves and others. We just need to reverse what
he, himself said to St. Margaret Mary. Instead of treating him with indifference,
we're supposed to make, him, in the Eucharist, the biggest difference in our
life, as our true priority, as the "source and summit" of our
existence, the fulcrum of our week and day.
In
response to irreverence, he wants us to treat him with deep piety, adoring him
outside of mass, making genuflections and profound bows with devotion and love.
In
contrast to those who treat him with coldness, we're called to treat him with
passion, to be more enthusiastic about him than the most fanatical follower of
a sports team is about his hometown squad, and to show it through the way we
sing with gusto, pray the mass, welcoming others with warmth and love.
In
response to the scorn or contempt with which most treat him, we're called to
treat him with grateful appreciation, even endless thanksgiving. And in
contrast to sacrilege, we're called to receive him as a holy temple fit for his
presence, among other things. The devotion to the sacred heart is meant to
transform us, to help us adore and receive Jesus in the Eucharist with
precedence, piety, passion, praise and purity - in short, by treating him as he
deserves.
It
is even more fitting today that we celebrate this feast within the context of
this extraordinary jubilee year of mercy. Many today find Jesus’ mercy
obnoxious. He was persecuted because of his deeds of mercy done for the crippled,
the possessed, the needy on the Sabbath, as if God would take a vacation on the
Sabbath day from loving his sons and daughters with crippled hands or who
hadn't walked for 38 years.
He
was persecuted because he welcomed sinners and ate with them. He was persecuted
as a blasphemer because he dared forgive sins. Likewise that mercy lived by the church,
shared in by us, is still obnoxious to some in the world, including many who
are religious. How many Catholics mock the sacrament of penance because they
don't want to admit that they're sinners who need a sacrament
or, who want to make it as easy as possible to
pretend as if they're not that bad by confessing their sins to God directly to God
who, in their own subjective framework, won't really call them to conversion,
rather than to a priest before whom, even if he's extraordinarily tender and
encouraging, will be means of conversion by the very fact that we need to name
our sins.
Jesus,
mercy incarnate, will always be a sign of contradiction, and through our
baptism we are summoned and strengthened to unite ourselves to that sign. Today
Pope Francis celebrated mass in St. Peter's square which was the culmination of
the jubilee of priests and seminarians during this year of mercy. Today on this
feast of the sacred heart we also have the world day of prayer for the
sanctification of priests. Pope Francis said:
“Today
we contemplate two hearts: the heart of the good shepherd and our own heart as priests"
the pope preached, “the heart of the good shepherd is not only the heart that shows
us mercy, but is itself mercy,'' he continued. "The heart of the good
shepherd tells us that his love is limitless; it is never exhausted and it
never gives up.,' Pope Francis added: the great riches of the heart of Jesus are
two: the father and ourselves. His days were divided between prayer to the father
and encountering people. So too the heart of Christ’s priests knows only two directions:
the lord and his people. The heart of the priest is a heart pierced by the love
of the lord. For this reason, he no longer looks to himself, but is turned
towards God and his brothers and sisters.
Today
we come, to this serene and holy chapel in the Berkshire hinterlands of Tyringham
to ask for that gift one of my favorite scenes in the life of St. Margaret Mary
was when Jesus mystically took her heart out of her breast, placed it in the
burning furnace of his own heart, melted away all the impurities and frigidity,
and returned it to her, so that she could love with the same fire with which Jesus
loves the father and others. Today we come before Jesus asking for the same
heart transplant.
"O
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make, our hearts like unto thine!"