Happy Feast of St. John Paul II!
To celebrate, I want to share with you a reflection for Our Holy Sainted Father on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, taken from the Angelus reflections on the Litany to the Sacred Heart.
Angelus, Sunday 9 July 1989:
"'Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of
God, have mercy on us.' The expression 'Heart of Jesus' immediately calls
to mind the humanity of Christ, and emphasizes the richness of his feelings,
his compassion towards the sick; his preference for the poor; his mercy towards
sinners; his tenderness towards children; his strength in denouncing hypocrisy,
pride, violence; his meekness in front of his opponents; his zeal for the glory
of the Father and his jubilation in the mysterious and providential workings of
grace.
With reference to the facts of the Passion, the expression
“Heart of Jesus” then draws out the sadness of Christ at the betrayal by Judas,
the discouragement of his loneliness, his agony before death, his filial and
obedient abandonment into the hands of the Father. And it speaks above all of
the love which flows unceasingly from within him: infinite love towards the
Father and love without limits towards man.
Now, this Heart so humanly rich, “is united – the Litany reminds
us – to the Person of the Word of God”. Jesus is the Word of God incarnate; in
him there is only one person – the eternal person of the word - subsisting in
two natures, the divine and the human. Jesus is one, in the indivisible reality
of his being and is, at the same time, perfect in his divinity, perfect in our
humanity; he is equal to the Father, in all that concerns his divine nature,
equal to us, with regard to human nature; true Son of God and true Son of man.
The Heart of Jesus then, from the moment of the Incarnation, has been and
always will be united to the Person of the Word of God.
Through the union of the Heart of Jesus to the Person of the
Word of God we can say: in Jesus, God loves humanly, suffers humanly, rejoices
humanly. And vice versa: in Jesus, human love, human suffering, human glory
acquire divine intensity and power.
Gathered, dear brothers and sisters, for the prayer of the
Angelus, let us contemplate with Mary the Heart of Jesus. The Virgin lived in
faith, day after day, next to her Son Jesus: she knew that the flesh of her Son
had flourished in her virginal womb; but she knew that because he was “the Son
of the Most High" (Lk 1, 32), he infinitely transcended her: the Heart of her
Son was, in fact, “united to the Person of the Word”. Hence she loved him as
her Son and, at the same time, adored him as her Lord and God. May she grant us
also to love and adore Christ, God and man, above all things, “with all our
heart, with all our soul and with all our mind”. In this way, following her
example, we will be the object of the divine and human predilections of the
heart of her Son."
(cited from totus2us.com)