Friday after the Second Sunday after Pentecost
(Fr James Socias et al [Eds], "Daily Roman Missal", 1989, p734)
This celebration appears as a liturgical feast in 1675 following the apparitions of Our Lord to St Margaret Mary Alacoque. The feast was celebrated for the first time on 21 June 1686. Pius IX extended it to the whole Church. In 1928 Pius XI gave it the splendor it has today.
Ref: cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 6:315
Christ’s love for each one of us
This Solemnity has a 2-fold aspect: thanksgiving and reparation. We show our gratitude for God’s love for us. For the latter, because this love is so poorly responded to, (cf A G Martimort, “The Church at Prayer”) even by those who have many reasons for loving and thanking God.
The basis of Christian piety has always been a consideration of Christ’s love for all. Thus, devotion to the Sacred Heart “stems from the principles of Christian doctrine”. (Pius XII, “Haurietis aquas”, 15 May 1956, 27)
This devotion received a special impulse from the homage and piety of many saints to whom Our Lord disclosed the secrets of his most loving Heart, moving them to spread reverence to the Sacred Heart and foster a spirit of reparation.
In many parts of the Church is the private custom of making reparation on the first Friday of the month with some Eucharistic act or by saying the Litany of the Sacred Heart. Also, “the month of June is dedicated in a special way to the veneration of the divine heart. Not just on one day, the liturgical feast ... but every day.”(John Paul II, “Angelus”, 27 June 1982)
The Heart of Jesus is the source and expression of his infinite love for each person, whatever may be his status. He seeks out all of us. The Father has entrusted to the Son each one so that he or she shall not perish, although he/she may have strayed far away.
Jesus, true God and true man, loves the world with a “human heart”, (Second Vatican Council, “Gaudium et spes”, 22) which serves as a channel for God’s infinite love. Nobody has ever loved us more than Jesus does. “He loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20) His Heart is full of the Father’s love: divine and human. After his ascension, Christ did not cease to love us; nor stop calling us to his most loving Heart.
Even in Heaven, “in his hands and feet and side He bears the glowing marks of the wounds which represent the triple victory gained by him over the devil, sin and death. He likewise has in his heart, placed as it were, in a most precious shrine, those treasures of merit, the fruits of his triple triumph. These he bestows generously on redeemed mankind.” (Pius XII, Op cit, 22)
Today, we adore the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus “since that heart of his participates in and is the natural and most expressive symbol of the inexhaustible love with which our divine Redeemer still loves mankind. That heart indeed, although it is no longer liable to the disturbances of this mortal life, still lives and beats. It is now inseparably joined with the Person of the divine Word, and in it and through it, with his divine Will.
“... since the heart of Christ overflows with divine and human love, abundantly rich with the treasures of all the graces our Redeemer acquired by his life, his sufferings and his death, it is truly the unfailing fountain of that love which his Spirit pours forth into all members of his Mystical Body.” (Ibid, op cit, 24)
As we meditate on Christ’s love for us, we will feel a desire to thank him for such great gift and for so much unmerited mercy. Very many turn their backs on God; but remember often we ourselves have been unfaithful.
We should turn to his most loving Heart where we shall find peace. We often need this recourse to his merciful love and to seek that peace, one of the fruits the Holy Spirit gives us: ‘Most sweet and merciful Heart of Jesus, grant us peace.’
Ref: cf F Fernandez, Op cit, 315-7, 319-21
Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St Margaret Mary Alacoque
1) I will give them all graces necessary for their state of life. 2) I will give peace in their families. 3) I will console them in all their troubles. 4) They shall find in My Heart an assured refuge during life and especially at the hour of death.
5) I will pour abundant blessings on all their undertakings. 6) Sinners shall find in My Heart the source of an infinite ocean of mercy. 7) Tepid souls shall become fervent. 8) Fervent souls shall speedily rise to perfection. 9) I will bless the home in which the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and honored.
10) I will give to priests power to touch the most hardened hearts. 11) Those who propagate this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart; they shall never be effaced.
12) I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart the all-powerful love of My Heart will grant to all who shall receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance. They shall not die under My displeasure, nor without receiving the Sacraments. My Heart shall be their assured refuge at the last hour.
Ref: A F Makalinao, “Apostle of the Sacred Heart: St Margaret Mary Alacoque”, pp39-40
The Heart of Jesus is exempt from all temptation to sin
St Paul, though confirmed in grace, declared that day and night his soul was troubled by continual temptations to sin. Our Lord experienced nothing like this. He did permit the devil to tempt him; but those temptations were purely exterior. They could never reach his Heart, or trouble its perfect peace which are among its greatest perfections.
We will never be totally free from sin whatever we do to repress their irregular motions. The evil inclinations implanted by original sin will always be a source of trial and temptation to us. We can control them only by a constant struggle.
We are thus compelled to be always at war with ourselves, or as St Paul describes it, with our ‘old man’. But let us take courage-- the fiercer the struggle, the more glorious will be the victory; the brighter our crown in heaven. Moreover, the Heart of Jesus is always open to us for our sure refuge and resting-place.
Ref: cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, p321
A promotion of social justice
Pope Pius XII in his encyclical “Haurietis Aquas”, brought a new era in the history of the devotion by giving it a solid and extensive scriptural and theological foundation. He also explained why the Church gives the highest form of worship (‘latria’) to the Heart of the Divine Redeemer.
The Heart of Jesus is the chief sign and symbol of the threefold love with which the Son of God unceasingly loves His Father and sinful men: 1) divine love which he shares with his Father and the Holy Spirit; 2) burning love of the God made man; and 3) sensible love since he possesses complete powers of perception and feelings.
In this devotion, is a summary of the mystery of the redemption and the ‘most perfect way of professing the Christian religion’.
In our generation, Pope Paul VI issued the Apostolic Letter, “Invetigables Divitias” on the occasion of the second centenary of the liturgical feast of the Sacred Heart instituted by Pope Clement XIII. He also stressed in his second letter on 25 May 1965the intimate link between the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Holy Eucharist. A devotee of the Sacred Heart must necessarily be also a devotee of the Holy Eucharist.
Pope John Paull II gave a new dimension to the devotion by connecting it to social justice. In his encyclical “Dives in Misericordia” (30 November 1980), he expounded on the mercy of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. If the heart is the seat of all emotions, feelings and attitudes, truly the center of man, then God’s mercy inevitably brings us to the Heart of Christ.
The Pope traced the fundamental link between mercy and social justice. ‘Mercy is an indispensable element for shaping mutual relationships between people in a spirit of mutual brotherhood.’ An authentic Sacred Heart devotion must lead to promotion of social justice.
True piety leads to good works. The title of his encyclical on the Centenary of the Consecration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (11 July 1999) can be translated as ‘His heart is the heart of the Church’.
Ref: A F Makalinao, “Apostle of the Sacred Heart”, pp31-2
The World Created by God for Man
Man’s situation in the modern world seems far removed from the objective demands of the moral order, from the requirement of justice, and even more of social love. We are dealing here only with God’s message: “subdue” the earth.
This message was confirmed by Christ the Lord in the mystery of the Redemption. The Second Vatican Council expressed it in the call to share in the kingly function of Christ. The essential meaning of this “kingship” and “dominion” consists in: priority of ethics over technology, primacy of person over things, and superiority of spirit over matter.
An advancement of persons, not just multiplying things people can use. Not of “having more” as of “being more”.
Ref: cf “Prayers and Devotions from Pope John Paul II”, pp247-8
Our Lady -- “Say to her: ‘Mother of mine -- ... may your love bind me to your Son’s cross, may I not lack the faith, nor the courage, nor the daring, to carry out the will of our Jesus’.” (cf St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Way”, 497)
Our Lady of Esquernes, half a league from Lille, in Flanders. This image began to work miracles about the year 1162. — Buzelinus, Annals of Gaul, lib. ii. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; http://www.bethlehemobserver.com)
Our Lady of Esquernes (Near Lille, Flanders). (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
Our Lady of Esquernes (Flanders, 1162).(http://www.divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (http://www.starharbor.com/santiago/m feasts.html); (MaryLinks Calendar.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)
St Barnabas, Apostle -- A Cypriot Jew, he introduced St Paul to the other apostles. He was with Paul in the first missionary journey and in the first Council of Jerusalem. Died a martyr during Nero’s reign. (Fr James Socias et al [Eds], “Daily Roman Missal”, 1989, p1545)
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