15 June 2012: Solemnity of The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Friday after the Second Sunday after Pentecost 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 The mystery of the Sacred Heart In many passages of the Gospel, we discover the wealth of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which give us a glimpse of the quality of his Sacred Heart and its holy affectivity. In these passages our Lord directly discloses the life of his Sacred Heart and grants us an insight into this most intimate holy secret. We are granted a glimpse of the wounds inflicted on his heart by the infidelity of his disciples, by the insipidity of Jerusalem and of the elected people. We are privileged to divine his tender love for his disciples, his underlying outlook at his supreme sacrifice, his anxieties, his loneliness. We are even granted a glance into an incomparably more sublime secret of his Sacred Heart: the motions directed to his heavenly Father, his abandonment to God, his supreme sacrifice, his infinite love. In these intimate revelations of his heart, Christ’s human nature certainly manifests itself in a specific fashion. And yet we are confronted with the great mystery that precisely in these manifestations of his Sacred humanity by which his divinity is revealed most intimately. It is the mystery that his Heart is substantially united to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Ref: D von Hildebrand, “The Sacred Heart”, p145 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 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, “Haurietis aquas”, 15 May 1956, 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.” (Pius XII, “Haurietis aquas”, 15 May 1956, 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, “In Conversation with God”, 6:315-7, 319-21 Imagination The imagination is a mad woman, St Teresa called her, with her usual good humor. And yet how often we choose her, more or less consciously, as adviser in the most delicate problems of our soul! If you fail to control and guide her, you will never be a supernatural and interior soul. You will never enjoy the serene calm which is so necessary for loving God. It twists our mind, misrepresents situations, and distorts our view of other people. Calm, realism, serenity, objectivity are virtues which are born where the tyranny of the imagination is buried. Moreover, imagination is the greatest ally of sensuality and self-love. Your life of piety: prayer, presence of God, abandonment into the hands of our Lord, and supernatural joy are threatened by the house madwoman. Ref: Cf Salvatore Canals, “Jesus as friend”, 1981, pp73-6 • Foundation of Our Lady of the Feuillants, in the diocese of Toulouse and Rieux, in the year 1145. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com) • Foundation of Our Lady of the Feuillants, Toulouse, France (1145). (www/divinewill.org/feastsofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html) • Our Lady of the Bernardines / Feuillants. (“Notre Dame des Feuillants”). Toulouse, France. 1145. History of the Order. ... (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm) • Our Lady of the Bernardines”/ Feuillants Diocese of Toulouse, France 1145. (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html); (www.starharbor.com/santiago/m feasts.html) • Our Lady of the Taper (England, 12th Century). (www.divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html); (http://mariedenazareth.com) • Our Lady of the Taper. Cardigan, Wales. History. Wood sculpture. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)