Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Everyday of the Year

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210. MERCIFUL LOVE

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, reveal to me the infinite treasures of mercy contained in Your Heart.


MEDITATION

1. Today’s liturgy is a warm invitation to confidence in the merciful love of Jesus. Even from the beginning of the Mass, the Church has us pray thus: “Look toward me and have pity on me, O Lord, for I am desolate and unhappy. See my misery and my sadness, and pardon all my sins” (Introit); then in the Collect we add: “O God... pour out upon us Your mercy,” and a little later we are exhorted: “Cast your care upon the Lord, and He will support you” (Gradual). But how can we justify all this confidence in God, since we are always poor sinners? The Gospel (Lk 15,1-10) explains the grounds for this justification by relating two parables used by Jesus Himself to teach us that we can never have too much confidence in His infinite mercy: the story of the lost sheep and the account of the missing drachma. First He shows us the good shepherd who goes in search of the lost sheep; it is a picture of Jesus coming down from heaven to search for poor human beings lost in the dark caves of sin. In order to find them, rescue them, and bring them back to the sheepfold, He does not hesitate to undergo the greatest sufferings and even death. “And when he hath found it.. .[he lays] it upon his shoulders, rejoicing: and coming home, [he calls] together his friends and neighbors, saying to them: ‘Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost.”

This is the story of the love of Jesus for all mankind and especially for every individual soul. The story has a beautiful symbolism in the tender figure of the good shepherd, to which Jesus likened Himself. We might say that the image of the good shepherd—which was so greatly loved in the early days of the Church—is the equivalent of that of the Sacred Heart; both are living, concrete expressions of the merciful love of Jesus, and they urge us to go to Him with complete confidence.


2. “I say to you, that even so there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance.” Here we have the underlying idea of all three parables about mercy—the lost sheep, the missing drachma, and the prodigal son—each expressing this thought in a different way. This insistent repetition tells us how earnestly Jesus would inculcate the profound lesson of His infinite mercy, a mercy which is the exact opposite of the hard, scornful attitude of the Pharisees who murmured, saying, “ He [Jesus] receives sinners and eats with them.” The three parables are the Master’s answer to their mean and treacherous insinuations.

It is not easy for finite creatures with a limited spiritual outlook to understand this ineffable mystery completely; not only is it difficult to understand in respect to others, but it presents a problem even in what concerns ourselves. However, Jesus said and repeated: “There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just” thus giving us to understand what great glory a soul gives to God when, after many falls, it comes back to Him, repentant and confident. The message of this parable applies not only to great sinners, those converted from serious sin, but also to those who turn from venial sins, who humble themselves and rise again after faults committed through weakness or lack of reflection. This is our everyday story : how many times we resolve to overcome our impatience, our quick temper, our sensitiveness, and how many times we fall again! But the Heart of Jesus “thrills with joy when, humbly acknowledging our fault, we come to fling ourselves into His arms, imploring forgiveness; then, He loves us even more tenderly than before we fell” (T.C.J. L-C). The liturgy repeats in the Communion hymn the last verse of the Gospel: “I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God over one sinner doing penance.” Let us ask Jesus, when He comes to us in Holy Communion, to help us penetrate the secrets of His infinite, merciful love.


COLLOQUY

“In whom, Lord, can Your mercies shine forth as in me, who with my evil deeds have thus obscured the great favors which You had begun to show me? Alas, my Creator! If I would make an excuse, I have none, and no one is to blame but I. For had I cooperated even a little with Your love which You had begun to show me, I would not have been able to love aught but Yourself Lord...but as I have not deserved this...may Your mercy be availing for me.

“Yet even from me some good has been brought forth by Your infinite goodness, and, the greater have been my sins, the more has the great blessing of Your mercies shone forth in me. How many reasons have I for singing of them forever! I beseech You, my God, that it may be so: may I sing of them, and that without end, since You have deigned to work such exceeding great mercies in me that they amaze those who behold them, while as for me, I am drawn out of myself continually, that I may be the better able to sing Your praise. For so long as I am in myself, my Lord, and without You, I can do nothing but be cut off like the flowers in this garden, and this miserable earth will become a dunghill again as before. Permit it not, Lord. Let it not be Your will that a soul which You have purchased with so many trials should be lost, when You have so often redeemed it anew and have snatched it from the teeth of the horrible dragon” (T.J. Life, 4-14).

“O Jesus, I know that Your Heart is more grieved by the thousand little imperfections of Your friends than by the faults, even grave, which Your enemies commit. Yet, it seems to me, that it is only when those who are Your own are habitually guilty of thoughtlessness and neglect to seek Your pardon, that You can say: ‘These wounds which you see in the midst of My hands I have received in the house of those who love Me.’ But Your Heart thrills with joy when You have to deal with all those who truly love, and who after each little fault come to fling themselves into Your arms, imploring forgiveness. You say to Your angels what the prodigal’s father said to his servants: ‘Put a ring upon his finger, and let us rejoice.’ O Jesus, how little known is the merciful love of Your Heart!” (cf. T.G.J. L-C).

211. RETURNING LOVE FOR LOVE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, You have loved me so much; enable me to repay Your love.


MEDITATION

1. In the Encyclical Annum Sacrum, Leo XIII declares, “The Sacred Heart is the symbol and image of the infinite charity of Jesus Christ, the charity which urges us to give Him love in return.” Indeed, nothing is more able to arouse love than love itself. “Love is repaid by love alone,” the saints have repeatedly said. St. Teresa of Jesus wrote: “Whenever we think of Christ, we should remember with what love He has bestowed all these favors upon us. ..for love begets love. And though we may be only beginners. ..let us strive ever to bear this in mind and awaken our own love ” (Life, 22).

The Church offers us the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in order to stir up our love. After reminding us, in the Divine Office proper to this feast, of the measureless proofs of Christ’s love, this good Mother asks us anxiously, “Who would not love Him who has loved us so much? Who among His redeemed would not love Him dearly?” (RB). And in order to urge us more and more to repay love with love, she puts on the lips of Jesus the beautiful words of Holy Scripture: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee”; and again, “Fili, praebe mihi cor tuum,” Son, give Me thy heart (ibid.). This, then, is the substance of true devotion to the Sacred Heart: to return love for love, “to repay love with love,” as St. Margaret Mary, the great disciple of the Sacred Heart, expresses it; “to return love unceasingly to Him who has so loved us,” in the words of St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus, the hidden but no less ardent disciple of the divine Heart.


2. The attitude we take in our spiritual life depends greatly upon the idea we have of God. If we have a poor, impoverished concept of God, like the slothful servant in the Gospel (Mt 25,14-30), instead of being impelled to love Him and to give ourselves generously to His service, we Shall be cold, indolent, calculating; and burying the talent we have received from the Master, we shall not trouble ourselves to use for God the benefits we have received from Him. Unfortunately, many Christians live this kind of life; they serve Him like slaves, and if they do not commit sin, it is only through fear of being punished; if they pray or perform some good work, it is for their own personal interest and is devoid of generosity and love. When, on the other hand, our soul begins to understand that “Deus caritas est,” God is charity (1 Jn 4,8), when we penetrate even slightly the mystery of the infinite love that surrounds us, realizing God’s love in the love which Jesus has for us, then everything changes spontaneously, because “love calls to love.”

Devotion to the Sacred Heart, which is devotion to the infinite love of Jesus, should produce this particular effect in us: it should give us an ever increasing comprehension of “the charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge” (Eph 3,19). In our meditation, our contemplation of the Heart of Jesus pierced for love of us, we shall learn the science of love, a science which no book on earth can teach us, because it is a science that can be acquired only from the open book of the Heart of Christ, our one and only Teacher. “He taught me a science most delectable” (J.C. SC, 27,2), sings the joyful soul who has been introduced into the secrets of His divine Heart. Then the answer to His love is easy: He “loved me and delivered Himself for me...and I most gladly will spend and be spent myself for Him and for the souls that are His treasure” (Gal 2,20 — cf. 2 Cor 12,15). Behold the love that raises us above all calculation, all self-love.


COLLOQUY

“Awake, O my soul. How long will you remain asleep? Beyond the sky there is a King who wishes to possess you; He loves you immeasurably, with all His Heart. He loves you with so much kindness and faithfulness that He left His kingdom and humbled Himself for you, permitting Himself to be bound like a malefactor in order to find you. He loves you so strongly and tenderly, He is so jealous of you and has given you so many proofs of this, that He willingly gave up His Body to death. He bathed you in His Blood and redeemed you by His death. How long will you wait to love Him in return? Make haste, then, to answer Him.

“Behold, O loving Jesus, I come to You. I come, drawn by Your meekness, Your mercy, Your charity; I come with my whole heart and soul, and all my strength. Who will give me to be entirely conformed to Your Heart, in order that You may find in me everything You desire?

“O Jesus, my King and my God, take me into the sweet shelter of Your divine Heart, and there unite me to Yourself in such a way that I shall live totally for You. Permit me to submerge myself henceforth in that vast sea of Your mercy, abandoning myself entirely to Your goodness, plunging into the burning furnace of Your love, and remaining there forever....

“But what am I, O my God, I, so unlike You, the outcast of all creatures? But You are my supreme confidence, because in You can be found the supplement or rather, the abundance of all the favors I have lost. Enclose me, O Lord, in the sanctuary of Your Heart opened by the spear, establish me there, guarded by Your gentle glance, so that I may be confided to Your care forever: under the shadow of Your paternal love I shall find rest in the everlasting remembrance of Your most precious love” (St. Gertrude).

212. CONSECRATION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, make me worthy to consecrate myself to Your loving Heart and to truly live this consecration.


MEDITATION

1. Because devotion to the Sacred Heart arouses in us a need to return His infinite love, it expresses itself spontaneously in an Act of Consecration by which the creature gives itself entirely to the God who has loved it so much. Consecration to the Sacred Heart, says Leo XIII, “means a giving of oneself, a binding of oneself to Jesus Christ, since all respect, all homage, and all devotion to the Sacred Heart are really addressed to Jesus Himself” (Annum Sacrum). Pius XI explains what this act consists of: “By this Act of Consecration, we offer to the divine Heart of Jesus, ourselves and all we possess, acknowledging that we have received it all from the eternal charity of God” (Miserentissimus Redemptor).

To love is to give oneself: “To love is to give all and to give oneself,” sang St. Therese of the Child Jesus. When love is real it must make a gift of everything, and in this total gift to God the loving soul finds its peace and rest. The ardent cry of St. Paul: “Caritas Christi urget nos,” ends with his triumphant cry: “ut non sibi vivant, sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est”; the charity of Christ presseth us.... that we
may not now live to [ourselves] but unto Him who died for [us]. (2 Cor 5,14.15).

One who consecrates himself to a person gives himself entirely to that person; he no longer belongs to himself; henceforth he cannot live for himself; his tastes, interests, and desires must give way to those of the one to whom he has given himself, and to whom he now belongs. This is the profound meaning of Consecration to the Sacred Heart, a Consecration which, far from being reduced to the recitation of a mere formula, involves and must involve our whole person, life, and abilities so that we use our complete being and all we possess in the service of the divine Heart.


2. This Consecration to the Sacred Heart is not the same as that contained in the three vows of religion, which is reserved for certain souls, but we speak of the total consecration which Jesus Himself, in the Gospel, suggested to everyone and which each one is obliged to carry out according to his state in life. Jesus said to us: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mk 12,30). By repeating the word “whole,” He asks for a total love, and thus for a total gift of self; that is, He asks us to give ourselves to Him and to His service, not by halves, but entirely. Jesus shows us how to respond to His appeal, urging us to prove by deeds the ruthfulness of our love and our complete gift: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (Jn 14,15). Therefore, we need not seek in distant places for ways and means of actualizing our Consecration to the Sacred Heart; nor should we make it consist in exceptional, extraordinary things, but should realize that the means are right at hand in our practical, everyday life.

To consecrate oneself totally to the Sacred Heart means preferring His commandments, will, desires, and tastes, as the norm of one’s life, being ready to renounce one’s own will and desires when they are contrary to His. Many Christians consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart, but very few actually live their Consecration in its totality. Most people live it by halves; they prefer the will of Jesus to their own when to act otherwise would be to commit a grave sin; but when it is a question of venial sin, or more often, of imperfections, they have no scruple about displeasing the Sacred Heart and doing as they please. Jesus, however, seeks faithful souls, souls who live their Consecration to such a point that they never prefer their own desires and personal tastes to His. Should we not wish to be one of these? “My child, give Me thy heart,” Jesus says, and might add, “Give it to Me in its totality by living entirely according to My Heart.”


COLLOQUY

“Adorable Heart of my most loving Jesus, what good have You found in me to make You love me without limit, even though my heart, stained by a thousand faults, was so cold and indifferent toward You? The great proofs of love which You have shown me, even when I did not love You, give me hope that You will now find acceptable the proofs of my love. Receive then, my loving Savior, my desire to consecrate myself entirely to the honor and glory of Your Sacred Heart; accept the gift of all that I am. I consecrate to You my person, my life, my actions, my pains and sufferings, desiring to be in the future a victim consecrated to Your glory, on fire at this moment, and one day to be entirely consumed by the holy flames of Your love. I offer You then, my Lord and my God, my heart with all its desires, that during my whole life it may be perfectly conformed to Yours. I belong, then, wholly to Your Heart, I am entirely Yours. O my God, how great are Your mercies toward me!...

My adorable Savior, accept my consecration also in reparation for the offenses which I have not ceased to commit against You until now, by corresponding so badly to Your love. I am giving You very little, I know, but at least I wish to give You all that is in my power and all You wish, for that You desire from me; therefore, by consecrating my heart to You, I give it to You never to take it back.

“Teach me, O loving Savior, perfect forgetfulness of self, for that is the one way by which I can enter Your adorable Heart; and since in the future I shall do everything for You, grant that all I do may be worthy of You. Teach me what I must do to arrive at the purity of Your love, but also give me this love, give me a most ardent, generous love. Give me that profound humility without which no one can be pleasing to You, and accomplish in me all Your holy will” (St. Margaret Mary).

213. REPARATION

PRESENCE OF GOD - Heart of Jesus, wounded for love of us, make me worthy to make reparation for all the wounds our sins have inflicted upon You.


MEDITATION

1. We find in the hymn for First Vespers of the Feast of the Sacred Heart the following words: “Lo, the proud, insolent procession of our offenses has wounded the innocent Heart of God.” And even more realistically it continues: “The lance which the soldier wielded was directed by our sins” (RB). These lines recall to our minds the words addressed by Jesus to St. Margaret Mary: “Behold this Heart which has so loved men...but which, in return for its infinite love, finds only ingratitude; it meets only with forgetfulness, indifference, and outrages, and all this at times even from souls bound closely to it by the bonds of a very special love.” A soul that loves God cannot remain indifferent to these complaints; it wants to expiate, repair and console, having “the most powerful motives,” as Pius XI teaches, “of justice and of love: of justice, in order to expiate the injury done to God by our sins. . .and of love, in order to compassionate the suffering Christ, patient and covered with opprobrium, and to bring Him insofar as our human weakness permits, some comfort in His sufferings” (Miserentissimus Redemptor).

It is easy to understand that we must make reparation for our own sins, but sometimes we do not see as clearly that reparation should also aim at consoling the Heart of Jesus. “But indeed, can acts of expiation console Christ who now reigns happily in heaven?” asks Pius XI “Give me a lover and he will understand what I say’” (ibid.), replies the great Pope in the words of St. Augustine. In fact, a soul who lovingly penetrates the mystery of Jesus will realize that when, in Gethsemane, He saw all our sins, He also saw the good works we would do in order to comfort Him. What we do today with this intention consoled Him then in reality. This thought spurs us on to further acts of reparation, so that Jesus finds no reason to complain sorrowfully to us: “My Heart hath expected reproach and misery. ..I looked for one that would comfort Me, and I found none” (Mass of the Sacred Heart).


2. The idea of reparation brings to mind that of “victim of reparation” well-known to lovers of the Sacred Heart, and officially recognized by the Church in the Encyclical of Pius XI on reparation. This venerable document explains what should be done by one who intends to offer himself as a victim: “Such a one assuredly cannot but abhor and flee all sin as the greatest of evils. He will also offer himself wholly and entirely to the will of God and will strive to repair the injured divine Majesty by constant prayer, by voluntary penances and by patiently bearing all the misfortunes which may befall him; in a word, he will so organize his life that in all things it will be inspired by the spirit of atonement” (Miserentissimus Redemptor). This is far from the fantastic idea of victim which some souls adopt.

Under the pretext of being obliged to take upon themselves extraordinary immolations, they avoid the reality of ordinary, daily life and imagine they are capable of enduring all kinds of suffering, whereas actually, they try to escape the sacrifices which present themselves every day. The idea of a victim of reparation offered by the doctrine of the Church is, on the contrary, something very serious, concrete, and realistic. The victim soul should make reparation for sin; and it will accomplish this by always doing what is contrary to sin. Sin is an act of rebellion against God and His will, as manifested by the commandments and the arrangements of divine Providence. Therefore, to do what is contrary to sin will consist in a total adherence to God’s will, by accepting it with our whole heart in all its manifestations, in spite of the repugnances we may feel. This, then, is the program of a victim soul: not only to avoid sin, even the smallest one, but to embrace God’s will in such a way that He can really do all that He wants with it. To this docility, the soul will add prayer and voluntary mortifications, which will have value only because they are offered by a heart entirely submissive to the divine will. And let us note that the first penitential act mentioned in the Encyclical is “the patient endurance” of the adversities of life.


COLLOQUY

“O God, why can I not bathe with my tears and blood all the places where Your Heart has been insulted? Why am I not permitted to make reparation for so many sacrileges and profanations? Why is it not given to me to be the mistress of the hearts of all men for a single moment, in order to atone, by the sacrifices I would make, for the neglect and folly of all those who have not wished to know You, or who, even knowing You, have loved You so little? But, O my adored Savior, what covers me with confusion and what most grieves me is that I myself have been one of these ungrateful souls. You, my God, see the depths of my soul; You see how I suffer because of my ingratitude and the unworthy treatment I have given You. Behold me, O Lord, my heart broken with grief, humbled and prostrate, ready to accept from Your hand all that it pleases You to ask of me in reparation for so many outrages ” (St. Margaret Mary).

“You know, my God, that my one desire is to be a victim of Your Sacred Heart, wholly consumed as a holocaust in the fire of Your holy love. Your Heart will be the altar on which I shall be consumed by You, my dear Spouse, and You will be the Priest who will consume this victim by the fires of Your most Sacred Heart. But, O my God, how ashamed I am to see how guilty is this victim and how unworthy to have her sacrifice accepted by You! But I am confident that all will be consumed by this divine fire!

“By offering my whole self to You, I understand that I am giving You my free will, so that henceforth, You alone will be the Master of my heart and Your will alone will regulate my actions. Therefore, dispose of me always according to Your good pleasure; I am content with everything, since I wish to love You with a love that is patient, mortified, wholly abandoned to You, an active love, a strong, undivided love and, what is more important, a persevering love” (T.M. Sp).

214. THE HEART OF JESUS OUR MODEL

PRESENCE OF GOD - Sacred Heart of Jesus, teach me to model the affections of my heart on Yours.


MEDITATION

1. A soul consecrated to the Sacred Heart, a soul given to reparation, must feel the need of modeling its life on that of Jesus. How can we say that we are really consecrated to the Sacred Heart, how can we say that we are His victim of reparation, when we retain in our heart feelings, desires, and attractions which are opposed to His?

It is clear that in order to model our heart on the Heart of Christ we cannot limit ourselves to eliminating this or that fault, to acquiring such and such a virtue; rather, we must strive to reform our whole life. However, when the divine Master offered us His Heart as a model, He spoke of two virtues in particular, meekness and humility: “Learn of Me because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11,29). Not without reason has He spoken thus, knowing that when we have removed all movements and feelings of pride and self-love from our heart, we will also have suppressed all our other faults; and when we have acquired a profound humility, we will have acquired all the other virtues as well. Let us pause, then, to consider this great lesson of the Heart of Jesus.

First, Jesus speaks to us of meekness. This is the virtue by which man is enabled to master everything that falls under the heading of “anger.” Meekness gives the power to restrain and dominate all those passionate movements—even slight ones—which sometimes make us exceed just limits, and lose sight of the divine Guide. Since the guide of a soul desirous of giving itself to the service of God, is God Himself, is the Heart of Jesus, we must never lose sight of Our Lord or withdraw from Him, even for a short time; if we do, we will end by following our own self-love and trivial passions. Meekness, however, gives us self-mastery, enabling us to dominate every kind of irritation. If we examine ourselves carefully, we shall see that these irritations are almost always caused by some little hurt to our pride; the irascible appetite has been aroused by something which has wounded our “ego.” Meekness, as we can see, is closely connected with humility.


2. Our Lord joins the lesson of meekness to that of humility precisely because the immediate foundation of meekness is humility. It takes only a small amount of pride, of self-love, of attachment to our own way of seeing or doing things to make us unable to stand opposition. Then in the face of the shocks inevitably arising from the common life, we lose, to a greater or lesser extent, our serenity, our interior and exterior peace. If serenity is lost, calmness of judgment is also lost; therefore, we are no longer able to see clearly the divine light showing us which path to follow in order to give Our Lord what He is asking of us. Our soul wavers, loses its vigor, and allows itself to be ruled somewhat by passion. As long as any traces of pride and self-love remain in us, there will always occur circumstances in which we will lose some of our control and self-mastery; consequently, we shall lack meekness. To profit by the lesson of the Heart of Jesus, and to model our heart on His, we must work assiduously to uproot every trace of pride and self-love. It is a task to which we must give our attention day by day, always beginning again, and never allowing ourselves to be discouraged by the constant recurrence of the attractions and resentments of our “ego.” We can only win this battle by never giving up the struggle.

To arouse our courage, let us remind ourselves that our strivings are not only good for our own soul but useful also to others, for, as Pius XI says, “the more we have sacrificed our self-love and passions, the more abundant will be the fruits of propitiation and expiation which we shall reap for ourselves and for others” (Miserentissimus Redemptor). ‘The battle against self-love and the practice of humility are both part of the program of a soul consecrated to the Sacred Heart, of one who has offered itself to Him as a victim of reparation.


COLLOQUY

“O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, You desire so ardently to shower Your favors upon the unfortunate, and to teach those who want to advance in the school of Your love; You continually invite me to be meek and humble of heart like You. For this reason, You convince me that in order to gain Your friendship and to become Your true disciple, I can do nothing better than to try henceforth to be truly meek and humble. Grant me, then, that sincere humility which keeps me subject to everyone, which makes me bear little humiliations in silence, which even makes me accept them willingly and with serenity, without excuse or complaint, remembering that I really deserve more and greater ones than I receive.

“O Jesus, permit me to enter Your Heart as I would a school. In this school teach me the science of the saints; in this school I shall listen attentively to Your sweet words: ‘Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.’ I can see that the storms I fear arise solely from my self-love, my vanity, my attachment to my own will. Defend me, O Lord, protect the peace of my soul! Your Heart is an abyss in which I find everything and, above all, it is an abyss of love in which I must submerge every other love, especially love of self with its fruits of human respect, vain complacency and egoism. By drowning all these tendencies in the abyss of Your love I shall find there all the riches my soul needs. O Jesus, if I feel in myself an abyss of pride and vainglory, I shall plunge it immediately into the profound humiliations of Your Heart which is an abyss of humility. If I find in myself an abyss of agitation, impatience or anger, I shall fly to Your Heart which is an abyss of meekness. In every circumstance, at every encounter, I want to abandon myself to Your Heart, the ocean of love and charity, and I will not leave it until I am all penetrated by its divine fire” (cf. St. Margaret Mary).

215. THE HEART OF JESUS OUR REFUGE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, deign to take me into Your Sacred Heart. Grand that it may be the sanctuary where I may be recollected, sheltered, and find my rest.


MEDITATION

1. The liturgy of the Feast of the Sacred Heart presents to us the Heart of Jesus as the ark of salvation, our shelter and our refuge. “O Heart of Jesus, ark...of grace, pardon and mercy, O Heart, inviolable sanctuary of the New Law, Temple more sacred than the ancient ark!...Who would not want an eternal home in this Heart?” (RB). “Close to these blessed wounds in the Heart of Christ,” exclaims St. Peter Canisius, "I shall find refuge; in them I shall build my nest in full security.” This has always been the hope of contemplative souls, of interior souls : to take refuge in the Heart of Christ as in their chosen asylum. St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus wrote in her last resolutions: “My God, I wish to enclose myself now and forever in Your most loving Heart as in a desert, to live there in You, with You, and for You, a hidden life of love and sacrifice” (Sp).

The soul who wishes to sound the depths of the mysteries of Christ and to understand something of His infinite love, will find no better way than to enter within His Heart or, as St. John of the Cross says, “to hide itself in the breast of its Beloved, for to these clefts He invites it in the Canticle of Canticles saying: ‘Arise, and make haste, my love, my fair one, and come into the clefts of the rock, and into the cavern of the enclosure” (SC 31,5). Let us take refuge then, in the Heart of Christ and contemplate His mysteries and His love, but seek there, too, a shelter for our interior life. This is a place of retreat which is always at our disposal and we can retire there even in the midst of occupations and duties. When rumors, curiosity, gossip, and the vanities of the world threaten to overwhelm us, let us quickly retire by a swift interior movement to the Heart of Jesus; there we shall always find recollection and peace.


2. In every temptation, we must fly to the Heart of Christ, reflecting on His goodness and charity, comparing them with our “vileness, malice, infidelity, and pride” (St. Peter Canisius). The Heart of Jesus will be our surest refuge in temptation; if we wish to escape Satan’s wiles and our own evil tendencies, we must take shelter in the Heart of Him who conquered Satan, and healed our ills by His wounds. Jesus triumphed over evil; if we take refuge in Him, we will have nothing to fear. Tempests may still rage around us, but our soul will be guarded and protected from shipwreck. No matter what kind of struggles we have to undergo, no matter how bitter or humiliating they may be, if we keep intact our confidence in this divine Heart, it will be our salvation. “Heart of Jesus, salvation of those who trust in Thee,” the Church puts on our lips in the litany of the Sacred Heart.

We must have unshaken confidence in this meek Heart in spite of all our faults and daily infidelities. “Cast all your faults into the abyss of His charity with great confidence and you will immediately be free of them,” says St. Peter Canisius. And St. Bernard declared even more forcefully, “I have committed a great sin. My conscience will be troubled but will not despair because I remember the wounds of my Lord. For indeed, He was wounded for our iniquities. What sin is there so deadly that it cannot be remitted through the death of Christ? ” With such confidence we, too, must seek the Heart of Jesus as a sure refuge in all our falls. We will often commit some fault through weakness or surprise in spite of all our good will. Let us then humble ourselves profoundly, acknowledge our weakness with humility, but we must not let this experience separate us from the Heart of Jesus. We should return to Him like the prodigal son to his Father and ask His pardon while kissing His sacred wounds, and renew our resolution to take up our abode in His Heart so full of goodness and mercy.


COLLOQUY

“O most sweet Jesus, the treachery of my sins would forbid my entering Your Heart. But since an inconceivable charity enlarged Your Heart, and since You, who alone are holy, can purify what is defiled, cleanse me from my faults, O good Jesus, and deliver me from my sins. When I am purified by You, I can approach You, O purest One, and enter and abide in Your Heart all the days of my life, to know and to do what You wish me to do ” (St. Bonaventure).

“Truly, where is there sure and lasting safety and rest for one who is weak if not in Your wounds, O my Savior? I dwell there all the more securely as You are powerful and can save me.

“The world rages around me, the body weighs upon me, the devil lays snares for me, but I do not fall because I am founded on You, the firm rock.... If then, O Christ, the thought of Your wounds comes to my mind, if I recall such a powerful and efficacious remedy, I can no longer be terrified by the fear that any harm may befall me. Filled with confidence, I shall take what I need from Your Heart, O Lord, for mercies abound there, and Your wounds are open to permit these mercies to flow forth. They pierced Your hands and Your feet, they opened Your side with a spear; and through these clefts I am able...to taste and see how sweet You are, O Lord!...

“The blade pierced Your soul and reached Your Heart so that You might know compassion for my infirmities. Through the wounds in Your Body, the secret of Your Heart, that great mystery of love, was revealed; the inmost heart of Your mercy was opened, through which You came to us from the heights of heaven. Where then can we see more clearly than in Your wounds, O Lord, that You are sweet, gentle and full of mercy? No one indeed shows greater mercy than He who gives His life for the condemned, for those sentenced to death. Hence, all my hope lies in Your mercy, O Lord, and I shall never be deprived of it so long as You are merciful” (St. Bernard).

216. THE SACRED HEART AND THE EUCHARIST

PRESENCE OF GOD - Sacred Heart of Jesus, teach me how to live with You through the Sacrament of Your love.


MEDITATION

1. Devotion to the Sacred Heart should bring us to a life of intimate union with Jesus who, we know, is truly present and living in the Eucharist. The two devotions— to the Sacred Heart and to the Eucharist—are closely connected. They call upon one another and, we may even say, they require each other. The Sacred Heart explains the mystery of the love of Jesus by which He becomes bread in order to nourish us with His substance, while in the Eucharist we have the real presence of this same Heart, living in our midst. It is wonderful to contemplate the Heart of Jesus as the symbol of His infinite love, but it is even more wonderful to find Him always near us in the Sacrament of the altar. The Sacred Heart which we honor is not a dead person’s heart which no longer palpitates, so that we have only the memory of him, but it is the Heart of a living Person, of One who lives eternally. He lives not only in heaven where His sacred humanity dwells in glory, but He lives also on earth wherever the Eucharist is reserved. In speaking of the Eucharist, Our Lord says to us, “Behold,
I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Mt 28,20). In Holy Communion, then, this Heart beats within us, it touches our heart; through the love of this Heart, we are fed with His Flesh and with His Blood, so that we may abide in Him and He in us. “In the Eucharist,” said Benedict XV, “this divine Heart governs us and loves us by living and abiding with us, so that we may live and abide in Him, because in this Sacrament. . . He offers and gives Himself to us as victim, companion, viaticum, and the pledge of future glory.”


2. The Eucharistic presence of Jesus in us is limited to the brief moments while the sacred species last, and ceases as soon as these disappear. However, Jesus expressly said, “He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me and I in him” (Jn 6,57). Now the word “abide” does not signify a passing visit, but is expressive of a stable, permanent state. Hence, from Our Lord’s own words, we can see that our union with Jesus continues even after the sacred species are consumed. And this is the literal truth. First, union with the divinity of Jesus does not cease, since the three divine Persons dwell continually in souls in the state of grace; but there is also a certain enduring union with His humanity. Even when Christ in His sacred humanity is no longer substantially present in the one who has received Holy Communion, He is there by the influence of His operative presence and by the effusion of His grace.

The Heart of Christ is no longer with us sacramentally when the appearances of bread and wine have disappeared, but He still abides with us spiritually by the irradiation of His love and His vivifying action, since we receive through the medium of the sacred humanity all that is given to us in the supernatural order. This spiritual union with Jesus, with His Sacred Heart, does not necessarily require Holy Communion; the state of grace suffices. Nevertheless, the Eucharistic Bread nourishes, consolidates, and strengthens this union,
making it more profound in the sense that Jesus always exerts greater influence over the soul of the communicant, and His divine Heart radiates more completely His love and all His virtues in the hearts of those who receive Him in this Sacrament. Hence, it is not extravagant to aspire to an effective, permanent union with Jesus and His Sacred Heart; on the contrary, this is the union which the Church bids us ask for every day in the beautiful prayer before the Communion of the Mass: “a te numquam separari permittas,” never permit me to be separated from You.


COLLOQUY

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who, by the will of the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, hast by Thy death given life to the world, deliver me by this Thy most sacred Body and Blood from all my sins and from every evil. Make me always adhere to Thy commandments and never permit me to be separated from Thee” (RM).

“O what a wonderful and intimate union is established between the soul and You, O lovable Lord, when it receives You in the Holy Eucharist! Then the soul becomes one with You, provided it is well disposed by the practice of the virtues, to imitate what You did in the course of Your life, Passion, and death. No, I cannot be perfectly united to You, O Christ, or You to me in Holy Communion, if I do not first make myself like You by renouncing myself and practicing the virtues most pleasing to You, and of which You have given us such wonderful examples.

“My union with You in Holy Communion will be more perfect to the degree that I become more like You by the practice of the virtues” (cf. St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi).

“O Jesus, You alone do I love and desire, for You alone do I hunger and thirst, in You I wish to lose myself and be consumed. Envelop me in the flame of Your charity and make me cling so closely to You that I can never be separated from You!

“O Lord Jesus, O immense ocean, why do You wait to absorb this little drop of water in Your immensity? My soul’s one desire is to leave myself and enter into You. Open, O Lord, open Your loving Heart to me, for I desire nothing but You and I wish to cling to You with all my being. O wonderful union! This intimacy with You is, in truth, of more value than life itself! O my Beloved, permit me to embrace You in the depths of my soul so that, united to You, I may remain there, joined to You by an indissoluble bond!” (St. Gertrude).