The Sacred Heart of Jesus

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“When they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:33-34).

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Our Lord allowed His Heart to be pierced by a lance, and this wound was opened up, from which flowed blood and water, a symbol of the sacramental life of the Church, which Pope Pius XII would like to call “a fountain of living water” (Pius XII, Encyclical, Haurietis aquas, May 15, 1956).

Something flows from the side of Christ, from His Heart, into our heart, and gives rise to spiritual life or interior life. That thing which flows is love.

This feast celebrates in a special way the love of God for man, the love of Christ for man. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), and He gave Him on the Cross.

He has a Heart that is willing to be on the Cross. Christ teaches us that authentic love is sacrificial love.

Modern culture often tries to tell us that love is feeling. ‘Taste the feeling.’ ‘Feel the feeling.’ But Christ on the Cross did not say, ‘You can't beat this feeling.’

He must have felt awful, but yet He has told us, “Greater love than this no man has, that he is willing to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Christ allowed His Heart to be broken on the Cross, as though to become the patron saint of all broken hearts, with Our Lady.

Fulton Sheen likes to say that if ever God allows hearts to be broken, it's because He wants to enter into them a little more (cf. Fulton J. Sheen, Through the Year: Inspirational Readings).

There's always some great divine purpose or some great apostolic purpose. Christ on the Cross with His wounded Heart teaches us the meaning of love and invites everyone with a pain in their heart to enter into the wounds of Christ Crucified, to enter into the Heart of Christ, and there find consolation and joy, because the Holy Spirit is in the wounds of Christ.

Love is there. It's to the Heart of Christ that we're invited to go to receive consolation, strength, meaning.

We're invited to be very intimate with the Heart of Christ, and also to atone to that Heart for all the ways in which that Heart is offended through sin in the world.

The passage continues in St. John, “This is the evidence of one who saw it—true evidence, and he knows that what he says is true—and he gives it so that you may believe as well” (John 19:35).

St. John includes this line here, as though emphasizing the point. Those who were there saw this happening, and little by little, have come to realize its significance.

Something very important has just happened, says St. John. “True evidence, and he knows that what he says is true.” He emphasizes the point.

“Because all this happened,” Scripture continues, “to fulfill the words of Scripture: Not one bone of his will be broken; and again, in another place…: They will look to the one whom they have pierced” (John 19:36-37).

We're invited today to “look to the one whom they have pierced”—to contemplate the wounded Heart of Christ and to learn many things from that wounded Heart.

There's a place in that Heart for every human person. In the Entrance Antiphon of today's Mass, it says, “The thoughts of His Heart last through every generation” (Ps. 33:11).

The Heart of Christ has something to say to the whole of humanity.

In the Communion Antiphon, it says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37).

We're invited to go close to that Sacred Heart “to draw water in joy from the wells of salvation” (Isa. 12:3) and ultimately, to learn the real meaning of human love—human love, which is a reflection of divine love; human love, which is the most beautiful reality on the planet.

At the end of his life, St. Augustine was to say, “Late have I loved you” (St. Augustine, The Confessions X, 27), a famous phrase that has come down through us through the centuries. “Late have I loved you.”

The whole purpose of our Christian vocation is love—that we put love into practice in our family, in our work, and our social relations—in everything that we do. Because “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), because the Church is love.

It's on the Cross of Christ with His wounded Heart that we learn the meaning of that word.

When Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary, He said, “Behold this Heart which has loved men so much” (Robert Stackpole, Jesus, Mercy Incarnate). Behold this Heart, look at this Heart.

He said, “What do I get in return? Nothing but insults. And it is those who are consecrated to me that often give me the greatest pain.”

Those words of Our Lord can lead us to grow in our spirit of atonement, to say sorry to the Heart of Christ and to make up to that Heart for all the times that we ourselves have offended that Heart through our own personal negligence.

In The Forge, St. Josemaría says, “My Lord Jesus has a Heart more tender than the hearts of all good men put together. If a good man (of average goodness) knew that a certain person loved him, without seeking personal satisfaction or reward of any kind (he loves for love’s sake); and if he also knew that all this person wanted from him was that he should not object to being loved, even from afar…then it would not be long before he responded to such a disinterested love.

”—If the Loved One is so powerful that he can do all things, I am sure that, as well as surrendering in the end to the faithful love of a created being (in spite of the wretchedness of that poor soul), he will give this lover the supernatural beauty, knowledge, and power he needs so that the eyes of Jesus are not sullied when he gazes upon the poor heart that is adoring him. —Love, my child, love and await” (Josemaría Escriva, The Forge, Point 298).

We know that “God is love” and love is also a mystery. We're always discovering new aspects of that mystery, new facets of the jewel of the Heart of Christ as we look at it from different optical angles.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a deep approach to the mysteries of Our Lord. We pledge our allegiance to a certain optical angle.

John Paul II liked to say that something so essential is experienced in devotion to the Sacred Heart that it will endure throughout the centuries.

St. Paul says to the Ephesians, “I, who am less than the least of all God's holy people, have been entrusted with this special grace, of proclaiming to the Gentiles the unfathomable treasures of Christ and of throwing light on the inner workings of the mystery kept hidden through all the ages in God, the Creator of everything” (Eph. 3:8-9).

We have received this great legacy, the legacy of the unfathomable riches of the treasure of Christ.

Lord, help me to appreciate that mystery, to delve a little more into your Sacred Heart so that I can be a more loving person and show that love in concrete ways, and in that way reflect my God, who is love.

To the Ephesians, in another place, he says, “This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every fatherhood, in heaven or on earth, takes its name.

“In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, with all God's holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God” (Eph. 3:14-19).

Down through the centuries in Scripture, there's always been a great emphasis on the importance of the heart. Our religion is a religion of the heart.

We're told, “God does not look at the outer appearance, but God looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).

These are messages to us to take very good care of our heart; not let our heart run away with ourselves or get attached to all sorts of silly material things.

We're told, “Seek for the things that are above, not things that are below” (Col. 3:2).

Our Lord has also warned us that “out of the human heart come all sorts of evil, ugly things: anger, pride, lust, jealousy, envy (cf. Mark 7:22).

He wants us to get all of those things out of our heart through the Sacrament of Confession and in spiritual direction, so that He can fill our hearts with love.

With the Psalmist, we can say, “Create a clean heart in me, O God” (Ps. 51:10). Purify my heart.

“Rend your heart and not your garments” (Joel 2:13). In the Book of Ezekiel: “I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26).

The Beatitudes are directives for right dispositions of the heart. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9). “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6).

We’re told that the quality of our prayer is measured by the heart. “Go into your room in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:6).

Almsgiving and its benefits or goodness is measured not by the amount, but by the intention. This poor widow put in all that she had to live on (Mark 12:41-44). The amount was not what was important. The importance was the spirit with which it was given.

St. John is often called the Saint of the Sacred Heart because he rested in the bosom of Christ (John 13:23). We have many reasons then to love this particular feast day, to make resolutions to purify our own hearts and thank God for the purifications that He may send to our hearts—the pains, the aches.

If ever God allows your heart to be broken, it may be that down the road a little bit, a few months, a few years, He'll bring some other soul in contact with you who also has a broken heart, and you will learn from that experience.

You'll help them to be able to see the hand of God working there and maybe, help those people to have recourse to the Heart of Christ to find their peace and serenity.

Pope Pius XII liked to say that “streams of living water shall flow from His Heart” (Pius XII, Encyclical, Haurietis aquas–On Devotion to the Sacred Heart, May 15, 1956, quoting John 7:38).

Water flows from inside of Christ to inside of each one of us and gives rise to new life. “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53).

Isaiah says, “Joyfully you will draw water from the springs of salvation” (Isa.12:3). It's there we find our peace and our serenity.

I was coming back from a retreat one time in Macau, passing through Hong Kong airport. I was changing the last piece of Hong Kong currency into Singapore currency where I was going.

Suddenly, I felt somebody at my left elbow. There was a guy who was looking over my shoulder.

I got the impression he was looking to see how much money I had so that he would know how much to ask for.

I felt a bit got at. I felt this wasn't fair. This guy's a real professional. When you're a priest dressed as a priest and traveling, you're a target for people like this.

When I turned around from that counter, the thoughts going through my mind were not very priestly. This guy was standing there, and the first thing he says to me is, “Are you a man of God?”

I was thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness, no! Emotional blackmail. This guy knows how to squeeze it out of you.’

Then he said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I was thinking, ‘I wonder, is it five, is it ten, is it the whole twenty?’ I could see myself walking home that night. And I said, “No.”

He said, “Why is love so painful?” Another unusual question to be asked at Hong Kong airport when you're rushing for a plane. Here was this 27-year-old guy asking, “Why is love so painful?”

He explained that he had married a girl from mainland China. He had lived in Taiwan for two years. He had smothered her with love, but now she had run back off to China.

He came to look for her; he couldn't find her. He said, “I can't sleep at night. I'm going nuts!”

Then he sees this man of God dressed in black and decides to ask him the question.

I asked him if he ever heard of Jesus Christ. He might have had some—he was from a Muslim background—but he might have had some Italian grandmother in Seattle who might have been a Catholic. It was all very complex.

But he was a real live 27-year-old guy with a broken heart. I think I learned more from the encounter than he did.

The world is full of broken hearts, people who are looking for help to mend their broken hearts. Broken hearts can only be mended in Christ.

We are there as followers of Christ to bring Him to other people, to help those “streams of living water” to flow, so as to bring people a new peace in their hearts, a new joy, a new serenity—the joy and the serenity of authentic love that comes from divine love, which is meant to lead us eventually to the eternal wedding feast. Happiness forever, with eternal love. It's for that that we have been made.

Pope St. John Paul II said this devotion to the Sacred Heart tries to reach out to the inner mystery of man because the heart is a symbol of one's intimate personality. It's the innermost part of a person's being.

When we look at Jesus through the optical angle of the heart, we look at Christ from within. We enter His inner works. We try to understand why He did what He did.

What is in the Heart of Christ? We learn the “why” of Christ. Strictly speaking, we don't need to go to the Holy Land or do Bible quizzes or other things. We just need to discover what is in that Heart.

What is in that Heart but love? The Heart of Christ makes the word “love” meaningful. Sacrificial love. A willingness to be on the Cross.

Therefore, the Sacred Heart of Christ has a message for every father of a family, for every mother of a family, for every sibling, for every person in the world. It's like a summary of our faith. It's the love of God for man unto death.

Christ could have said, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’ or clicked His fingers. He could have redeemed us in all sorts of ways.

But if He had not died on the Cross in the way that He did, if He did not allow His Heart to be pierced by a lance, we could not have experienced the depth of His love.

On the Cross, we see Christ's love for His Father. It's an atoning love. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

In the Preface of the Sacred Heart that we say today, we read, “From His wounded side flowed blood and water, the fountain of sacramental life in the Church. To His open side, the Savior invites all men to draw water in joy from the wells of salvation” (Preface, Roman Missal).

We can thank God today that we know these truths, that we know Christ. We know the answers. We have all the truth. We have all the answers—not like that fellow that I met in that airport in Hong Kong.

There are so many people in the world that don't have the answers, that don't know the truth. We have a great obligation to try and inform other people about the sacraments, the pathway to the Heart of Christ, as we are born from grace and therefore we can say, Abba, Father, “Come, Father.”

We have a “new life in the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1-11; 2 Cor. 5:17). We have a new commandment, which is, “Love one another” (John 13:34), and this comes from the driving force of the Holy Spirit, “who pours that love into our hearts” (Rom. 5:5). It comes from the Heart of Christ.

The bottom line of the Sacred Heart devotion is that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). Even if He had not redeemed us, He would still have been love.

What is glorious about the Cross? Love is glorious, and this was seen by “the good thief” (Luke 23:40-43) and by the centurion. We're told in St. Luke that when the centurion saw what had taken place, “He gave praise to God and said, ‘Truly, this was an upright man!’” (Luke 23:47).

Even in His dying moments, Our Lord attracted souls to Him.

The Cross is not just tragic, it's also splendid. Chesterton says that the joy of Christ on the Cross is missing in all the accounts of the Cross (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy)—the joy of knowing that His love would triumph. Optimism.

The whole of Creation stands before this God in awe. “They will look to the one whom they have pierced” (John 19:37; Zech. 12:10).

Our focus on the Sacred Heart of Christ fosters a Christ-centered relationship. Mother Teresa liked to say that we have to have a tender love for Christ.

Our spiritual life must lead us to a living, personal relationship with Jesus. If that's not the case, then we're lost. Everything is directed towards that.

Our religion is not a religion of the book, not even of the Bible. It's not a series of ceremonies. The Sacred Heart helps us to develop this living relationship with Our Lord.

We live in union with Christ. This doctrine is not abstract anymore; it becomes alive. It forces us to have a deeply personal image of Christ.

St. Thomas Aquinas says, “We can't grasp what God is, only what He is not” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I.I. Question 3).

We are born into a philosophy of an immutable, un-suffering image of Christ. God is immutable and cannot change, but He's not static. He's very dynamic.

He may be un-sufferable, but not insensitive. We can think and see that God also has feelings or something like feelings. His Heart can be hurt by our negligence, by our turning our back on Him, by our shouts of crucifying Him (Matt. 27:22-23).

He uses this Heart to reach out to us in tenderness and devotion, in the deeply personal mode of the heart.

We could also say that the Heart of Christ tells us something that surpasses philosophy—that God has a Heart.

Even if we know no philosophy or no theology, we can still know the Heart of God. He's a God of love and love is His ultimate definition.

To anyone who seems to suffer, as many do today, from low self-esteem, we can tell them if they feel unloved or if they feel they're on the lowest rung of the universe, that “you are a lovable reality.”

“You're carried in the palm of a God who loves you” (cf. Isa.4 9:16).

There's a great modern need for the Sacred Heart. Once people feel loved by God, they feel the need to respond to God in love.

Some might look at God as a cow. People love God for what He gives, not for what He is.

If we love God only for the cookies that He gives us, then that's the love of a dog. If we love God only because of His power, that's the love of a slave. If we love God only because of a dull sense of duty, that's the love of a servant.

But Our Lord has said, “I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business, but I have called you friends” (John 15:15). We're invited to have that deep personal relationship of love with Jesus.

In The Forge, St. Josemaría says, “Lord, make me so much yours that not even the holiest affections may enter my heart except through your wounded Heart” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 98).

We can feel sorry that God is loved so little. We can see that we need to outdo ourselves in love in some concrete way.

We need to make atonement to the Heart of Christ—to say we're sorry. Restoring glory to God in the world is a much wider idea than just reparation. We've got to place Christ on the top of all human activities. This is part of reparation.

If we have devotion to the Sacred Heart of Christ, hopefully it will foster a more loving atmosphere around us, a more loving family, a more loving society.

The world can be very impersonal, with credit cards, answering machines, voicemails. There can be a feeling of anonymity. This can cause a lot of pessimism in young people.

There was a song in the early 1960s by Elvis Presley that said, “I don't have a wooden heart.” We all—every human person has a sensitive heart. Sometimes in modern music and poetry, the heart can be missing. We have heavy metal, we have rock.

We need to reintroduce a culture of the heart so that we help people to become persons again. A culture of life, the cult of beauty, a civilization of love are all part of this.

We need to speak to people in their hearts for a convincing witness, one-to-one, heart-to-heart.

People must feel our heart. They need to feel there's a heart burning in us for our faith; and when people see this, they love it, because that's what they need.

In the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, in the Sequence of that Mass, we're told, “Make my heart burn in loving Christ Our Lord”–Fac, ut ardeat cor meum, in amendo Christum Deum.

Ure igne Sancti Spiritus!–“Enkindle in my heart the fire of your love” (Prayer to the Holy Spirit).

St. Paul tells us about the importance of love. We could put it in modern parlance—we could say we may play for Chelsea and score the winning goal; we might win presidential elections or gold medals in Olympics or marathons. We might get a green card to visit the USA or study at an Ivy League or Harvard. “But if we lack love, we are nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).

The Heart of Christ is like the beginning and the end of all things.

We could turn to Our Lady. A pathway to the Heart of Christ is the Heart of Mary. Cor Mariae dulcissimum, most Sweet Heart of Mary, may you make the pathway safe and sure for my journey to that Sacred Heart of Christ” (cf. J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 38).

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD