23 June, 2017. The Sacred Heart of Jesus

1st Reading: Deuteronomy 7:6-11

God is faithful to his chosen people, who are dear to his heart

Moses said to the people:
“You are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him. Therefore, observe diligently the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances, that I am commanding you today.”

2nd Reading: 1 John 7:4-16

God has poured his love into us, through his Son and the Holy Spirit

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.

Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30

To know Jesus is our sure way to know and love our gracious Father

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The yoke that is sweet

This feast of the Sacred Heart has made its appearance relatively late in the Church’s liturgical calendar. Its focus is on the love of Jesus for each of us as symbolized in his heart, the beating heart of the Word-made-flesh. The essential mystery it celebrates is the all-embracing, merciful love of Christ, a love extended to all who come to him with faith, and willing to follow his way. The tireless love of Jesus for people in need was shown already in his lifetime and revealed in a special way through his Passion. But it required centuries of development before this revelation of divine love for sinners was explicitly associated with the HEART of Jesus and made the object of a special veneration in the liturgy. It now has special appeal to the devout faithful.

Our Lord assures us that his yoke is sweet and his burden light. In our better moments, we may experience the joy that does indeed make the yoke sweet. But at times the burden can feel very heavy and we could draw up a list of situations and times when we feel anything but the lightness and sweetness of his love, as we strive to implement the Lord’s commandments. It is quite a challenge to believe personally that the burdens of life are somehow a grace from the heart of Christ.. but a challenge that brings an inner reward, once we respond to it.

Christ himself asks us to never give up on our relationship to him, no matter what weakness or sin we may recognise in ourselves. On the contrary, when he called his burden light it is within the invitation, “Come to me all you who labour and are burdened” and he adds the encouraging promise, “I will give you rest.” He does not promise to remove the burden or free us from effort; but he promises an inner peace that can carry us through whatever we meet with day by day. We must come to terms with them, and find peace within the limited horizons of our daily life. The love of Christ beckons us to take this step into an outlook and spirituality where his love gives meaning to our struggles and sufferings.

God’s love made visible

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in the fervent atmosphere of the Cistercian monastic reform, we find the first clear signs of devotion to the Sacred Heart. But it was not until 1670 that the idea of a formal Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was promoted publicly by St Jean Eudes (1602-1680). Later in that 17th century, this gained great impetus through the visions granted to Margaret Mary Alacoque in the convent of Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy, France, whose intense devotion to the Heart of Jesus urged her to “diffuse the treasures of His goodness,” convinced that He had chosen her especially for this work.

In the following century, many requests to Rome to officially recognize the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus were turned down. But in 1765, at the request of the Queen of France, the papacy allowed the Feast to the Sacred Heart to be celebrated in France. A century later,, at the petition of the French bishops, Pope Pius IX extended the Feast to the universal Church, with an emphasis on the need for reparation for sins and abuses whether personal or social. Today, the devotion to the Sacred Heart is centered around the centrality of Divine love, encouraging all to trust in God’s overflowing benevolence towards the world He has made.

A life-giving love

The Sacred Heart is one of the most popular images of Christ for older Catholics. It speaks of the love of Christ, a love which showed itself on the cross, above all. The pierced heart of Christ proclaims the “greater love” that Jesus speaks about in the gospel of John. “No one can have greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” People who have the Sacred Heart image in their homes often feel that love of Christ in a very personal way, just as Paul did when he said, “I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Today’s second reading gives us one of the most profound statements about God in all of the Bible, “God is love.” It goes on to offer some tangible proof of that love: “God’s love was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son.” Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God who is love. All authentic love is life-giving and that is supremely true of God who is love; and of Jesus as the human revelation of that love. God sent his Son so that we could have life through him. In the gospel, Jesus uses the image of “rest” as an expression of that love. He invites all who are burdened to come to him and to find rest, to find life. Even a slight inkling of the life-giving love of God for us can have a transform our outlook on life. As the second reading says, it can empower us to love one another as God has loved us. [MH]