June: Sacred Heart of Jesus month

The Heart of Jesus is the focus of love. The devotion to the Sacred Heart is the devotion that comes from love as principle, that is directed to love as end, that employs love as means. The devotion to the Sacred Heart has its origin in Sacred Scripture itself: the gesture of St. John, beloved disciple, leaning his head against Jesus during the last supper (Jn 13:23); and on the cross, where the soldier opened Jesus’ side with a lance (Jn 19:34). In one we have consolation for the pain on the eve of his death, and in the other, suffering caused by the sins of humanity. These two examples from the gospel help us understand Jesus’ appeal to St. Margaret Mary of Alacoque. 

Through apparitions, Jesus showed His human and merciful heart to St. Margaret as a plank of salvation for all sinners who would trust in Him. In 1674 Margaret Mary manifested Jesus’ will to be honored, through the image of His heart of flesh, and His request that the faithful receive Him frequently in the Eucharist, especially on the first Friday of each month and to have a devotional holy hour. Eleven years later, Margaret Mary witnessed another apparition with a heart surrounded by flames of love, crowned with thorns, and with an open wound from which blood gushed out and a cross emerged from within. It was then that Jesus asked that the Feast of the Sacred Heart be celebrated on the Friday after the solemnity of Corpus Christi, in reparation for the wrongs committed by us sinners. 

In 1856 Pope Pius IX instituted the liturgical feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, proposing the consecration of the world to the Heart of Jesus, made concrete in 1899 by Leo XIII. This day, at the request of the Holy Father Pope John Paul II, also became the world day of prayer for the sanctification of priests. It is the day for the people of God to ask the Lord for this grace: the holier our priests are, the more the people also walk in holiness.

The Life of St. Margaret

Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque was a nun from the convent of Paray-le-Monial of the Order of the Visitation of Saint Mary, founded by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jeanne de Chantal. She died on October 17, 1690 and was canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV. In the Chapel of the Visitation in Paray-Le-Monyal, Jesus manifested His heart to Marguerite Mary. The first manifestation took place one day when she was adoring the Blessed Sacrament and heard: “Behold this Heart that has loved men so much, that has spared nothing to the point of exhausting and consuming itself to witness its love for them; and in return I receive from most of them nothing but ingratitude with the irreverence, sacrilege, coldness and contempt they have for me in this Sacrament of Love. But what hurts me even more is that it is hearts consecrated to me that do so.” Saint Margaret, on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, said, I could tell you everything I know about this adorable devotion and reveal to all the earth the treasures of grace that Jesus Christ holds in his adorable Heart with the intention of pouring them out lavishly on all who practice it”.

The Heart of Jesus is an inexhaustible source of all goods, that seeks only to pour out and communicate itself. It is a fertile source of blessings and graces, from which three ways flows, without ceasing: 

1. Mercy for sinners.
2. Charity to help all the miserable in any need.
3. A channel from which love and light grows and flows for the true friends whom He wants to unite to Himself, in order to communicate His knowledge and His precepts.

MEDITATION

The Sacred Heart of Jesus deserves our veneration, because it is the Heart of God. Being from God, the Heart of Jesus is Holy. And since the Holiness of God is a center that contains all the perfections, the Heart of Jesus is good, pure, just, kind, merciful… How many times I thought that the love of the human heart could be the object of my happiness, and all I found were disappointments and regrets. Raise your eyes to Jesus and He, showing you His Heart, will tell you: “Here is the Heart that can give you happiness!”. Yes, my beloved Jesus, only His Heart can make my happiness, because He alone is always faithful and devoted, He alone is infinitely happy, He alone always lives and never dies!

 The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the symbol of the Love of God-Man. The love of creatures is often disorderly, restless, changeable; the Love of Jesus is always holy, beautiful, firm and unshakable. The love of creatures goes where a glow of perfection shines, an appearance of goodness; the Love of Jesus goes where there is a tear to be wiped, a misery to be helped, a wound to be healed. Only the Heart of God can love like this! O most loving Heart of my Jesus, grant that I may love You with all the strength of my soul!

 The Sacred Heart of Jesus was not content to give us only his palpitations and his pains; but he gave us what was most precious to him, he gave us his own Blood. The guilt, which weighed on humanity, could only be redeemed with the blood of a holy and immaculate heart. “A soldier wounds and pierces with the spear His divine Heart, and still a few drops of blood come out, and then water comes out.” There is no more blood in that Heart! When the Heart is exhausted of blood, there can be no greater proof of charity. Love has touched its limit!

“The main purpose of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the practice of the virtues, having Christ, as our model. It also has as its purpose the return  LOVE for LOVE to God, thanking Him for all His benefits and repairing the outrages and offenses that He does not stop receiving from men. It is a commitment to perfection. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus summarizes our religious life in the Catholic faith: it is nothing but an exchange of love between God and each one of us. Everything flows from Love and has to lead us to Love. In the pierced Heart of Jesus is the authentic face of God, the face of love that gives itself up to the very end. Love that compels us. Love that welcomes us, love that lifts us up. It is so much love that it can only be divine. It is so much Love for us that we cannot keep it only for ourselves! ‘Woe to me if I do not evangelize’ (1 Cor 9:16).” 

Father Alexandre Paciolli, iCM (SCJ Retreat 12/06/19)