Reflections for the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Today is the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
First, an original commentary, The Conciliar Church and Its Falsehoods Will Be But A Bad Memory One Day, was published late yesterday afternoon (and a few my ubiquitous typorgraphical errors have been corrected).
Four older reflections, each of which has been revised slightly, are being called to your attention on this Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:
The first of the reflections on the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus listed just above was written last year, and it emphasizes the need to make reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus for the crimes of this wicked age--and, of course, for our own many sins.
We must never permit anything distract us from the glories of this great feast day of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which falls this year on the fourth Friday of the Month of June, the month of the Sacred Heart, as the Vigil of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist is commemorated.
How can we be as ungrateful and as indifferent as we are in the face of the great, tender mercies that have been showered upon us by the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, formed out of and beating as one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary? We must use this feast and its octave to increase our ardor for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
A marvelous reflection, written by Father Francois Charmot, S.J., in In Retreat With the Sacred Heart summarizes the Trinitarian nature of the love that flows out for us from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:
"If I did not have some knowledge of the Heart of Jesus, how little would I realize the love of the Father! "But, looking upon the pierced Heart of the Incarnate Word, I can say with assurance: blessed be Thou, O Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who, in Him, has heaped upon us all Thy spiritual blessings! "Before the creation of the world Thou hast chosen us in Jesus, in order that we may be holy with Him, through the love of the blessed Trinity. "Thy Son is charity, as Thou, Father, art charity. "He is all charity, as thou art all charity. ""The charity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is the same, equal in Three Persons. There are not three charities, but one singe coeternal love. "With what love I have been loved infinitely, neither more nor less by Thee, Father, than by the Son and by Thy Holy Spirit, since before the creation of the world! "If I believe that Jesus loves me, I believe that His Father loves me just as much, and it is Thy Word who declares to me that Thou, Father, and Thy Holy Spirit wish to dwell in me. "All those whom the Heart of Jesus loved: His disciples, the children, the sinners, the diseased, the poor, the humble, the persecuted. "Thou, Father, also loved them with the same love. "The Blessed Virgin was loved no less by Thee than by Thy Son, her Son, and by Thy Spirit. "O Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, blessed be Thou for having foreordained that we should be Thy Sons in thine only begotten Son, sons of adoption through Thy Son incarnate. "Thou hast willed, by this gracious predestination, that the Heart of Thy well-beloved Son should make us sharers in the love of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. "For this Heart encompasses all that the charity of the Three Persons could communicate from its Fire to the Incarnate Word. "In this Heart we possess by heritage such an effusion of the Holy Spirit, such a furnace of love, such an ocean of mercy, such an outpouring of tenderness, that it is impossible to imagine any others in some perfect creature which would be closer to infinite charity. "That is why, O Father, we know thy love through the Heart of Jesus. "Kind Father, kindest of Fathers, incomparably kind Father, Thou hast willed that through the pierced Heart of Thy Son, we should know the extent of Thy charity, Thy goodness, Thy paternity, Thy longanimity, Thy mercy, Thy pardon, Thine eternal remission of sin. "And when this Heart which has so loved men–even to the shedding of all Its blood for them–finally ceased to beat, the death of Thy Son bore witness, even as the sacrifice of His Father who had delivered Him, that the love of the Three Persons for us outweighs the very life of the Man-God. st of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the whole world, and that Pope Pius XI elevated its rank to a double of the first class with an octave: "At length, in the year 1765, the Supreme Pontiff Clement XIII approved the Mass and Office in honour of the mos"Through the pierced Heart of Thy Son, O infinitely good Father, grant me the grace to believe implicitly in Thy love, to love Thee as a Son, as Thy Son Jesus, who abandoned Himself to Thee in the agony and on the cross in utter helplessness and total destitution, solely because Thou were His Father."(Father Francois Charmot, S.J., In Retreat With the Sacred Heart, The Newman Press, 1956, pp. 16-18.)
The followng bief history, contained in Pope Pius XI's Caritate Christi Compulsi, May 3, 1932, and contained in today's Divine Office, explains Holy Mother Church's institution and then extension of the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus that Our Lord specifically requested Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque to make possible:
But, in order to establish fully and entirely the worship of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to spread the same throughout the whole world, God himself chose as his instrument a most humble virgin from the order of the Visitation, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who even in her earliest years already had a burning love for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and to whom Christ the Lord had very many times appeared, and was pleased to make known the riches and the desires of his divine Heart.
The most famous of these appearances was that in which Jesus revealed himself to her in prayer before the blessed Sacrament, showed her his most Sacred Heart, and, complaining that in return for his unbounded love, he met with nothing but outrages and ingratitude from mankind, he ordered her to concern herself with the establishment of a new feast, on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, on which his Heart should be venerated with due honor, and that the insults offered him by sinners in the Sacrament of love should be expiated by worthy satisfaction.
But there is no one who does not know how many and how great were the obstacles which the handmaid of God experienced, in carrying out the commands of Christ: but, endowed with strength by the Lord himself, and actively aided by her pious spiritual directors, who exerted themselves with an almost unbelievable zeal, up to the time of her death she never ceased faithfully to carry out the duty entrusted to her by heaven.
At length, in the year 1765, the Supreme Pontiff Clement XIII approved the Mass and Office in honor of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus; and Pius IX extended the feast to the universal Church, From then on the worship of the most Sacred Heart, like an overflowing river, washing away all obstacles, has poured itself over the whole earth, and, at the dawn of the new century, Leo XIII, having proclaimed a jubilee, decided to dedicate the whole human race to the most Sacred Heart.
This consecration was actually carried out with solemn rites in all the churches of the Catholic world, and brought about a great increase of this devotion, leading not only nations but even private families to it, who in countless numbers dedicated themselves to the Divine Heart, and submitted themselves to its royal sway.
Lastly, the Sovereign Pontiff Pius XI, in order that, by its solemnity, the feast might answer more fully to the greatly widespread devotion of the Christian people, raised the feast of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus to the rite of a double of the first class, with an octave; and moreover, that the violated rights of Christ, the supreme King and most loving Lord, might be repaired, and that the sins of the nations might be bewailed, he ordered that annually, on that same feast-day, there should be recited an expiatory form of prayer in all the churches of the Christian world.(Pope Pius XI, Caritate Christi Compulsi, May 3, 1932.)
A blessed Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus to you all! Let us never be ungrateful or indifferent to the tender mercies shown us by the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Let our own hearts fly unto these tender mercies through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Our Lady of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.