Today is the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Three republished reflections are offered to the readership of this site today: No One Is A Stranger to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Tender Mercies and Enthroning the Heart of True, Unsurpassed Love In Our Homes.
We are so ungrateful and so indifferent 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. 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.
"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.)
Today's Divine Office explains that Pope Pius IX extended the Feast 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 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, hath poured itself forth over all the 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."
A new article should appear tomorrow, Saturday, June 13, 2015, along with a republished reflection on Saint Anthony of Padua, O.F.M.
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 Perpetual Help, pray for us.