Thoughts on the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Sacred Heart

Each year on the Friday following the feast of Corpus Christi, before returning to “Ordinary Time,” the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Heart-language is powerful language. Simple phrases convey and capture meaning beyond verbal expression: a contrite heart, brave-hearted, with a heavy heart, heart- to-heart, a stony heart, a broken heart, cold-hearted, a divided heart, light-hearted, with one heart and mind, wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve, hard-hearted, a passionate heart; cross my heart; know by heart; give my heart; heart filled with…; aching heart; clean heart. It’s rather amazing how dependent we are on heart-language to convey a great variety of human emotions and experiences.

I don’t know why I came at a young age to be fascinated by the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It probably has something to do with my high school days at St. Louis U. High, where the engaging Sacred Heart image was ubiquitous. Over the years, that familiar image, that devotion, has seeped more deeply into my own heart, shaping my devotional life and spirituality.

Perhaps on retreat at White House you have prayed before the Sacred Heart statue which resides to the south of Snyder Hall. Or, perhaps you are aware of other places, including in your own home, where the image has found a place of honor. It is not easy to precisely capture what the Sacred Heart image conveys. It does so “silently,” without words, not unlike the method through which my parents conveyed to their children their convictions about right and wrong, their experience of God, and their Catholic vision of life. But it does communicate. In the presence of the Sacred Heart, we know that we have a God who understands, who feels, who forgives, who speaks the words that we deeply long to hear, who loves with that kind of love that is all-encompassing and still relentlessly personal and unconditional.

It is that Jesus, that God, that I often address in prayer. Assessing the quality of my own heart, and recognizing how “mixed” it can be, I nonetheless want to offer it to a God who I trust will know exactly how to respond. Perhaps we can all beg for ourselves that same grace.


Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

Thoughts on forgiveness

 

Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle

Matthew 5:20–26

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commands us to be reconciled with one another. I want to say something about the role of forgiveness in repairing our broken relationships. When you are at worship and realize that you need to forgive someone (or be forgiven by someone), go and do it. Go get reconciled, then come back. It’s like a rule of physics. There is something hidden in the deep mystery of God, and I can’t fully explicate it. Somehow, if there is a lack of forgiveness in you, it blocks the movement of God in you. Perhaps it’s simply because God is love, and so whatever is opposed to love in us blocks the flow of God’s power and God’s life. One reason we do not forgive is that we feel that some injustice has been done to us, and we resent it. A good cure for this feeling is to kneel before the cross of Jesus. What do you see there? The innocent Son of God nailed to the cross—the ultimate injustice. What does he do? He forgives his persecutors. Meditate on that, and your sense of being treated unjustly will fade away. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on community

 

Community Keeps the Flame of Hope Alive

From: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us. In this way we can live with courage, trusting that there is a spiritual power in us when we are together that allows us to live in this world without surrendering to the powerful forces constantly seducing us toward despair. That is how we dare to say that God is a God of love even when we see hatred all around us. That is why we can claim that God is a God of life even when we see death and destruction and agony all around us. We say it together. We affirm it in each other. Waiting together, nurturing what has already begun, expecting its fulfillment – that is the meaning of marriage, friendship, community, and the Christian life.

Reflection Question: When was the last time that you shared your burdens with others and what steps can you take to to seek out others to wait, listen, pray, and cultivate hope with?

When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. - Acts 1: 13 - 14

Thoughts on the Feast of Corpus Christi

This weekend we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, often known simply by its Latin name, Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.

It was only about two months ago, on Holy Thursday, that the Church celebrated the body and blood of Christ. It might seem odd to commemorate that gift again so soon, but this weekend’s celebration has a different character. Holy Thursday was solemn and focused our attention of Jesus’ death. Today’s solemnity is joyful and focuses us on the mission begun at Pentecost: to act as Christ did and share his love with the world.

As St. Paul suggests, this term can have two meanings: the Body of Christ which we share in the Eucharist, and the body of Christ that we form as a community of believers united with the Risen Christ.

This combination of meanings reminds us that the Eucharist is profoundly social. This Sunday’s reading from 1 Corinthians provides a concise but very rich statement about what we do when we celebrate the Eucharist as the people. Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians (and us) that as members of the body of Christ we constitute one body. It is a natural symbol and powerful image, reminding us of how all of its parts must work together and of how no part can be hurt without the whole body being hurt. Christ makes this body different. He comes first; he makes the body; his relationship to us forms us into the body of Christ. Our vertical relationship with Christ has as its necessary consequence our horizonal relationship with one another. In that social sense we are the body of Christ. As Paul states, as members of Christ’s body, we affirm our identity and unity when we receive the eucharistic body of Christ.

In this Sunday’s Gospel from John, Jesus identifies himself as the living bread that came down from heaven. When his disciples take in and become all that he is, the life forces he enfleshed continue to be offered for the life of the world. The interconnectedness of all persons and all life in the body of Christ is not an abstract concept; it is palpable and visible. Our participation in the Eucharist concretizes and energizes our relationship with Christ and with one another. As members of the body of Christ, we share in the body of Christ.

One final thought: Jesus’ body was a place of action. In his body, Jesus healed, fed, forgave, called and taught. Through Jesus’ body, humanity felt God’s love. John teaches us today how we too can, like Jesus, give God a body from which to act and a heart from which to love. Our love of Christ’s body should make of own bodies a place from which God can act in love, thus continuing the mission of Christ.


Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

Thoughts on Jesus as Lord

 

Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr

Mark 12:35–37

Friends, in our Gospel today, Jesus quotes a psalm where David calls him Lord. It calls to mind a question: Do you also recognize Jesus as Lord?  Is Christ commanding your life in every detail? Is he the Lord of your family life? Of your recreational life? Of your professional life? Is he the Lord of every room in your house, including the bedroom? Does your sexuality belong to him? Do your friendships serve his purpose? Are you totally given over to him, under his lordship? When we surrender to the path of love that he has laid out for us, our lives become infinitely lighter, easier, and more joyful, for we are moving with the divine purpose. We will have moved out of what Paul calls the way of “the flesh” and into the way of “the Spirit.” Flesh refers here not to the body as such but to sin. When you are caught up in patterns of self-regard and self-protection, life becomes a burden, and you find yourself taking up the weapons of war all the time. But when you recognize Jesus as Lord, you can let all of that go. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on love

 

Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Mark 12:28–34

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord says that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Love is not primarily a feeling or an instinct; rather, it is the act of willing the good of the other as other. It is radical self-gift, living for the sake of the other. To be kind to someone so that he might be kind to you, or to treat a fellow human being justly so that he, in turn, might treat you with justice, is not to love, for such moves are tantamount to indirect self-interest. Truly to love is to move outside of the black hole of one’s egotism, to resist the centripetal force that compels one to assume the attitude of self-protection. But this means that love is rightly described as a “theological virtue,” for it represents a participation in the love that God is. Since God has no needs, only God can utterly exist for the sake of the other. All of the great masters of the Christian spiritual tradition saw that we are able to love only inasmuch as we have received, as a grace, a share in the very life, energy, and nature of God. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Heaven

 

Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

Mark 12:18–27

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus confronts the Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection from the dead. They proposed a conundrum that they thought would disprove resurrection: If a woman married seven brothers, all of whom died, whose wife would she be in the resurrection? Notice how Jesus deals with this little conundrum: He brushes it aside. Jesus says to them, “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.” What’s he saying here as he brushes aside this little bit of casuistry? What is heaven? Is it escaping from the body? No, that’s not it. That’s not a biblical view. Heaven is a place where our bodiliness will be so rich and so intense that we will be able to relate to all those around us in the most intimate and powerful way possible. And there we will be fully alive, for as Jesus explained from the Torah, God is not God of the dead but of the living. Bishop Robert Barron

More thoughts on the Most Holy Trinity

At the conclusion of the Easter season, the Church in her Sacred Liturgy directs the Christian faithful to ponder the inner life of God Himself, the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. The One who dwells in inaccessible light—He who simply is, without beginning or end—is the One we adore as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Church’s teaching that God is a Trinity of three Persons in the unity of the divine nature is a mystery not in the sense of a puzzle or riddle, but a reality whose meaning can never be exhausted. St. Catherine of Siena described the Trinity as “a sea so deep that the more I enter, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek.”

An ancient creed expresses the faith of the Church with striking clarity and rhythm: “The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; and yet not three uncreated, but one uncreated.” Likewise: “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible; and yet not three incomprehensibles, but one incomprehensible.” As St. Augustine put it, “If you have comprehended it, it is not God.”

So what are we to do? Be consoled that in God there is always more. A well-known story tells of St. Augustine by the seashore meeting a child trying to pour the ocean into a small hole in the sand. When Augustine objected, the child replied, “It is easier for me to pour the ocean into this hole than for you to fit the mystery of the Trinity into your finite mind.” The mystery we celebrate this Sunday is not something to be mastered, but to be adored.

The Trinitarian mystery is at the heart of the Christian faith. Through it we come to know not only that God loves us beyond measure, but that God is Love—the eternal communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the Risen Christ, we are drawn into that communion of divine love.

-Fr. Richard Hermes, S.J.

Thoughts on the Most Holy Trinity

 

Today, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.     The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 234) teaches,   The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith.” The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.”   The objects of the Christian Faith, such as the Trinity, are above created natures. As supernatural realities, they cannot be discovered by reason or the senses, but must be revealed by God, who alone fully knows and understands them. This makes the Trinity a mystery.   Even so, we can reason about the mysteries of the Faith by analogy to the things that we do know, showing that they are not incompatible with reason, just beyond its natural comprehension. This possibility is the basis of the various dogmas regarding the mysteries of the Faith which the Church has promulgated over the centuries, as well as of the reasoned conclusions of theologians––all founded upon the act of Faith in the truth of the mystery.

Today, we encourage you to read our special page dedicated to the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, where we answer questions such as: Where did the term “Trinity” originate?  What does it mean for God to be a Trinity?  Are the Divine Persons foreshadowed in the Old Testament? Does Jesus ever claim to be God?  On the page, we also offer a free eBook, Prayers to the Most Holy Trinity, to help deepen your love for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We hope that this page and eBook will increase your understanding and draw you closer to our Triune God.   In Christ,   Your EWTN Family www.ewtn.com

Thoughts on hope

 

Letting Go of My Wishes

From: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me.

Reflection Question: How might I let go of my wishes and live in hope today?

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” - Psalm 20: 7

Thoughts on Memorial Day

This post was originally published on Memorial Day 2015:


My wife and I went to Mass on Memorial Day and our priest told a story in his homily about a man he knew that grew up without parents.  The man's name was Matt.  Matt led a lonely life and it seemed that everything he did or tried was met with a closed door.  He joined the military and eventually was deployed into active service in Afghanistan.  On return home to the US while on leave, he seemed bitter and distant to the priest and others who knew him.  His demeanor had changed now that he had been exposed to the brutality of war.  Upon his return to Afghanistan for another tour of duty, he fought bravely for his country, but this time he was killed by enemy fire and returned home to the US again, but this time he returned in a flag draped coffin.  He was given a proper funeral Mass and burial service, and this time he went through an open door, a door which led to heaven.  At this point the priest got choked up and everyone could see that he was very moved by this story.  The story of a person he knew personally, who had fought and died for his freedom as an American.  A person who was not loved by many people on this earth, but was loved tremendously by God.  We often don't think of the thousands of people, real people, real human beings, who lost their lives for this country, when we think of Memorial Day.  We tend to think of the patriotism and the flags, but we quickly turn to thoughts of summer time, BBQ's and time off from our jobs to be with our families and enjoy a day off.  When you think about people who were touched by a soldier who gave his life, it gets personal.  We live in a great country because of people like Matt.

Scott

Thoughts on summer

Summer

For many people, summer has a lot of different parameters as far as when it begins and when it ends. For children, summer begins when school lets out for the year.  When I was a kid, that meant sometime in June, but now it means late May.  This past school year, my son was done for the year on May 22nd, and my two college girls were finished on May 8th!  For people who work for a living, Memorial Day weekend kind of marks the beginning of summer, a time when the temperatures are warmer and the local swimming pools open up.  Of course, if you go by the calendar, the official beginning of summer is on June 21st with the summer solstice.  If the weather doesn't cooperate, most anyone else will have to admit that by July 4th, Independence Day weekend, we are definitely into summer.  For a few, summer doesn't begin until you take your vacation from work and go on a trip out of town. 

People who have children in school will most likely agree that what we think of as summer, the time off between when school ends and when it begins, has definitely moved from a Memorial Day to Labor Day time period to a late May to early to mid August time period as schools nation wide have adjusted their schedules over the last 20 years or so.  For many folks, once the calendar flips over to August, vacations are over and you are buying back to school supplies and thinking about school starting again.  But really, summer is only about half over because it doesn't really end until Sept 21st. So when is summer to you?  I guess it really doesn't matter, unless you make calendars.  Enjoy the warm weather and time off of work.  Slow down and enjoy the enjoyment!

Scott

Thoughts on Pentecost

This Sunday the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Pentecost, a feast that’s often overshadowed by Christmas and Easter. Yet Pentecost is not just an appendix to Easter; it’s the fulfillment of the Paschal Mystery.

Just as Easter celebrates the passion, death, and resurrection of the Incarnate Son of God, so Pentecost, fifty days later, marks the completion of that saving work through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The risen Lord bestows his Spirit upon the Church gathered in the Upper Room around Mary, and upon the Church of every age.

Christ does not abandon his disciples. He does not leave his Body without the Spirit of Truth. Through the Holy Spirit, the Church continues his mission: proclaiming God’s saving truth about the human person and authentic human community, offering the sacraments of salvation, and forming a communion of faith and charity that anticipates the communion of saints in heaven.

The Spirit enables the Church to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. St. Paul reminds us that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” In ancient Israel, the word “Lord” named God himself. So to say “Jesus is Lord” is to confess that Jesus is truly God, and that God has revealed his face in Christ. Through Pentecost, we come to know that the one God who creates in love is the same God who redeems in Christ, the very truth we profess in the Creed.

Each Sunday, as the Church rises at the Creed to profess the Faith, this mystery is renewed. People of every language and nation proclaim in unison that there is one Faith, one Lord, one Baptism. Thus, the confusion of Babel is healed. What was separated and divided by human pride is reunited and reconciled by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And so the Church prays with hope in that same Spirit who gathered what was scattered at Babel:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of thy love. Send forth thy Spirit and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Amen.

-Fr. Richard Hermes, S.J.

Thoughts on peace

 

The Source of All Peace

From: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

Do not give up working for peace. Always remember that the peace for which you work is not of this world. Do not let yourself be distracted by the great noises of war, the dramatic descriptions of misery, and the sensational expressions of human cruelty. The newspapers, movies, and war novels may make you numb, but they do not create in you a true desire for peace. They tend to create feelings of shame, guilt, and powerlessness, and these feelings are the worst motives for peace work. Keep your eyes on the prince of peace, the one who doesn't cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights, and rule with great power; the one who says, “Blessed are the poor, the gentle, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness” (see Matt. 5:3-11). See the one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind; the one who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement; the one who dies alone, rejected, and despised. Keep your eyes on him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak, and who is rejected with the rejected. That one, Jesus, is the source of all peace.

Reflection Question: When you engage current events, are you more likely to feel powerless or motivated to work for peace?

“Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.” - Matthew 15: 30