On the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus I am reminded of Saint Bernard's image in Sermon 61 on the Song of Songs. There the sainted Cistercian abbot likens the pierced heart of Jesus Christ, and the wounds in his hand and feet to the clefts in a rock. "The secrets of his heart are laid open through his wounds." (61:4)
What more can be said of our Lord, our Shepherd and our friend?
A blessed feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!
and to keep them alive in famine. (Entrance ant. Ps 33)
I am always enthralled with the Church's solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. The wondrous love poured out for us, Christ's Heart is the center of our life of love, forgiveness, peace, compunction, and action. It is from the Heart of Christ that the Church is born and sacraments given as a sign and nourishment.
In his chapter "The Heart of Jesus at His Birth in Bethlehem" Blessed Louis Guanella offers this prayer to the Sacred Heart:
Blessed Louis GuanellaO Most Holy Heart of Jesus, I cannot love you as the Blessed Mother loved you. I feel bad about it. I would like to love you, as the chaste Joseph did. At least, O Lord, make me love you with simplicity and affection equal to that of the devout shepherds. How happy will I be when I will really begin to love you! How fortunate I will be when, enkindling my accent, I will be able to applaud around you with the choirs of angels, saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will!"
In the Month of Fervor: Thirty Scriptural Maxims Developed on the Sacred Heart of Jesus for Christian Souls
May the fire of the Heart of Jesus burn brightly within us!
