By Josh McDermid
In a few minutes’ time we will sing the Magnificat antiphon: “The Lord has received us into his own self, into his heart, remembering his mercy.” This morning in the first reading from the prophet Hosea we heard the Lord say that: “When Israel was a child I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt.” But as we know, Israel’s response was indifference and ingratitude. Despite this, God would not abandon Israel because as he explains: “My heart recoils from it, my whole being trembles at the thought.” And listening to today’s Gospel reading we are invited to meditate on the pierced heart of the Crucified One from which came out blood and water.
While the devotion to the Sacred of Heart of Jesus that we are familiar with today comes from the revelations to the 17th century Visitation nun, St Margaret Mary Alacoque, there is a more ancient tradition of meditating on the mystery of Christ’s open side and the blood and water. Later, devotion to the five wounds of Christ became common. These devotions reflect our belief in the Hypostatic Union, that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine. And even though all parts of Christ’s humanity are worthy of our veneration, we have come to focus so much on the heart because it is the most perfect symbol of Christ’s redeeming love for humankind.
This brings us to the message of this devotion and this feast. It is a two-fold one. In Scripture, it is perhaps best captured by the story of Noah and the flood. Initially we hear that “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that the thoughts in his heart fashioned nothing but wickedness all day long. The Lord regretted having made man on the earth, and his heart grieved,” but then we might say that God’s heart is touched by the sight of human weakness, and he forms a new covenant with Noah and his descendants. Liturgically, it is most aptly captured in the words we heard Fr Brian pray today, in the Prayer Over the Offerings:
Look, O Lord, we pray, on the surpassing charity
in the Heart of your beloved Son,
that what we offer may be a gift acceptable to you
and an expiation of our offences.
The two-fold message then is that God wants to emphasise his love for us, but also highlight his woundedness due to our indifference and ingratitude for this love. Hence, we are called on one hand to consecrate ourselves to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, to respond to Christ’s love ever more completely, and on the other hand, to make reparation for the many times when we, and others, have responded to Christ’s love so inadequately, so offensively.
And finally, alongside being the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, today is the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, an initiative of Pope St John Paul II. At the risk of being accused of being a St John Vianney fanboy, I think the essential link between these two things is encapsulated in the words of John Vianney that the Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes in its teaching on the sacrament of holy orders: “The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.” Hence, I invite us all to spend some time this evening meditating on this gift of a priestly vocation that we sense we have been given, to pray for the priests in our lives, that they may grow in holiness and so better reflect Christ’s love and mercy in their ministry, and to pray for ourselves, that, as we progress towards priestly ordination, we may enter more and more deeply into a heart-to-heart relationship with our Lord.