The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus – Solemnity
Gospel – John 19:31-37
Today we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This is a very special devotion to Jesus in his human nature, in particular referring to the heart as the seat of the emotions. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus comes from an immense love to the immeasurable love of Jesus to us. And there is something unique in this love. It’s God who loves us but also with a human heart. It has the strength of divine love and the warmth of human love. It has the forgiveness of divine love and the tenderness of human love. This love surpasses any other love. It goes deep into the mystery of salvation. In the first reading we read how this love evolved, “as a child I loved him, I called my son out, I myself taught him to walk, I took him in my arms…I led them with reins of kindness, with leading-strings of love”. This immense love, St. Paul says, only when Christ lives in our hearts through faith, planted in love and built of love, we will have strength to “grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God”. In the Cros, this love burst out from the pierced side of Jesus. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a dedication to that Heart, it is a diving into that Heart, it is a disappearing in that Heart.