Deuteronomy 7:6-11,
1 John 4:7- 16,
Matthew 11:25-30 Full Readings
Jesus' Sacred Heart of Perfect Love.
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus which is always celebrated 19 days after Pentecost and on a Friday perhaps because it was on Good Friday that the water and blood flowed from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of love and mercy for humanity. The celebration of this solemnity emphasizes that the perfect love for humanity is from the Heart of Jesus and His heart is viewed as a symbol of God's boundless and passionate love for mankind. So today we celebrate that love of God for humanity through the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is also a special Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests.
The Devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus can be traced even in the time of Church Fathers. It became quite clear in the thirteenth century with a vision of St Gertrude and since then visions have been appearing to different people including St Margaret Mary. It was extended to the whole church as a Solemnity in 1856 by Pope Pius the IX as a way to understand God's love and experience it better.
Brethren, God loved us from the beginning and chose as His own people even up to sending His only beloved Son to the world to save us, not because of our worth or being our right but because, as we see in the first reading, He set His heart on us, he loved us and kept His oath he sworn to our Fathers. God setting His heart on us means that He Loves us as His own. We all have the experience of opening our hearts to someone, every time you think of that person, you rejoice and wish to be with him or her always. There is a Runyankole (Uganda) proverb which says, 'Where your heart is, it is where your feet will go.' This is how God loved us and still loves us even if we sin against Him.
As you feel broken and disappointed when the one you have opened your heart for disappoints you, it is also like that to God. God is so disappointed when we don't receive that love from His heart which is shown from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When Jesus revealed His heart to St. Margaret Mary in the seventeenth century, it was encircled with thorns meaning it was wounded and bleeding. Whenever one says no to Jesus, refuses to accept His gifts as you accept from your lover, and chooses to sin, it hurts Jesus, and His heart starts bleeding. This shows how He truly loves us and our response should be Yes to His love.
We say Yes to His love by living in love amongst ourselves. The second reading puts it clearly that God is love and I dwells where there is love. So when we live in love we live in God and God lives in us. God showed us His love through Jesus Christ who laid down His life for us as a source of our Salvation. There is no greater love than this, and so when we live in love we accept this precious gift, Jesus Christ, which God gave us and we show that we are appreciating Him. Our invitation today is to live in love and harmony with one another, for we cannot claim we love God whom we have never seen, if we don't love our fellows. God will live in us only if we live in love.
One of the main barriers to accept this love from the Heart of Christ pride. Pride is a devil's tool to distance us from Christ. When we feel that we know everything (intellectual pride) and that we don't need any divine intervention in our lives, we put aside Jesus, and we cannot receive His love and even God will not reveal Himself to us. That is why in the Gospel Jesus thanks the Father for revealing these things to the little one not the learned and the clever. The little one Jesus means are the humble and those who accept the fact of human limitation and need for divine intervention. So dear friends, if we have to live in God and experience His love, let us be humble and carry out burdens to Him for His yoke is light to carry.
When Jesus says His yoke is light to carry, He means that His laws are easy to follow and in the end they give life everlasting. Jesus' laws are summarised in one Law which is love. Therefore the yoke of Jesus is love and to love when we are with Jesus is very easy. Brethren let us follow Jesus our great teacher of how to love and we will surely dwell in God's presence experiencing His love all of our lives.
Reflect today on the indefinite love of Jesus from His Most Sacred Heart. Reflect also on His last gift on the Cross, the gift of water and blood which flowed from His Most Sacred Heart as a fountain of Mercy for us. Then how do you respond to this love? Do you live in love and harmony with your neighbor? Spend some time and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit to enlighten you and increase your love as well as devotion to the sacred heart of Jesus.
Let us pray.
Oh blood and water which gushed forth from the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a fountain of Mercy and Love for us and for the whole world wash us from our sins. Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, burning with love for me, inflame my heart with love for You. Amen
Be blessed and Happy Solemnity
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