Reading: Hosea 11:1.3-4.8-9; Ps. Is. 12:2-6; Eph. 3:8-12.14-19; John 19:31-37

Rev.  Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia

CELEBRATING THE HEART THAT WAS PIERCED FOR THE LOVE OF YOU AND I

Every Friday after the Sunday of the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the Church celebrates the great Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. An occasion where we are invited to contemplate and celebrate the love of God pouring forth from the Most Loving Heart of Jesus pierced for the salvation of humanity. A great act of love which God revealed through influences on mystic saints such as St. Gertrude the Great was made more obvious through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the revelation she had around 17 century.

In this revelation, the Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and showed her his heart and the anguish and sorrow which he had for the sins and disobedience of humanity, despite the incomprehensible act of love, compassion and mercy that he has lavished upon us. Then the Lord said to her: “Behold the Heart that has loved so many men, and yet, instead of gratitude, all I received were ingratitude…” and asking in particular that the Friday after the week in which the Solemnity of Corpus Christi is celebrated should be dedicated to him as the Feast of reparation to the Most Sacred Heart. The Lord also promised St. Margaret Mary that all those who devoted themselves to His Most Sacred Heart with faith will be protected and receive the graces of God.

So, the long development of these revelations led to the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we have it today. However, it was Pope Pius IX who extended and placed this great Feast and Solemnity in its current form and honour. This great feast also marks the occasion of the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life, keeping in mind that the priesthood is the product of Christ’s sacrificial heart of love for humanity.

Hence, we remember all those who have been called to model themselves after the life of Christ’s love by giving themselves to the ministerial priesthood, so that we may truly model ourselves and our hearts after that of the Most Sacred Heart of Christ. Let us be filled with love for all humanity while recognizing that the priestly life is a very difficult undertaking, especially in our world today. Let us be supported by all, knowing that priests, though humans just like everyone, have their flaws and imperfections, but we are at the same time held up to a much higher expectation to care and guide the people of God.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all our difficulties, challenges, daily temptations and pressures of life, we are called to abide in the loving heart of Christ for he who abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him. (1 John 4:7-16). So, like St Paul in our second reading, we can say: may God give us the power through his Spirit to grow strong, so that Christ may live in our hearts through faith planted in love and built on love, and so with all the saints, we may be filled with the utter fullness of God as we fulfil our duty following the footsteps of our Lord. For in our first reading today we heard the Lord saying: when Israel was a child I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in my arms, yet they did not understand that I was the one looking after them. For I led them with a cord of compassion, with bands of love.

Thus, in this solemn feast, our devotion is rooted in the mystery of God’s love; for it is precisely through the Sacred Heart of Jesus that the Love of God for humanity is sublimely manifested in all its effect and power especially for souls thirsting for God’s mercy, for in it we find the inexhaustible source from which we draw the water of life that refresh and revives the thirsty souls of sinful humanity and make us new and alive again. Hence we are called today to abide in this love of Christ which flows from the pierced heart of Jesus through which the door of true love is opened for all humanity as we heard it in our Gospel passage today.

Dear friends, every Christian is called to embrace the love of God which he poured out from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so as to become a wellspring which gives life of love to others. For we ought to be offering life-giving water to a parched and thirsty world. We are called to embrace that love which propelled Jesus to lay down his life for his friends and also forgive his enemies, for that is what this solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus represents. We are called to contemplate the mystery of love in the heart of a God who full of compassion, bestows his love upon humanity through his Son.

Though humanity has rejected his love, but God does not lose heart in the face of ingratitude or rejection by the people he loved and chosen; rather, with infinite mercy he sends his only-begotten Son into the world to take upon himself the fate of shattered love so that by defeating the power of evil and death he could restore humanity once again from our slavery of sin and death back into a life of grace and open up his Sacred Heart of love once again for all who wishes to embrace it.

LET US PRAY: Heavenly Father, grant that we, who glory in the loving Heart of your beloved Son and recall the wonders of his love for us, may be made worthy to receive an overflowing measure of grace from that fount of heavenly gift of love which he offers to humanity. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do pray for me and for the sanctity of all the Priests.