Amantissimi Dei [Beloved of God]

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

June 27, 2014

BELOVED OF GOD, out of love you were created, out of love you were redeemed, in love you were called, and for love you have been sent. You are the Sacred Heart of Jesus – a living testimony to the love of the one, true God.

Images and sculptures with stylised hearts crowned with thorns, burning, or bleeding, abound; the long history of devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus has its origins in Christ's ultimate act of self-giving, as he hung dead on the cross, His side pierced, and from it flowing blood and water.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart begins when our understanding of God and our relationship to Him converges on the profound acts of love of which we are witnesses and beneficiaries.

The love in the Incarnation is the love of the Sacred Heart.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]

The love of the Sacred Heart is expressed first in the desire of God that creation should have some share in the divine life of love. Throughout the ages, God has sought to lead his people towards Himself and into eternal life with Him. Throughout the history of man, we have collectively spurned the love of God, such that, in our own age, God chose to express, to the fullest extent, the depth of His love and compassion through the Incarnation of Christ.

The love in Christ’s teaching is the love of the Sacred Heart.

“You shall go ahead of the Lord to prepare his ways before him; to make known to his people their salvation through forgiveness of all their sins, the loving kindness of the heart of our God who visits us like the dawn from on high.” [Luke 1:76-78]

The ministry of Jesus, as expressed through the prophetic words of John the Baptist, was to enunciate the love and compassion of God. Despite miraculous acts of love throughout the history of the Chosen People, God’s infinite love was never fully understood. The Sacred Heart is the ministry of Jesus, through which the love of God is revealed through his teachings, his miracles, his relationships and ultimately through the new commandment: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” [John 13:34]

The love in the Crucifixion is the love of the Sacred Heart.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” [1John 4:10]

Notwithstanding this new commandment given to his disciples, the love of the Sacred Heart is not demanding. It requires nothing of us and is given freely as the ultimate model of love, which gives all even before it has the chance to receive. Christ is the love of God personified; a love that is pure self-giving – for what did we ever do to merit our God to undergo death for our sins? Christ crucified is the Sacred Heart, for it is through this sacrifice that the reality and fullness of God’s love is made manifest.

The love in the sending of the Spirit is the love of the Sacred Heart.

“Through him we have obtained access, by faith, to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. … And hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” [Romans 5:2,5]

If the passion and death of Christ is the pinnacle of God’s love, then the sending of the Holy Spirit is enduring proof of that love – for Christ chose not that his death and resurrection should bring redemption for the people of one time, but for all people of all ages. The Holy Spirit, which is the bond of love that binds the Trinity is sent into the world as the abiding presence of God’s love for us, that we shall not be left orphans but rather always have the means to seek and find the love of God. In breathing the Spirit upon the apostles and sending him upon the Church for all time, the Sacred Heart of Jesus shows that his love endures forever.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is most profoundly experienced as pure divine love. It is a love so great that, when we encounter it, we are always found wanting; for no human love, however pious and well-intentioned can ever compare to the love that has been given to us by God, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit. It is appropriate, then, that devotion to the Sacred Heart should first acknowledge the insufficiency of our own love before the heart of him who gives all for love. Only from this position of reparation are we then able to undertake the conversion of life that results in the abandonment of self for a total reliance on the love of God.

In Communionem Christi [In communion with Christ]

Corpus Christi, 2014

IN COMMUNION WITH CHRIST, we find our ourselves both at one with his humanity and divinity; sharing his ministry and his glory. For never was a promise more fulfilled than that of Christ’s real presence among us, both sacramentally through the Eucharist and spiritually through the working of the Holy Spirit in his body, the Church.

The celebration of today’s solemn feast is not just a reminder of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but also a call to participate in the fullest extent of communion with Christ, which begins with the intimate encounter with Christ in the Mass and proceeds from this intimacy to community, where we both encounter and become the living body of Christ in the world.

Undoubtedly the greatest gift of Christ’s abiding presence with us in the world today is the Holy Spirit, sent for the sanctification of our lives and as the fulfilment of Christ’s promise to be with us until the end of days. It is this Holy Spirit that makes real the presence of Christ today, for the salvation of mankind; for without it the story of salvation would have ended with the ascension of the Lord to God’s right hand, and we would have been lost forever.

This same Spirit comes upon the gifts of bread and wine so that the perfect offering may be made of Christ’s body and blood in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. The Lord’s presence in the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation is thereby made real, that through nourishment with his body and blood, we may partake in this most intimate communion with Christ and come to know him as Lord and Saviour, just as surely as he was known thus by the apostles who shared this sacred meal with him on the night before he suffered death.

How blessed we are then, that we should have God in the flesh as the sustenance of our faith and the object of our most profound adoration! How blessed, and in equal measure, how challenged! For this bread is Christ's real flesh and this wine is his real blood; the blood of the New Covenant, which challenges us to live as Christ lived and to love as he loved. For what is participation in the Eucharistic Feast without a gratefulness of heart that moves us to share the Good News of salvation with the world? And what is adoration of his presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament without that love overflowing into our lives and touching all those whom he loved?

The communion to which we are called – the experience of Christ’s real presence in our lives – is not only to be found in the Blessed Sacrament, but also – through our participation in this living sacrifice – in the community of the faithful; “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” [1Cor.10:17].

The Church – the communion of saints triumphant, penitent and militant – which is the guardian of the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, is imbued with his Holy Spirit and is one body, one spirit in Christ. For not any man who eats bread and drinks wine is the recipient of the grace of Christ's presence. The Church stands as guardian and guide, as giver and guarantor of the truth of his abiding presence – a mission that each of us is called to fulfil. For each of us is reborn in the Spirit, baptised in the very name of God, and filled with God’s graces through the sacraments, the chiefest of which is that of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us then, on this feast of Corpus Christi, give the Blessed Sacrament the highest veneration possible, by renewing our faith in Christ’s real presence therein, and by rekindling our desire to seek perfect communion with him: Firstly, our personal communion with the Lord through which our souls find nourishment and our mortal bodies taste the divine, and through which we awe in his presence and recall his love for us. And also our communion with Christ in all who partake of the bread of heaven and the cup of blessing; we who are now the living body of Christ in the world; we who have received the gifts of his Spirit, (as the Apostle Paul says) some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and others pastors and teachers, but all of us equipped, as the many parts that make up Christ’s body, for the work of his ministry and the building up of the Body of Christ.

In Nomine [In the name]

The Most Holy Trinity

15 June, 2014

IN THE NAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

The simplest and yet most profound; the most spoken and yet most overlooked prayer. We begin each act of devotion with this invocation, yet it is often rushed and barely enunciated rather than prayed. And yet it is the very core of our faith. 

These few words encapsulate the mystery of our creation, our salvation and our relationship with God. They are both divine revelation and commission, urging us to understand the very nature of God and to go out in his name, in fulfilment of our calling to be God’s countenance to the world in order to participate in God's communion of love for all eternity.

To pray these words is to invoke the power of love-perfected, which unites and emanates from the one true God who has revealed himself in love as the Father of all creation, the architect of the loving gift of life brought into existence by the Word, his only begotten Son, who was made man for our salvation, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them both as the eternal manifestation of their love and as the giver of true life, uniting our immortal souls with that divine love from which we were made. 

To live these words is to blur the lines between praying and living, by dedicating every thought, word and action to the love of God. For the Trinity is not some philosophical idea of God; it is the very pulse of life that animates creation. The love that is the very nature of the Godhead is not intangible and confined, but overflows through the Father’s gift of the Son and their sending of the Holy Spirit to wake our hearts from the slumber of self-love to the love of self-giving.

For we were made in the image of God, in the image of love-perfected, with a vocation to love as we ourselves have been loved by God. And God loves in the selflessness of complete self-giving. So let it be that our whole life is lived in this fervent prayer to the most holy Trinity, that our vocation may be brought to perfection:

In the name of the Father – may we love with generosity and justice, with wisdom and truth, with patience and benevolence, and with the designs of the creator as the blueprint for all our relationships.

In the name of the Son – may we love with obedience and humility, with openness and forgiveness, with purity and simplicity, and with sacrifice as the heart of our service of God and neighbour.

And in the name of the Holy Spirit – may we love with consolation and counsel, with insight and inspiration, with zeal and valour, and for the sake of love itself, for “by this we know that we abide in him and he in us”.

And may the love of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with us and radiate from us in all its glory as we seek to perfect in ourselves the self-giving love that is our divine inheritance.

Nolite Timere [Do not be afraid]

Pentecost

08 June, 2014

DO NOT BE AFRAID: 

When you fear that the Lord is no longer with you, the Spirit of Wisdom will open the eyes of your heart to see God’s abiding presence in all creation. 

When you fear you have not fully grasped what the Lord himself has taught you, the Spirit of Understanding will reveal the truth you seek. 

If you find yourself lost and know not the direction you should take, the Spirit of Counsel will burn like a fire within you to light your path in the way of the Lord. 

In times of fear – even for your very life – the Spirit of Fortitude will embolden you with his strength to walk in the footsteps of Christ. 

When you fear that the weakness of your human flesh will confound your good intent, let the Spirit of Knowledge allow you to see with the eyes of God and act in accordance with his will. 

And should you ever forget that the Lord your God so loved you that he sent his only son to die that you might live, let the spiritual gifts of Piety and Fear of the Lord give you the grace to stand in his presence in wonder and awe, and to return his perfect love with love alone.

Not one of the Apostles gathered that day in the upper room was without fear of one kind or another. Their Lord had risen from the dead and revealed himself as not just their Lord, but Lord of all. And then, just as their eyes had been opened to the truth, he left them. In 50 days they had gone from being orphans to sons of God to orphans again.

But before departing from the world, Christ had promised that he would not leave them orphans; that he would send a comforter, a guide, an advocate and protector, to be with them till the end of time. This Paraclete – the Spirit of God that moved over the waters at the breaking of creation’s first dawn and spoke through the prophets – will be sent now to dwell for all time within God’s chosen people to renew, inspire and empower them in the service of God.

So it was for help that they waited – for clarity, direction, inspiration and hope; for a true understanding of what Jesus meant when he said, “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you,” and again, before he ascended into heaven, “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations”. How could this mission be achieved by them in a hostile city and a foreign world?

And so they waited with great yearning. And they were not to be disappointed; for with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, no man is left wanting; for the gifts of the Holy Spirit bring to perfection in man, our vision of and share in the divine nature through our faith in Christ Jesus. And with the Holy Spirit’s indwelling there was no room for fear or doubt, because all that seemed impossible to them even as they sat contemplating the Lord’s final promise, indeed came to pass through the grace of God working in them in the bountiful charismata of the Spirit.

And what of us, my brothers? Do we not profess our faith in the same God – the Father almighty; the only begotten Son; the Holy Spirit, the giver of life – as our fathers in the faith, through generation after generation, all the way back to the Apostles? Is it not the same Spirit that dwells within us today, sent by the same Lord, indeed for the same purpose of his glory through the living body of Christ, his Church on Earth?

And so, even as you say “I believe”, never cease to trust that the same gifts are given unto us today and always, those gifts of the Spirit that say, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I am with you always, yes, even to the end of time."