Vultus Christi

In honour of Saint Margaret Mary whose liturgical memorial occurs on October 16th, I want to offer this Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. So few understand that reparation begins when we allow ourselves, shattered and deformed as we are by sin, to be "repaired," that is, restored to wholeness and beauty by the love of the Heart of Christ and by the virtue of His Precious Blood.

Lord Jesus, I desire today to open myself to the Love of Your Sacred Heart,
to the Love that others refuse or ignore.

By my attention to Your Heart,
I desire to make up for indifference to Your Love.

By my gratitude to Your Heart,
I desire to make up for ingratitude toward You
and toward the gifts of Your Heart,
especially that of the Most Holy Eucharist.

By my trust in Your Heart,
I desire to make up for those who do not trust You,
are afraid to trust You, or whose trust in Your Love
has been weakened by personal sin or by the sins of others.

By my hope in Your Heart, I desire to help, in some way,
those tempted to despair of Your Mercy.

Finally, in spite of my weakness and inconstancy,
I desire, by my love for Your Sacred Heart, to obtain for myself
and for all who yearn for the sweetness of divine friendship
something of what Your beloved disciple Saint John experienced
when he rested upon Your Heart at the Last Supper on the night before You suffered.

Let my desire to be open to the Love of Your Sacred Heart today
serve in some way to repair the brokenness
of the vulnerable, wounded, and fragile members of Your Mystical Body,
and, by the mysterious workings of Your Holy Spirit,
bring healing to those most in need of your mercy,
and especially to priests. Amen.

In 1925 Pope Pius XI decreed that the Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus first carried out by Pope Leo XIII on 11 June 1899 should be renewed yearly on the Feast of Christ the King. The text of the Consecration follows together with the commentary on it given by Pope John Paul II in 1999.

Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
on the Feast of Christ the King

Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race,
look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thine altar.
We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be,
but, to be more surely united with Thee,
behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today
to Thy most Sacred Heart.

The coincidence of the Holy Father's Lenten Message with the liturgical memorial of Saint Claude La Colombière prompts me to post an article that I wrote in May 2005. In June of the same year, it was published in the Italian, English, and Portuguese editions of L'Osservatore Romano.

Toward A Theology of the Sacred Heart

“Knowing the Mystery of God in the Pierced Heart of the Crucified”

“In the pierced heart of the Crucified, God’s own heart is opened up — here we see who God is and what he is like. Heaven is no longer locked up. God has stepped out of his hiddenness. That is why St. John sums up both the meaning of the Cross and the nature of the new worship of God in the mysterious promise made through the prophet Zechariah (cf. 12:10). ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced’ (Jn 19:37).”

Pope Benedict XVI: Theologian of the Heart of Christ

In July of 1985, I was standing in the bookstore of the Abbey of Sainte-Cécile of Solesmes in France when, by a wonderful providence of God, I met the Benedictine scholar, Mother Elisabeth de Solms. The encounter remains unforgettable. I had long studied and used her admirable translation of the Life and Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as her Christian Bible, a series of volumes setting the commentaries of the Church Fathers line by line alongside the Scriptures. The simplicity of so great a woman was a marvel. She engaged me in conversation, asking if I had read the works of Cardinal Ratzinger. I admitted that I was familiar with certain writings of his, surely not with everything published. “Read him,” she said. “You will see. God will make of him a great gift to his Church.” That was twenty years ago.

I heard a frightful amount of banging about outside my cell during the work period this morning. "The postulants are moving furniture again," I thought, "or doing some serious housecleaning." When I left my cell for Sext what did I see in our corridor? An immense 19th century statue of the Sacred Heart!

The statue was retrieved from a storage room where it shared space with enormous portaits of dead abbots. (That often happens in monasteries. Portraits of long dead abbots and other things are put in storage for years, sometimes for generations, and then reappear. At the same time other things disappear.)

I am pleased to be living now in the corridoio del Sacro Cuore: a suitable surprise on this First Friday of Lent.

I did not forget about the birthday of the Venerable John Henry Newman on Wednesday of this week. I just didn't have time to post anything about it. Cardinal Newman was born on February 21, 1801.

As I have mentioned before on Vultus Christi, Newman, in 1847, lived here at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in the rooms just above me, and descended into the basilica by the very staircase I now use several times a day. Given the arrival of the Sacred Heart on our corridor, I think it fitting to present Newman's exquisite prayer to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus:

O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus,
Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still.
Now as then Thou savest,
Desiderio desideravi—"With desire I have desired."
I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe,
with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will.
O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee,
to eat and drink Thee,
and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me,
O make my heart beat with Thy Heart.
Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual,
all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity,
of all disorder, of all deadness.
So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day
nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it,
but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace.

In response to the Holy Father's invitation to contemplate the wounded Side of Christ, I offer my own translation of a prayer "Alla Piaga Del Costato di Gesù," To the Wound in Jesus' Side, composed by the Servant of God Father Eustachio Montemurro (1857–1923). The Venerable Eustachio of Jesus and Mary, a physician and a civic leader, a man of noble ideals and courageous initiatives, became a priest at forty–five years of age, desiring to bringing healing to souls as well as to bodies. Shortly thereafter he founded two religious congregations: The Little Brothers of the Most Holy Sacrament and the Sisters Missionaries of the Sacred Side.

The holy founder was accused of "an excess of zeal" and, for the good of the institutes he had established, chose to exile himself from his spiritual sons and daughters. With the permission of the Pope, he moved to the sanctuary of the Madonna of the Rosary of Pompei, founded by Blessed Bartolo Longo, to devote himself selflessly to the service of souls. Father Montemurro died at Pompei on January 2, 1923, loved by all, and leaving a reputation for holiness.

O painless thrust of the spear
forever awaited with passionate love by my Saviour
that thou shouldst repair in the Father's sight
the terrible wound opened by the sin of Adam
in the heart of humanity!

O glorious wound,
gushing forth life, love, and peace!
I adore thee inexhaustible wellspring of salvation,
the womb of new children
born of the water and of the blood of the Bridegroom.
Thou art for me an ever open refuge,
the door giving access to the nuptial chamber,
the vestibule of the banquet of the Lamb.

The living water that, at every moment, springs from thee,
invites me with the language of love
to enter, through thee, into the heart of my Saviour
that therein I might take the regenerating rest of new life
and spread it all about me
just as the bride coming forth from the nuptial chamber
radiates among her friends the signs and the sweetnesses of love.

Be thou for me, then, O blessed wound,
my blissful abode.
May I be drawn always to thee,
that in thee I may live and die.
In thee may I find the splendid riches
which eye has never seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart experienced.

I love Thee, Lord Jesus,
glory of my mind, joy of my eyes,
melody of my ears, gladness of my heart,
and peace of my soul.

I am Thine for time and for eternity;
nothing shall ever separate me from Thee,
for Thou hast espoused me,
drawing me with bands of goodness to Thy open side
and pouring out of Thy heart into mine
the joys of the Spirit
and the mercy of the Father who always hears Thee.

Just as one learns what is in the heart of one’s dearest friend by looking at his face, just as a wife can know what her husband carries for her in his heart by reading his face, so too does the Church look to the Eucharistic face of Christ to discover there all the secrets of His Sacred Heart for her. The connection between face and heart is something deeply inscribed in the human person. Face and person are, in fact synonymous, not only because in Greek the same word denotes both but even more because there is nothing more personal, nothing more precious, nothing dearer than the face of a loved one.

The psalmist’s cry, “I long to see your face” (Ps 26:8), is the cry of every lover to his beloved, the cry of child to parent, of parent to child, and of friend to friend. The most poignant moment in the rites of Pope John Paul II’s death and burial came when a veil was laid over his face. We cherish photographs of those we love, but what is a photograph without a face? The relationships that we call “heart to heart” never tire of the “face to face to face.”

The more one is drawn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the more one experiences the need to seek His Face — and to seek it in the adorable mystery of the Eucharist. The heart is a secret organ, a thing not visible to the eye. The “thoughts of the heart” are transmitted to the face. It is true that some persons try to dissimulate what they hold in the heart by putting on a plastic face, a professional face, or a face of stony indifference, but all of that dissimulation is related to sin. In Jesus Christ, the Lamb without stain, there is no disconnection between face and heart.

All that Jesus holds in his Sacred Heart for us and for his Father is revealed on His Face. If you would know His Heart, seek His Face, and seek it in the Eucharist. It is in the contemplation of the Most Holy Eucharist that, fulfilling Zechariah's ancient prophecy, we “look upon Him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37).

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Ezechiel 47:1-9, 12
Psalm 45:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
John 5:1-16

All You That Thirst

Today’s texts are just waiting to be developed into a pre-baptismal catechesis. “All you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that have no money come, and drink with joy” (cf. Is 55:1). The Entrance Antiphon is addressed to all who thirst; there is nothing to purchase. The waters flow freely. The last phrase of the antiphon — “drink with joy” — is not found in the biblical text. It is the Church’s word, making clear for us here and now, the prophecy of Isaiah.

Flowing Waters

The Responsorial Psalm sings of the river that irrigates the Church, the new Jerusalem: “The city of God enriched with flowing waters, is the chosen sanctuary of the Most High” (Ps 45:5). The Communion Antiphon praises Christ the Shepherd who, in the Eucharist, “leads us by refreshing waters” (cf. Ps 22:1-2). In the Gospel we see the waters of Bethesda, a bath of healing stirred by an Angel of the Lord. All around the pool of Bethesda lie the diseased, the blind, the lame, and the disabled seeking to recover from the infirmities that oppress them. Bethesda is an image of the baptismal pool of regeneration, the bath from which in a few weeks the catechumens will emerge clean, healed, and altogether new.

Vidi Aquam

The centerpiece of today’s Mass is the reading from the prophet Ezekiel. The title printed in red above the text in the lectionary is most unusual. It reads: “I saw water flowing from the temple, and all who were touched by it were saved.” It adds, “See Roman Missal.” Where in the Roman Missal are we to look? Go to the antiphons sung at the Rite of Sprinkling with Holy Water: the Asperges me, taken from Psalm 50, and used outside of Paschaltide; and the Vidi aquam, taken from Ezekiel 47, and sung at the Paschal Vigil and on the Sundays of Paschaltide.

Look for a moment at the text of the Vidi aquam. The prophet Ezekiel, in a mystical rapture, sees the Temple as the wellspring of an immense river irrigating the whole country and making stagnant waters fresh. The Temple is the abode of the Glory of God (Ez 43:1-12). It is the source of a river, teeming with fish, and on both sides of its banks grow fruit bearing trees because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.

The glorious body of the of the crucified and risen Christ is the new and indestructible temple of which he himself said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). At the death of Christ, the veil of the Temple was “torn in two from top to bottom” (Mt 27:51); Saint John, by recounting how the side of Jesus was pierced by the soldier’s lance, translates the same mystery. Out of the pierced heart of Jesus flows blood and water (Jn 19:34), recalling the water from the rock struck by the rod of Moses in the desert (Num 20:2-13), the fountains of salvation prophesied by Isaiah (Is 12:3), and the great river of Ezekiel’s vision.

Ah, awful Face of Love, bruised by my hand,
Turn to me, pierce me with Thine eyes of flame,
And give, me deeper knowledge of my sin.
So let me grieve and, when I understand
How great my guilt, my ruin, and my shame,
Open Thy Sacred Heart and let me in!

R.H. Benson

The Embrace of Saint Francis and the Crucified, Murillo, 1668
This is a very significant image for me. When I first saw this painting as a little boy of eleven or twelve years, maybe younger, I was smitten by it. My Dad went out and bought me a beautiful framed reproduction that I treasured. The soul of a child is formed (or deformed) by the images to which he is exposed.

Later in my life I discovered that the theme of the amplexus (embrace) of the Crucified originated in depictions of Saint Bernard. Saint Francis' remarkable affinity to Saint Bernard is demonstrated in that the motif of the amplexus was widely transferred from the Abbot of Clairvaux to the Little Poor Man of Assisi. The recurring motif of the Face of Christ and of His Pierced Heart is linked to the spread of the Cistercian and Franciscan Orders, each with its own iconography of the amplexus.

On the occasion of the Holy Father's 80th birthday and in response to his invitation to contemplate the wounded Side of Christ, I offer again my own translation of a prayer "Alla Piaga Del Costato di Gesù," To the Wound in Jesus' Side, composed by the Servant of God Father Eustachio Montemurro (1857–1923). The Venerable Eustachio of Jesus and Mary, a physician and a civic leader, a man of noble ideals and courageous initiatives, became a priest at forty–five years of age, desiring to bringing healing to souls as well as to bodies. Shortly thereafter he founded two religious congregations: The Little Brothers of the Most Holy Sacrament and the Sisters Missionaries of the Sacred Side.

The holy founder was accused of "an excess of zeal" and, for the good of the institutes he had established, chose to exile himself from his spiritual sons and daughters. With the permission of the Pope, he moved to the sanctuary of the Madonna of the Rosary of Pompei, founded by Blessed Bartolo Longo, to devote himself selflessly to the service of souls. Father Montemurro died at Pompei on January 2, 1923, loved by all, and leaving a reputation for holiness.

O painless thrust of the spear
forever awaited with passionate love by my Saviour
that thou shouldst repair in the Father's sight
the terrible wound opened by the sin of Adam
in the heart of humanity!

O glorious wound,
gushing forth life, love, and peace!
I adore thee inexhaustible wellspring of salvation,
the womb of new children
born of the water and of the blood of the Bridegroom.
Thou art for me an ever open refuge,
the door giving access to the nuptial chamber,
the vestibule of the banquet of the Lamb.

The living water that, at every moment, springs from thee,
invites me with the language of love
to enter, through thee, into the heart of my Saviour
that therein I might take the regenerating rest of new life
and spread it all about me
just as the bride coming forth from the nuptial chamber
radiates among her friends the signs and the sweetnesses of love.

Be thou for me, then, O blessed wound,
my blissful abode.
May I be drawn always to thee,
that in thee I may live and die.
In thee may I find the splendid riches
which eye has never seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart experienced.

I love Thee, Lord Jesus,
glory of my mind, joy of my eyes,
melody of my ears, gladness of my heart,
and peace of my soul.

I am Thine for time and for eternity;
nothing shall ever separate me from Thee,
for Thou hast espoused me,
drawing me with bands of goodness to Thy open side
and pouring out of Thy heart into mine
the joys of the Spirit
and the mercy of the Father who always hears Thee.

Here at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, I have the privilege of living just a few steps away from the Chapel of the Sacred Relics where one can venerate the finger of Saint Thomas the Apostle, that very finger that probed the pierced side of Our Lord. Today's Gospel takes on a special meaning when one lives under the same roof as so sacred a relic.

The finger of Saint Thomas came to be enshrined here through a revelation to Saint Birgitta of Sweden; it was by means of an intervention of Saint Birgitta that the relic was found and brought to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. The relic has been venerated by numerous other saints, blesseds, and servants of God; among them, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, Saint Vincent Pallotti, Saint Gaspar del Bufalo, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and Cardinal Newman.

Yesterday morning, together with Leonard and Mark, my friends from the U.S., I visited the Carceri or hermitages hidden on the wooded slopes of Mount Subasio above Assisi. In a chapel that is part of the small monastic complex built there by Saint Bernardino of Siena in 1400, I discovered this beautiful fresco of the Precious Blood flowing from the pierced side of Jesus Crucified into a chalice held by an angel. I am always spellbound by depictions of the Holy Face of Jesus and of His Open Side. Here in Italy I find them everywhere.

Note that in this image Jesus is living. His eyes are open; He offers His Blood consciously, willingly, and with infinite love. The fresco is situated just above and behind a stone altar where Holy Mass would have been celebrated; it represents the very mystery that is actualized so often as the Eucharistic commandment of the Lord is carried out: "Do ye this in remembrance of me" (1 Cor 11:24).

Fifth Monday of Paschaltide

Acts 14:5–18
Psalm 113B:1–2, 3–4, 15–16 (R.1ab)
John 14:21–26

Grateful to Saint Jude

We are grateful to the Apostle Saint Jude for the marvelous dialogue recounted in today’s Gospel. Our Lord reveals what it means to love Him and to be loved by Him. He declares that anyone who loves Him will be loved by the Father. He promises to love the one who loves him and to manifest Himself to him. “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (Jn 14:21).

The Way of Love

Saint Jude doesn’t immediately grasp what Our Lord is saying. He cannot conceive of a way of knowing Christ apart from the obvious way given to all. Jude seems to think that it is enough to observe Jesus: something that everyone can do. That there should be a higher way of knowing, a more intimate way, the way of love, completely eludes him. “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” (Jn 14:22).

The Divine Indwelling

Our Lord explains that the manifestation of Himself to His disciples will be inseparable from His Father’s love for them. He promises a mysterious indwelling: “We will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23). He declares that anyone who loves Him will hold fast to His words. Those who let go of his words, those who fail to store them up in their hearts, will not enjoy the manifestation reserved to His friends. They will remain strangers to the joy of the indwelling of the Father and the Son.

Friends of the Sacred Heart

How can we not relate this Gospel to the tender love Our Lord revealed in manifesting Himself to the friends of His Sacred Heart over the centuries. To each one of them He said in a unique way, “Behold, I love you and manifest Myself to you, even as I promised.”

I am thinking above all of the Virgin Mother beneath whose own Pure Heart His Sacred Heart of flesh first began to beat. I am thinking of Saint John the Beloved Disciple who, inflamed by his experience of the Heart of Jesus, was compelled to write: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it” (1 Jn1:1–2).

I am thinking of Saint Bernard, Saint Gertrude, Saint Mechthilde, Saint Lutgarde, and Saint Bonaventure. I am thinking of Saint Margaret Mary and of Saint Claude la Colombière, of Mother Marie Adèle Garnier of Tyburn, Mother Clelia Merloni, and Blessed Marie de Jésus Deluil–Martiny; of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, and of Blessed Marie–Joseph Cassant. For each one of these men and women Our Lord fulfilled the promise he makes in today’s Gospel: “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (Jn 14:21).

A Gift Without Price

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, before being a gift of ours offered to Christ is a gift that He offers us. “If you but knew the gift of God!” (Jn 4:10). This is the clear teaching of Pope Pius XII in Haurietis Aquas: “We are perfectly justified in seeing in this same devotion . . . a gift without price which our divine Saviour . . . imparted to the Church, His mystical Spouse in recent centuries when she had to endure such trials and surmount so many difficulties” (HA, art. 2).

The Holy Spirit, First Gift of the Heart of Christ

For Pope Pius XII, the Holy Spirit is the first Gift from the Heart of the risen Christ. This too is announced in today’s Gospel: “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). The work of the Holy Spirit is threefold. (1) The Holy Spirit is our Advocate with the Father, “interceding for us with sighs too deeps for words” because “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Rom 8:26). (2) The Holy Spirit is sent to teach us all things, that is, to make clear for us “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8). (3) The Holy Spirit is sent to quicken the memory of the Church, to bring to remembrance all that Christ said, lest any word of His be neglected or forgotten.

Advocate, Teacher, and Prompter

The Holy Spirit is our Advocate, our Teacher, and our Prompter. As Advocate, the Holy Spirit aligns us with the prayer of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the Father; “the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom 8:27), that is, according to the Heart of Christ. As Teacher, the Holy Spirit gives us “the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:18); in a word, the Holy Spirit teaches us the Heart of Christ. As Prompter, the Holy Spirit calls to mind the words by which Christ communicates to us all “the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3) hidden in His Sacred Heart.

Thirty–Seven Years of Mass

I am dedicating this special entry to my friend Monsignor Arthur Burton Calkins on the 37th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood or, as we say in Italian, “after 37 years of Mass.” Monsignor Calkins is more familiar than anyone else I know with the writings of the Servant of God Louise–Marguerite Claret de la Touche. I ask her to intercede for him today.

A Find at Santa Maria in Ara Coeli

I am becoming increasingly sensitive to the little manifestations of Divine Providence — God’s “gentle leadings with bands of love” — on a daily basis. Last Saturday a dear friend invited me to visit the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli with her. After making our devotions and spending a moment before the church’s famous Santo Bambino, we stopped for a moment in the gift shop to look at its impressive display of icon reproductions. All of a sudden I was drawn to this particular image. It look vaguely familiar to me. I found the Face of Christ, the pierced Side, and the inscription, “It is mercy that I desire,” strangely compelling. I also felt that the little image was destined for my friend. She went home with it. Later that day, after some searching, I identified it as the image painted by Louise–Marguerite Claret de la Touche (1868–1915), one of the last century’s most notable mystics of the Sacred Heart and a spiritual advocate for priests.

The Painting

Mother Louise–Marguerite Claret de la Touche was fond of drawing and painting: a popular pastime in Visitation monasteries of the last century. She left a number of pictures of landscapes, animals, flowers, and still–lifes. It is, however, her inspired painting of the Merciful Jesus, that continues to touch hearts and move them to prayer.

Father Charrier, S.J., Louise–Marguerite’s confessor, ordered her to execute the painting after she related to him a vision in which Our Lord manifested Himself revealing His wounded side. (The similarities with the experience of Saint Faustina Kowalska are striking.)

Meekness and Majesty

Louise–Marguerite painted the image at the end of 1902 and the beginning of 1903. It is unlike other pictures of the Sacred Heart dating from the same epoch. The Face of Christ resembles that of the Holy Shroud of Turin. The eyes of Christ seem to search the soul of the one meeting His gaze. Around the head of Christ the artist painted a double halo: the first represents a crown of thorns; the second, adorned with three stylized lilies, bears the inscription, Misericordiam volo, “It is mercy that I desire” (Mt 9:13).

Contemplating the image, one discovers at the same time the meekness of Jesus and His majesty. Meekness and majesty are inseparable in Him. Gesturing with His hand, Our Lord indicates His pierced Side. The opening in His tunic has, in effect, the shape of a heart.

The Sacred Side

The image represents the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy: “They shall look on Him whom they pierced” (Jn 19:37). The pierced Side of Christ reveals the infinite love of His Heart; it is the wellspring of His mercy.

Call Me Mercy

Mother Louise–Marguerite’s own writings tell of what inspired her in painting the image:
“One day, prostrate at the feet of Jesus, I was calling Him my soul’s one and only Good, the sovereign love of my heart, the infinite treasury of all riches. In the end I said to Him, ‘My Jesus, how do You want me to address you?’ And He answered, ‘Call me Mercy!’ O my sweet Mercy, O Jesus who died of love upon this Cross, grant that, brought back to you by the appeal of Your Mercy, we may live from Your love and for your love’! (Diary, Good Friday, 13 April 1900)

Priest, Temple, and Door

Notice that the image represents the majesty of the “Eternal High Priest,” of the “Divine Sacrificer” Who, from His open Side, continues to pour out “life–giving torrents of Infinite Love” upon humanity and, in particular, upon priests. The lanced pierced His right side: an evident allusion to the vision recounted in Chapter 47 of the prophet Ezekiel. Christ is, at once, the “High Priest” (Heb 4:14) and the Temple (Jn 2:21). Saving water streams out from below the right side of the Temple, and swells to become “a river” producing life in abundance wherever it flows. In this light, the wound in the Side of Christ is revealed also as “the door” (Jn 10:7) through which one enters the Holy of Holies to “obtain mercy and gind grace” (Heb 4:16).

I find my consolation in the one and only companion who will never leave me, that is, our Divine Saviour in the Holy Eucharist. . . .

Blessed Damien de Veuster, SS.CC.

A Priest–Icon of the Suffering Christ

The saints, all of them, are living illustrations of the power of the Holy Spirit. The saints are the masterpieces of the Divine Iconographer who, in every age, writes in souls the whole mystery of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Finger of God’s Right Hand tracing on hearts of flesh the likeness of the Heart of Jesus. In Blessed Damian of Molokai the Church sets before us a priest fashioned by the Holy Spirit in a special way into the image of the suffering Christ, “despised and rejected by man, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Is 53:3).

The Entire Plan of God

Father Damien could have said to his beloved people of Molokai what Saint Paul said to the presbyters of the Church at Ephesus : “You know how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came . . . I served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that came to me . . .. I did not shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. I earnestly bore witness . . . to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus . . .. Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace . . .. I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God” (cf. Ac 20:17-27).

Eucharistic Adoration

The words are Saint Paul’s but the sentiments — all of them — are those of Blessed Father Damien of Molokai. Where did Father Damien discover “the entire plan of God” (Ac 20:27) or, as another translation has it, “the whole counsel of God”? In the contemplation of the Heart of Jesus. And where did he contemplate the Heart of Jesus? In the adoration of the Eucharist.

Knowledge of the Pierced Side of Christ

The full title of Father Damien’s religious family is a very long one but it expresses completely the charism given them: “The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.” Father Damien’s compassionate devotion to those suffering from leprosy was the fruit of his intimate knowledge of the riches hidden in the pierced Side of Christ. That knowledge came to him in long hours of adoration before the tabernacle.

Lepers Adoring the Hidden Face of Christ

It is a little known fact that Father Damien laboured to established perpetual adoration of the Eucharist among his dear lepers. In this there is something astonishingly beautiful; the sight of lepers adoring day and night the Suffering Servant who, disfigured in his Passion, became, “as one from whom men screen their faces” (Is 53:3), the “Lord of Glory” (1 Cor 2:8) whose face is "all the beauty of holy souls” (Litany of the Holy Face).

The Prayer of the Sacred Heart to the Father

It was in Eucharistic adoration that Blessed Father Damien found himself drawn into the priestly prayer of Christ given us in the seventeenth chapter of Saint John. That prayer did not end with the Last Supper in the Cenacle. It is the prayer of the risen and ascended Christ who stands all-glorious in the sanctuary of heaven, showing the Father the wound in His side, the opening made by love, never to be closed. It is the prayer of the priestly Heart of Jesus in the sacrifice and sacrament of the Eucharist. It is the prayer that, from the tabernacle, rises ceaselessly like incense before the Father. Only those who linger there know this prayer; it becomes their prayer, inhabits them, changes them, and impels them to imitate the self-giving love of the Sacred Heart.

Cast into the furnace of love, the Heart of Jesus,
all your anxieties,
your trials, your fears,
so that He may burn them away.
— Mother Clelia Merloni

Mother Clelia Merloni founded the Congregation of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Viareggio, Italy on May 30, 1894, 113 years ago today. The photo is not of Mother Clelia but of one of the first Sisters sent from Italy to America. With one little orphan in her arms and another holding her hand, she is the perfect image of the Apostle called to be a spouse of Jesus Christ and a mother to those dearest to His Sacred Heart: the little, the vulnerable, the poor.

The daughters of Mother Clelia make reparation to the Sacred Heart by means of their life of adoration and apostolic service to the Church. For every "No" to the love and mercy of the pierced Heart of Christ, the Sister Apostle offers her own unconditional "Yes."

The Generalate of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is located within the parish confines of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, a mere five minutes from the basilica.

One of my favourite prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is this one, written by Cardinal Newman. It is as theologically precise as it is tenderly human. I am especially moved by Newman's allusion to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus: "Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist and thou beatest for us still."

My God, my Saviour, I adore Thy Sacred Heart,
for that heart is the seat and source
of all Thy tenderest human affections for us sinners.
It is the instrument and organ of Thy love.
It did beat for us. It yearned over us.
It ached for us, and for our salvation.
It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us.

It is the channel through which has come to us all Thy overflowing human affection,
all Thy Divine Charity towards us.
All Thy incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes,
in one inseparably mingled stream, through that Sacred Heart.
O most Sacred symbol and Sacrament of Love, divine and human, in its fulness,
Thou didst save me by Thy divine strength, and Thy human affection,
and then at length by that wonder-working blood, wherewith Thou didst overflow.

Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father

My project for the month of June is to offer something of a commentary on the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is perhaps presumptuous of me to try to do this. Others have done it before me, and among them were great saints and mystics such as Pope John Paul II. This is, nonetheless, something I want to do, something that I feel I must do this month. If it brings souls closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so much the better!

Over the years I have come to savour the Litany of the Sacred Heart more and more. Instinctively and not in any systematic way, I have approached each invocation following the "ladder of monks," the classic pattern of lectio divina:
lectio, each invocation heard;
meditatio, each invocation repeated;
oratio, each invocation prayed;
contemplatio, each invocation held in the heart.

The Little Bag of Saint Thérèse Couderc

I often think of Saint Thérèse Couderc who copied out the thirty–three invocations of the Litany of the Sacred on little slips of paper and kept them in a small cloth bag in her apron pocket. As she went about her work, she would pick an invocation out of the bag at random. She would repeat it and meditate it, allowing it to nourish her interior prayer. She would repeat this as often as necessary throughout the day.

Thou Art My Son

The first invocation of the litany draws us into the ageless mystery of the Son's relationship with the Eternal Father. I hear the sublime Introit of the Mass of Christmas During the Night, Dominus dixit ad me. The Word Himself, the Son, repeats to us what the Father says to Him from all eternity: "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee" (Ps 2:7). The divine affirmation of our sonship by adoption is something that we all need to hear. In an age when so many suffer from the absence of the father or from a father's silence, there is healing in receiving the testimony of the Heart of the Eternal Son: "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee" (Ps 2:7).

In Principio

The sonship of the Word is at the wellspring of life: the Father gazing with delight upon His perfect and coequal Image; the Son returning the gaze of the Father in a ceaseless rapture of filial love; the Holy Spirit sealing the communion of the Father with the Son, and of the Son with the Father. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God — that is, turned toward Him — and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1).

The Heart of the Son

It was, from the beginning, the will of the Most Holy Trinity that a human heart, a perfect heart, a heart pulsating with filial love, should be introduced into their most intimate and ineffable exchange of love. The Father desired that His Son should love Him with Adam's heart, that is, with a heart of flesh and blood. The Son desired that His love for the Father should be enfleshed, that the heartbeat of His love for the Father might become the very rhythm of the cosmos. The Holy Spirit desired to produce a perfect human heart capable of an exquisitely divine sensitivity to the love and to the glory of the Father, and to the sin and misery of man. And so, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14).

Sons in the Son

The work of our conversion and sanctification is this: that our hearts should be conformed to the Heart of the Firstborn Son. "You did not receive the the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, the heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him" (Rom 8:15–17).

The fundamental fruit of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is growth in the grace of adoptive sonship. The more closely one's heart is united to the Heart of Jesus, the more perfectly does one become "a son within the Son." One who knows the Heart of Jesus knows the Heart of the Father also (cf. Jn 8:20). Souls privileged by the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are called to filial boldness in prayer, to a limitless confidence in the merciful goodness of the Father, and to serene abandonment to His will. "I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said this to you, that in me — in my Heart — you may have peace (Jn 16:32).

Praying With the Sacred Heart

Sooner or later, true devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus becomes a participation in His filial prayer to the Father: "Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son that the Son may glorify Thee" (Jn 17:1); and again, from the Cross, "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit" (Lk 23:46).

Prayer

Come, Thou Holy Spirit,
draw me to the Sacred Heart of the Son,
that by entering that wounded Heart
and by passing through its flames,
I may approach the Eternal Father
and be held safe in His embrace.

Let me not fall back into fear
but, rather, go forward in boldness.
Bear Thou witness within my heart
that while I am yet at a distance,
the Father seeth me through the pierced Heart of Jesus,
and hath compassion,
and runneth,
and kisseth me with the Kiss of His Mouth
bestowed on none save sons in the Son.
Amen.

Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
have mercy on us.

Et Homo Factus Est

The second invocation of the Litany of the Sacred Heart is the only one to mention the Holy Spirit, and the only one to name the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this, the Litany echoes the Nicene Creed: Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven. And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary; and was made man. When these words occur in the liturgy, the Church instructs us to bow profoundly (or to kneel) in adoration of the mystery of the Incarnation. So often as we perform this liturgical action, it unites us, in some way, to the first act of adoration offered by the Virgin Mary to the Sacred Heart.

The Sound of Redeeming Love

After twenty–four days, the Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, began to have regular beats or pulsations. The human Heart of God began to beat beneath the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was the sound of redeeming love. "When the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father' " (Gal 4:6-7).

Keeper of the Mystic Portal

It is through the Blessed Virgin Mary that the Sacred Heart of Jesus enters the world. It is through her that the world will be brought to the Sacred Heart. I have never known anyone to have loved Mary without loving the Heart of Jesus, and I have never known anyone to have loved the Heart of Jesus without loving Mary. Mary is the Keeper of the Mystic Portal; she stands at the foot of the Cross drawing souls to the pierced Side of her Son, and guiding them over the threshold of His Pierced Side into the secret abode of His Sacred Heart.

Blessed Marie de Jésus Deluil–Martiny writes: "In this life of union with the Heart of Jesus, of imitation of the Heart of Jesus, their excellent model is the Heart of Mary, for the Mother cannot be separated from the Son. It is through Mary that every soul goes to Jesus. Having once given His only Son through Mary, it is still through her that ceaselessly God gives Him to us."

Prayer

I pray thee, O Most Holy Virgin Mary,
that I might hear the Heartbeat of redeeming Love,
and that with Thee
I might adore the Heart of Jesus
formed in Thy womb by the Holy Spirit.

In the Holy Spirit,
Thou adorest the Heart of Thy Son as the Heart of Thy God;
in that same Holy Spirit,
grant that I may adore the Heart of my God
as the Heart that, hidden in Thy womb, once beat beneath Thy own:
the same Sacred Heart that, pierced upon the Cross,
fills the heavens with glory
and the earth with mercy.
Amen.

Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of God, have mercy on us

From all eternity, God desired to love man divinely with a human heart, and so, "when the time had fully come" (Gal 4:4), "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14). In the breast of the Word Made Flesh there beats a human Heart that is nothing less than the Heart of God. The Divine Person of the Word expresses His filial love for the Father and His redeeming love for man through this Sacred Heart.

Behold this Heart

The Heart of the Word, formed by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin's womb, pierced by the soldier's lance on Calvary, touched by the Apostle Thomas after the resurrection, and concealed in the adorable mystery of the Eucharist, is the abiding symbol of the infinite love with which the Son loves the Father and loves every man. Thus did Jesus say to Saint Margaret Mary in the "Great Revelation" that occurred during the Octave of Corpus Christi in June 1675: "Behold this Heart which has so loved men." "In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins"(1 Jn 4:10).

Love, Mercy, and Meekness

To behold is to look upon, to contemplate, and to consider. The desire of Our Lord is that we should look upon His Heart, fulfilling in every generation the words of the prophet Zechariah repeated by Saint John: "They shall look on him whom they have pierced" (Jn 19:37; Zech 12:1). One who looks upon the Heart of Christ discovers the redeeming love of the Heart of God. One who contemplates the Heart of Christ is drawn into the infinite mercy of the Heart of God. One who considers the Heart of Christ learns the meekness and humility of the Heart of God.

To Know and Believe in the Love God Has For Us

The value of images of the Sacred Heart derives from this: that the pierced Heart of Jesus sets before our eyes the whole mystery of the merciful love of God, softens our resistances to that love, and invites us to grown in confident surrender to it. One understands just why Our Lord said to Saint Margaret Mary: "I will bless those places wherein the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and venerated."

Enthronement of the Sacred Heart

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me" (Ap 3:20). The enthronement of an image of the Sacred Heart in one's home is a way of opening family life to the merciful love of Christ. Those who introduce an image of the Sacred Heart into their homes express their desire to say with the Apostle John, "So do we know and believe the love God has for us" (1 Jn 4:16). God who inspires that desire will also fulfill it.

Prayer

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
I adore Thee beating in the breast of the Word Made Flesh.
I adore Thee, moved with Divine Compassion
at the sight of the multitude like sheep without a shepherd.
I adore Thee burning to set the world ablaze
with the fire of Thy Godhead.
I adore Thee desiring with a great desire
to feed us with Thyself.
I adore Thee broken with sorrow
and lifted to the Father in Gethsemani.
I adore Thee opened for me by the thrust of the soldier's lance.
I adore Thee in the stillness of the tomb.
I adore Thee in the glory of Thy resurrection.
I adore Thee with the Apostle Thomas, saying,
"O Heart of my Lord and Heart of my God!"
I adore Thee in the majesty of Thy ascension.
I adore Thee present in the tabernacles of the world.
I adore Thee revealed in glory at the end of time
for the glory of Thy Father
and for the joy of all Thy Saints.
Amen.

Heart of Jesus, of infinite majesty, have mercy on us

I cannot pray this invocation without recalling the Prophet Daniel's vision of the Son of Man in His majesty:

And I lifted up my eyes, and I saw: and behold a man clothed in linen, and his loins were girded with the finest gold; and his body was like the chrysolite, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as a burning lamp: and his arms and all downward even to the feet, like in appearance to glittering brass: and the voice of his word like the voice of a multitude" (Dn 10:5-6).

The Heart Revealed

There is no mention of the heart in Daniel's description; the heart remains hidden. And yet, the heart is revealed in the face having "the appearance of lightning" and in "the eyes as a burning lamp."

The Sacred Heart Speaks

The words of the Son of Man to Daniel announce the messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to souls of desire down through the centuries:

He that looked like a man touched me again, and strengthened me. And he said, "Fear not, O man of desires, peace be to thee: take courage and be strong." And when he spoke to me, I grew strong, and I said: "Speak, O my Lord, for thou hast strengthened me" (Dn 10:18–19).

Prayer

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, of infinite majesty,
Thou art the dispensation of the mystery
which hath been hidden from eternity in God,
who created all things;
Thou art the mystery hidden from the sons of men
in other generations,
but now revealed to Thy holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
Thou art the mystery hidden for ages and generations
but now made manifest to Thy saints.
Prostrate before Thee, I offer my own heart
in adoration of Thy splendour,
in submission to Thy wisdom,
and in surrender to Thy designs.
Speak Thou to me
as once Thou spokest to Daniel Thy Prophet,
that the desires of my heart
may be lifted up even to the majesty of Thine,
and that Thy words
may establish my faltering soul
in the strength of Thy grace
and the peace of Thy strength.
Amen.

Heart of Jesus, Holy Temple of God, have mercy on us.

The temple built by Solomon is a figure of the mystery of the Heart of Jesus. The Sacred Heart is at once the temple from which our prayer rises to the Father, and the Holy of Holies from which it pleases the Father to hear and answer us. The Heart of Jesus is the temple of God's encounter with man, and of man's encounter with God. The Second Book of Chronicles gives us a vivid image of prayer made in and from the Heart of Jesus, the Holy Temple of God:

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands. Solomon had made a bronze platform five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high, and had it set in the court; and he stood upon it.

Then he knelt upon his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven; and said, 'O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like Thee in heaven nor on earth, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to Thy servants who walk before Thee with all their heart. . . . (2 Chr 6:12-14).

Ultimately, Solomon's prayer is fulfilled in the Heart of Jesus:

But will God dwell indeed with man on earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Thee; how much less this house which I have built! Yet have regard to the prayer of Thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, hearkening to the cry and to the prayer which Thy servant prays before Thee; so that Thy eyes may be open day and night toward this house, the place where Thou hast promised to set Thy Name, that Thou mayest hearken to the prayer which Thy servant offers toward this place; yea, hear Thou from heaven Thy dwelling place; and when Thou hearest, forgive (2 Chr 618-21).

The Temple Open to All

Now, "in these last days" (Heb 1:2), God dwells with man on earth: the Heart of Jesus, concealed and revealed in the Most Holy Eucharist, is the temple open to all. "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb 4:16). The eyes of the Father are open day and night toward the Heart of the Son; therein the Father has set His Name: the pledge of His unfailing presence and readiness to hear all who approach Him as sons. "If you abide in me," says Jesus, "and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you" (Jn 15:7).

The Temple of Adoration in Spirit and in Truth

One abides in Jesus by entering the temple of His Sacred Heart, through the portal of His open Side. For this was the Side of Jesus pierced by the soldier's lance on Calvary: that we might abide in the temple of His Heart. One who abides in the temple of the Sacred Heart finds therein the Altar, the Priest, and the Victim of "adoration in spirit and in truth" (Jn 4:19).

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, Spotless Victim and Eternal Priest,
after the consummation of Thy sacrifice on the Cross,
Thy Side was opened by the soldier's lance,
that with confidence in the outpouring of Thy Blood
we might enter Thy Sacred Heart,
the sanctuary of adoration in spirit and in truth.

Thou hast opened for us a new and living way
through the veil, that is, through Thy flesh.
Unite us now to Thyself in that mystic temple
and in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
that we may praise Thee forever
and from Thy Sacred Heart
offer ceaseless adoration to the Father in the Holy Spirit
now and unto the ages of ages.
Amen.

We have crossed the threshold,
not only of Your feast, but also of Your mystery,
O Pierced One.
We have been in pilgrimage to Your Heart.
It was the light of Your Eucharistic Face that drew us on,
compelling us, impelling to seek in its radiance
the wound in Your side.

Now before us lies the door
opened not by the turn of a key
but by the thrust of a lance,
and beyond the door the abode of love.
“He has brought me to the banqueting house,
and is banner over me was love” (Ct 2:4).

We opened our books to First Vespers
and found there not the mere form of words
but the traces of a burning, blazing Word
— Your Heart —
and beneath the text
embers glowing
waiting to be fanned again into flame
by a mingling of Spirit-Breath with ours,
breath well spent in the chants of Your Church.

The Spirit came again to the help of our weakness,
loosing our tongues for the praise of Love wounded and wounding,
teaching Love’s own language:
strange to those in exile from Your Heart
but now become — O wonder!—
our native tongue.

Strange and blessed
this language of Your Church,
spilling fire in antiphons
and rivers of light in psalms,
infusing Your prayer, O Christ, Eternal Son, Eternal Priest
— nothing less than that —
into all of us who know not how to pray as we ought.

Your Heart’s prayer
poured into every aching emptiness of ours.
Your Heart’s song
rising in our silence.
Your Heartbeat
making us bold
by a gift of words not of our making.
And in those words Heart speaks to heart.

In them
Your Heart speaks to the Father;
and the Father’s heart to yours.
In them Your Heart sings to Your Church, Your Bride;
and her heart sings to yours.
This is Love’s exchange,
hidden from the learned and the clever
but revealed to little ones,
splashed like pure water on the lips of children
to delight the Father
and to fall all shining onto the cracked and dusty face
of a world grown old in thirst.

You stood up once
as you stand before us now,
— it was the last day of the feast, the great day —
and cried out, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink;
out of His heart shall flow rivers of living water” (cf. Jn 7:37-38).
You said this about the Spirit
that blazes from Your face —
and rushes from Your open side
in water and in blood.

Where is the heart held aloft,
the heart become a chalice to catch the torrent in its flow?
Where are hands to press that chalice
to the lips of those who, with weary step,
return from empty cisterns?
My heart?
For this I give it
and for this I give my hands.
My heart to cup the flow of love,
my hands to tip the chalice.

It is Your Face, O Christ, that we came seeking,
the Face that sought us first,
Your Eucharistic Face seen now as through a glass darkly,
a polished monstrance crystal cut by faith.
And we all, with unveiled face,
beholding Your glory veiled here,
are being changed into Your likeness (cf. 2 Cor 3:18)
and drawn beyond the threshold wound,
Your Heart’s pierced portal.
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.” (Ct 2:13-14).

It is time for us to be like the nesting dove
time for us to spread our wings
and, lifted by the Spirit, to hide in the cleft of the rock.
There, “they shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat” (Rev 7:16).
Pass through the narrow gate.

Apostle of the Sacred Heart,
sent out from that secret place,
be a dove made white in the Blood,
and like the dove, after every mission far-flung or near
to it return to be silent and adore.

Adorers of the Sacred Heart
we will all of us be in the end
for adoration will have the last word
as it must have the first.
“The hour is coming and now is,
when the true adorers shall adore the Father
in spirit and in truth,
for such the Father seeks to adore Him” (Jn 4:23).

Adoration then will be the only word,
an ocean of light dissolving every other discourse
and bathing a broken world
in the healing water and the cleansing blood.
“And He who sat upon the throne said,
‘Behold, I make all things new’” (Rev 21:5).

“And they shall see His face,
and His name shall be on their foreheads.
And night shall be no more;
they need no light of lamp or sun,
for the Lord God will be their light” (Rev 22:4-5).
O Eucharist, Sun of Life,
radiating the Heart’s flame of fire!
O Host burning and yet not consumed!

“And Moses hid his face,
for he was afraid to look at God” (Ex 3:6)?
Gentle Christ, humble hidden Bread,
to look at you is all refreshment.
Irresistible God.

“After this I looked,
and lo, in the heaven an open door!
And the voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said,
‘Come up hither’” (Rev 4:1).

And I looked and looked
and looked at Him whom they have pierced (cf. Zech 12:10).
“And the angel who talked with me came again,
and waked me, like a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
And he said to me, ‘What do you see?’” (Zech 4:1-2).
“A Eucharistic Face,” I said,
“and an Open Heart.”

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Year C

Ezekiel 34: 11-16
Psalm 22:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
Rom 5:5b-11
Luke 15:3-7

After Longinus had done his work
and done it well,
wielding the lance
to open with iron the floodgates of flesh,
there came a gushing torrent.
The waters of a river gave joy to God’s city (cf. Ps 45:5).
He, the One lifted up, poured out His heart like water (cf. Lam 2:19).
“He who saw it has borne witness;
his testimony is true” (Jn 19:35).

Zechariah’s prophecy was wondrously fulfilled:
“On that day there shall be a fountain opened
for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness” (Zech 13:1).
“O purify me, then I shall be clean;
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps 50:9).

Ruby blood and water “bright as crystal” (Rev 22:1) flowed
burning like fire
washing in its tide,
and quenching the thirst of the few
who stood watching,
waiting in the shadow of Love’s outstretched wings.
“Standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother,
and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary Magdalene” (Jn 19:25),
and “the disciple whom He loved” (Jn 19:26).

“They shall look on Him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37; Zech 12:10).
Looking, they saw the bloody gash
and found the open door.
“I, through the greatness of Your mercy
have access to Your house.
I bow down before Your holy temple,
filled with awe” (Ps 5:8).
“There is one thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek,
to dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life . . .
to behold His temple” (Ps 26:4).

The arms of Love flung wide
and nailed there upon the tree
disarmed the cherubim.
The spear was raised to heaven
and, for a moment, flashed bright against the darkling sky.
A single thrust
and the “flaming sword which, at the entrance of the garden,
turned every way” (Gen 3:24)
was wrested by weakness from strong angelic hands
and hid again within its sheath.

The gates forbidden
became the open portal,
the lover’s embrace,
the safeway, the only way,
for no one comes to the Father (cf. Jn 14:6)
except through this door’s threshold
of given-flesh and outpoured-blood.
Here David’s song reveals the mystery:
the house become a heart,
the heart become a house.
“It was there that Your people found a home,
prepared in Your goodness, O God, for the poor” (Ps 67:11).

“Go out quickly to the streets
and lanes of the city,
and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame” (Lk 14:21).
“Go out to the highways and hedges,
and compel people to come in” (Lk 14:23)
that my house, my heart, may be filled.
“The lost I will seek out,
the strayed I will bring back,
the injured I will bind up,
the sick I will heal” (Ez 34:16).

Cross the threshold by night
with faith’s unseen feet;
with hope a lamp for your steps,
enter by desire;
dwell therein by love,
and with John the beloved and thos