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 those of his lineage
“have power to comprehend
what is the breadth and length
and height and depth,
and know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge
to be filled with all the fullness of God” (cf. Eph 3:18-19).

The pierced Heart
is Love’s last proof.
“For while we were still weak,
while we were yet sinners” (cf. Rom 5:6, 8),
the door was opened in Love’s side.
Plunge then, fearless, into the tide of water and of blood.
Wash your soul’s disfigured face
in the torrent of purity that to the image restores likeness,
giving loveliness to the unlovely,
There every bruise is bathed in love;
there, every old, unsightly thing
made fresh, and new.
This is love’s reparation,
for only love can repair what Love has made.
“Behold,” Love says, “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5).

Love’s joy is the one sheep
sought and found and prized above all others
“on a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Ez 34:12),
Love’s joy is Love’s Heart
opened for the sake of all,
inhabited by the foolish to shame the wise,
and by the weak to shame the strong (cf. 1 Cor 1:27).
Love chose “what is low and despised in the world,
even things that are not” (1 Cor 1:28)
and in these is the mercy of His Heart displayed.

Others come knocking, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us”
but their greatness, their shining certitudes,
not their sins, prevent their entering in.
“Truly, I say to you, I do not know you” (Mt 25:12)
who have not known my Heart of mercy,
who have not needed my repairing,
nor known nor believed in love (cf. 1 Jn 4:16).

Only this one thing does Love ask:
that, “out of the depths” (Ps 129:1), we believe in Love,
and, preserved by Love,
never despair of Mercy’s Heart.
These are “thoughts of His Heart to all generations” (Ps 32:11).
Come, then, to the water that washes every impurity
and quenches every thirst.
Come, be repaired, restored in the Blood.
If you would be delivered from death, come (cf. Ps 32:19).
If you would be fed in famine, come (cf. Ps 32:19).
If you would be loved, come.

Just as Love withheld nothing of His Heart in the sacrifice offered once from the Cross
so now, does Love withhold nothing of His Heart in the sacrifice of the Eucharist,
nothing from the Father,
nothing from us.
All is given, and in this is the mystery of the Sacred Heart.

The Saturday after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This year it happens to coinicide with the June 16th memorial of a great Cistercian, one of the first mystics of the Sacred Heart: Lutgarde of Aywières. Some years ago I was given a piece of her wooden choirstall: one of my most treasured relics!

Wounded by Love

Saint Lutgarde was the contemporary of Saints Francis and Clare. She was born in 1182, just one year after the little Poor Man of Assisi. Both were destined to share in the Passion of Christ; both would bear the impression of Christ’s wounds. Saint Lutgarde is often depicted — as are both Saint Bernard and Saint Francis — held in the embrace of Jesus Crucified, and invited to drink from the wound in His Sacred Side.

Mother of Preachers

The prolific multiplication of Cistercian-Benedictine monasteries of women in the Low Countries obliged the White Nuns to turn to the newly founded friars, disciples of Francis and Dominic, rather than to their brother monks, for spiritual and sacramental assistance. Lutgarde was a friend and mother to the early Dominicans and Franciscans, supporting their preaching by her prayer and fasting, offering them hospitality, ever eager for news of their missions and spiritual conquests. Her first biographer relates that the friars named her mater praedicatorum, the mother of preachers.

June 17th is the dies natalis of Marie–Adèle Garnier, Mother Mary of St. Peter, Foundress of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Tyburn, O.S.B. In 1913 Blessed Columba Marmion wrote to one of her spiritual daughters, saying, "The special characteristic of your Mother is heroic confidence in the midst of impossibilities."

Monastic Roots

Marie–Adèle Garnier was born in France on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15, 1838. She was baptized on the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, September 12. Marie–Adèle’s native Burgundy is the land of Cluny, of Cîteaux, and of Paray–le–Monial. Her life was marked, from the very beginning, by an environment shaped by the Rule of Saint Benedict, by the ardour of Saint Bernard, and by the mystery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Heart of Jesus and the Eucharist

As a young woman, Marie–Adèle grew in awareness of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, Priest and Victim: the Sacred Heart truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar where ceaselessly He glorifies the Father and intercedes for all men. Marie–Adèle was impelled by the Holy Spirit to seek a life wholly illuminated by the Sacrifice of the Mass, and marked by perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Happy, So Happy

In 1872, Marie–Adèle, after having read an article on the proposed basilica of Montmartre, heard an inner voice saying to her: “It is there that I need thee.” “At the same moment,” she writes, “I saw an altar raised on high and sparkling with lights, dominated by the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance. I felt so overcome by this that I had to lean against the door to save myself from falling. And then I felt so happy, so happy, that I could make nothing of it.”

Like many of her contemporaries drawn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Marie–Adèle heard the interior summons to a life of reparation and doxology. “I felt Jesus speaking to my heart, illuminated by a light of surpassing brightness; He told me that it was His Will that His Heart present in the Holy Eucharist should be the object of the worship of Montmartre, and that the Blessed Sacrament should be exposed there night and day.”

Salutary Failure

Marie–Adèle first attempted to respond to her vocation by living in solitude on Montmartre, close by the site of what would become the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. God allowed her to experience a salutary failure without, however, withdrawing the attraction to a life of reparation and adoration at Montmartre. Her first sojourn at Montmartre ended on the feast of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 15, 1876.

Beginnings

In 1898, having returned to Montmartre with a companion, Marie–Adèle began a hidden life of adoration, reparation, and intercession for the Church under the special protection of Saint Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and Saint Michael the Archangel. From the beginning the Rule of Saint Benedict inspired and guided the new monastic family. On June 9, 1899, Marie–Adèle, now known as Mother Mary of St. Peter, and her first daughters, made their profession in the crypt of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the altar of Saint Peter. Two days later, June 11, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the whole human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Tyburn

The anti–clerical laws of 1901 obliged the fledgling community to leave Montmartre for England. Mother Mary of St. Peter and her daughters established themselves at Tyburn in the heart of London on the site of the cruel torments and death of England’s glorious Catholic Martyrs. Her companion, Mother Agnes, wrote, “And we ourselves, little as we were, but supporting our littleness on the Heart of Jesus, we, too, were coming to labour, within the limits of our vocation, in the great work of the conversion of England.”

Blessed Columba Marmion

From 1908 onward, Mother Mary of St. Peter was under the direction of the Benedictine Abbot Blessed Columba Marmion. It was to Abbot Marmion that she wrote on December 23, 1909: “In spite of this humiliating burden of misery and worries, my soul dwells in her God, because He supports her, holds her up, carries her, sustains her in a life of faith, of love, of confidence, not sensibly consoling, but supremely happy!”

Happy With God and With My Children

Abbot Marmion died in 1923, leaving Mother Mary of St. Peter and her daughters to mourn his passing and, at the same, to live in gratitude and joy from his spiritual patrimony. The following year on June 17, after much suffering, Mother Mary of St. Peter died. Her last intelligible words were: “I am so happy with God! And with my children.” Today Mother Mary of St. Peter's Benedictine Congregation of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart has monasteries in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Peru, New Zealand, Ecuador, Colombia, and Rome, Italy.

The Beginning of a Friendship

How did I first come to know Marie–Adèle Garnier? I was introduced to her by Blessed Columba Marmion! In order to reconstruct the genesis of our “friendship” — for one can have a friendship with the saints in heaven — I must return to my first exposure to monastic life in 1969.

Young Men and the Books They Read

I discovered Abbot Columba Marmion’s writings when I was fifteen years old. I was visiting Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Father Marius Granato, O.C.S.O., charged at that time with helping young men — even very young men — seek God, put Christ, the Ideal of the Monk into my hands. He even let me take the precious green–covered volume home with me. With all the ardour of my fifteen years I devoured it. No book had ever spoken to my heart in quite the same way.

My Spiritual Father

I read and re–read Christ, the Ideal of the Monk. At fifteen one is profoundly marked by what one reads. The impressions made on a soul at that age determine the course of one’s life. As I pursued my desire to seek God, I relied on Dom Marmion. I chose him not only as my monastic patron, but also as my spiritual father, my intercessor, and my guide.

Dom Denis Huerre, O.S.B., in his biography of Père Muard, the founder of the Abbey of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire, discusses Père Muard's extraordinary spiritual kinship with Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. (She is, in fact, the secondary patron of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire.) Dom Denis concludes that it is not we who choose the particular saints with whom we desire to cultivate a special friendship; it is, rather, these particular saints who choose us. This, I am convinced is part of God's plan for the holiness of each one.

Spiritual Affinities

I became an avid reader of everything written by or about Abbot Marmion. In one of these books I encountered Marie–Adèle Garnier, Mother Mary of St. Peter, the foundress of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Tyburn, O.S.B. The little bit I read about her was very compelling: her focus on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and on adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist, her love of the Mass and the Divine Office, and her profound attachment to the Church. We were, without any doubt, united by a certain spiritual affinity.

Dom Marmion's Letters

Blessed Marmion's Letters of Spiritual Direction, edited by Dom Raymond Thibaut under the title Union With God, contain several pages of the Abbot's correspondance with Mother Mary of St. Peter. Among other things, Dom Marmion wrote:

"The very real imperfections which you confess to me do not make me doubt the reality of the grace you receive. God is the Supreme Master, and He leaves you these weaknesses in order that you may see that these great graces do not come from you, and are not granted to you on account of your virtues, but on account of your misery. You are a member of Jesus Christ, and the Father truly gives to His Son what He gives to His weak and miserable member. Do not be astonished, do not be discouraged when you fall into a fault, but draw from the Heart of your Spouse — for all His riches are yours — the grace and virtue that are wanting to you."

Mother St. Thomas More Wakerley

In 1972 I wrote to the Tyburn Benedictines for the first time. My purpose was to learn more about Mother Mary of St. Peter, and also to request information on Saint Luke Kirby, one of the Tyburn martyrs whose surname I bear. I received a lovely reply written in what appeared to be a frail and trembling hand: a letter from Mother M. St. Thomas More Wakerley. Mother St. Thomas More sent me the information I had requested on Saint Luke Kirby as well as the red–covered biography of Mother Mary of St. Peter by Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B. The book was re-edited in 2006 by Saint Michael's Abbey Press.

Friends of the Sacred Heart

I read and re–read the book, finding that Marie–Adèle Garnier and I moved, so to speak, within the same constellation of mysteries: the Heart of Jesus, the Eucharist, the Sacred Liturgy, the Priesthood, and the Church. Blessed Abbot Marmion’s writings continued to nourish me, as did those of Saint Gertrude the Great and other Benedictine and Cistercian friends of the Sacred Heart. Dom Ursmer de Berlière’s book (in the “Pax” Collection) on the Sacred Heart within the monastic tradition added kindling to the fire. At about the same time, I read the life of other Benedictine mystics of the Sacred Heart: among them were Père Jean-Baptiste Muard, founder of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire, Mère Jeanne Deleloë, and Blessed Giovanna Bonomo.

Stability in the Heart of Jesus

In 1975 I made a pilgrimage to the cradle of Benedictine life at Subiaco. There I met a wise old monk who had been Master of Novices at La–Pierre–Qui–Vire. When I asked him for counsel concerning my monastic journey, he said to me, “Frère, tu dois faire ta stabilité dans le Coeur de Jésus — Brother, you must make your stability in the Heart of Jesus.” These words were to sustain me in the years ahead. I know that Marie–Adèle Garnier would have understood them perfectly.

The Open Heart of Jesus Crucified

On August 4, 1979, together with Father Jacob and another brother, I went on pilgrimage to Montmartre in Paris. There, in the crypt of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, at the altar of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and trusting in her intercession, we consecrated ourselves to the Heart of Jesus and to His designs on our life. Within me the desire was growing for a simple Benedictine life, characterized by the worthy celebration of the Divine Office and by adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist. The wounded Side of Our Lord exercised a supernatural power of attraction over me. The text of our Act of Consecration was printed on a leaflet with a drawing depicting a monk being drawn to the open Heart of Jesus Crucified. The attraction to the pierced Heart of Jesus and to His Holy Face was constant and undeniable.

Life Together

For several years I lived with Father Jacob and others in a small monastic community where, every evening after Vespers, we had adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. In the end it was decided that we should be absorbed by the Cistercian Abbey that was sponsoring us. It was a painful detachment for all concerned. Again, Mother Mary of St. Peter would have understood.

The Open Side of Jesus Crucified

Look at this remarkable painting of Jesus Crucified. The focus of the composition is the wound in His Sacred Side. An angel holding a chalice is hovering just beneath it to receive the outpouring of His Blood. There are also angels stationed beneath His wounded hands. A fourth angel stricken with astonishment and grief looks on.

Saint Francis of Assisi

At the foot of the Cross, close to the wounded feet of Jesus, kneels Saint Francis of Assisi, embracing the saving wood. Saint Francis is closest to the feet of Jesus because he was called to walk in lowliness, poverty, and humility, in imitation of the Son of Man who "had no where to lay His head" (Mt 8:20).

Saint Benedict

On the left is Saint Benedict with his hands crossed over his breast. This is the ritual gesture of the monk when, on the day of his profession, he sings the second part of the Suscipe me, Domine: "Let me not be confounded in my expectation" (Ps 118:116). Saint Benedict is gazing at the Face of the Crucified with an extraordinary intensity of compassion and love. One could draw a direct line from the Face of Jesus to the face of Saint Benedict. This is what he means when he says in his Rule that one desiring to become a monk must "truly seek God" (RB 58:7).

Saint Romuald

On the right one sees Saint Romuald, whose feast we celebrate today. He is seated — rather like Mary of Bethany in Luke 10:39 — with his hands hidden in the sleeves of his cowl. These are subtle allusions to the hidden life in which Saint Romuald sought the Heart of Jesus, not by much doing (the hidden hands) but, rather, in much listening (the "Marian" posture). You will notice that Saint Romuald is not looking at the Face of the Crucified; he is focused on the wound in Jesus' Sacred Side. Therein he seeks to hide himself like the dove in the cleft of the rock.

Saint Romuald Delivered From Evil

Guercino painted this scene from the life of Saint Romuald in 1640-41. The holy abbot is kneeling in prayer in his grotto, having just been delivered from a fierce diabolical temptation. One sees the devil, in the form of a swarthy, naked youth with pointed ears and long pointed fingernails and toenails. The Angel of the Lord, armed with a sturdy stick, is driving the tempter away. The face of the Angel is illumined by the same divine radiance that shines on Saint Romuald in prayer. The devil averts his face from the light and turns his back on the presence of God.

The Crucible

The greatest saints were subject to violent temptations and diabolical molestations. One has only to read Saint Athanasius' Life of Antony to get a clear perspective on the subject. The crucible of temptation is indispensable to holiness. It makes one aware of one's utter dependence on the grace of Christ. It obliges one to persevere in prayer. It exercises the theological virtues, especially that of hope. It is humiliating: that is, it makes one humble.

Keeping Souls from the Sacred Heart

Satan adapts his temptations to our particular weaknesses and circumstances. This is why people without a good self–knowledge (the ground of humility) so often fall prey to his strategies. That being said, one of Satan's classic ploys, always and with everyone, is to try to bar the way to the pierced Side of Christ. The Accuser seeks to intimidate, discourage, or distract souls from the Sacred Heart. This is one of the reasons why Satan, the original iconoclast, so hates representations of the Sacred Heart and of the Wounds of Christ, particularly of the Wound in His Sacred Side.

The Eucharist

The glorious Heart of Jesus, opened by the soldier's lance on Calvary, remains open in the adorable Sacrament of the Eucharist. By keeping souls from the Eucharist, the Evil One keeps them from the Heart of Jesus, the fornax ardens caritatis, the burning furnace of charity. Separated from the Eucharistic Heart of Christ, souls grow lukewarm, then cold. Those who are deceived into remaining far from His Eucharistic Heart will find themselves frozen in their sin.

The grace of prayer, in all its forms, is an approach to Our Lord's wounded Side. All prayer has a Eucharistic finality. It is in the Eucharist, as on the Cross, that Christ is lifted up in His oblation to the Father. It is in the Eucharist, as on the Cross, that from His pierced Side flows the blood and water of redemption. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself" (Jn 12:32). The saints are those who, having yielded to the sacramental embrace of the Crucified, drink from His open Side and find refuge in His Sacred Heart. It is not by happenstance that souls devoted to the Sacred Heart are drawn to Eucharistic adoration.

One Who Prays Is Saved

Satan's first and last temptation will always be to keep one from praying. One who prays is saved. One who stops praying will be lost. One who prays is never far from the pierced Side of Christ. One who prays will experience the mysterious and sweet attraction of His Sacred Heart. One who stops praying will become cold and indifferent to the Eucharist and, by the same token, alienated from Our Lord's wounded Side.

Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

This is where consecration, or entrustment, to the Blessed Virgin Mary comes in. I have never known a soul consecrated to Mary who has altogether abandoned prayer. Even if, at certain moments, prayer is interrupted or ceases materially, during those moments the prayer of the Mother supplies for the weakness of the child; the outstretched mantle of her ceaseless intercession covers those who have entrusted themselves to her Immaculate and Merciful Heart. Souls consecrated to Mary are not spared temptation, but they are assured of mercy and "find grace in seasonable aid" (Heb 4:16).

The Intercession of the Spirit and the Bride

The Blessed Virgin Mary presents to the Sacred Heart all who present themselves to her. "Likewise the Spirit, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary His Spouse, also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what the Spirit desireth; because He asketh for the saints, through Mary, Mediatrix and Mother, according to God" (Rom 8:26-27).

Come With Confidence

The Church of Sant'Alfonso on the Via Merulana is one of my favourite neighbourhood pilgrimages. It enshrines the original precious and wonderworking icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Even on ordinary days the church is visited by pilgrims from all over the world. During the annual novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, multitudes converge on the church to kneel in prayer before the miraculous image and present their petitions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Seeing this demonstration of faith, I am reminded of Adeamus, the Introit of the Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary: "Let us come with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and may find grace for a timely help" (Heb 4:16).

Christ the Redeemer

The original icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help is enthroned on the "high altar." Immediately above it, in the apse of the church, is a mosaic of Christ the Redeemer in the company of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph. The mosaic depicts the risen and ascended Christ. He is seated in majesty and clothed in the crimson mantle that represents the outpouring of His Precious Blood. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra? This Beautiful One in His robe?" (Is 63:1).

When I first began visiting the Church of Sant'Alfonso, I was so taken by the icon of the Our Mother of Perpetual Help, that I didn't notice the mosaic of Christ the Redeemer. Had I looked, and seen, I would have asked with the prophet, "Why then is Thine apparel red, and Thy garments like them that tread in the wine-press?" (Is 63:2). Had I looked, and seen, I would have been drawn immediately to the open wound in the Redeemer's Sacred Side.

An Opening Onto the Kingdom of God

It was only after several visits to the sanctuary of Our Mother of Perpetual Help that I looked, and saw, and understood the significance of the mosaic in the apse. The apse of a church generally symbolizes an opening onto the Kingdom of God. An apse is, in some way, more window than wall, even when it is solid. This explains the meaning of the images traditionally found in the apse of our churches: Christ in glory; Christ in majesty; Christ seated on a rainbow and on the clouds of heaven. Looking closely at the image in the Church of Sant'Alfonso, I see that, at the heart of the apse that symbolizes the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God, there is another opening: the wound in the Sacred Side of Christ.

Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christ

The iconography of the Church of Sant'Alfonso suggests that every pilgrimage to the image Our Mother of Perpetual Help becomes, by her maternal mediation, a pilgrimage to the wounded Side of Christ and — through the wound in His Side — into the Holy of Holies that is His Sacred Heart. I think that my Redemptorist friend, Father Scott, would agree.

The Open Side of Christ

The Child held fast in His Mother's embrace is the "Beautiful One" (Is 63:1) "clothed in a robe sprinkled with blood, and His Name is called the Word of God" (Ap 19:13). Just as His Mother's Heart was open to receive Him in His littleness and weakness, so is His wounded Side open to receive us in our littleness, in our weakness, and even in our sin. So is His Blood poured out to cleanse, to refresh, and to heal. The way to the Heart of Jesus passes through the Heart of His Mother.

Special thanks to Redemptorist Father Luis Roballo for the photo of Christ the Redeemer in the apse of the Church of Sant'Alfonso.

On 9 November 1921, Pope Benedict XV instituted the feast of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus to be celebrated on the Thursday within the Octave of the Sacred Heart with a Proper Mass and Office. The feast continues to be celebrated in some places and by some communities, notably by the Redemptorists who maintain it in their Proper Calendar. In instituting the feast, Pope Benedict XV wrote:

The chief reason of this feast is to commemorate the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist. By this means the Church wishes more and more to excite the faithful to approach this sacred mystery with confidence, and to inflame their hearts with that divine charity which consumed the Sacred Heart of Jesus when in His infinite love He instituted the Most Holy Eucharist, wherein the Divine Heart guards and loves them by living with them, as they live and abide in Him. For in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist He offers and gives Himself to us as victim, companion, nourishment, viaticum, and pledge of our future glory.

The adorable mystery of the Eucharist sums up, contains, and communicates to us the entire mystery of Christ: His incarnation, life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If you seek the open Side of the glorious ascended Christ, you will find it in the Eucharist. If you seek the pierced Heart of Christ, beating with love for the Father and with mercy for sinners, you will find it in the Eucharist. The Communion Antiphon of the Mass of the feast is meant to be repeated and treasured. It is, at once, a promise and an invitation: "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Mt 28:20).

Here is my own translation of the Proper of the Mass of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, together with invocations for the Act of Penitence and General Intercessions. The lessons, Gradual, and Alleluia can be found in most older missals in the section entitled "Local Feasts."

Terry's commentary on Jacob's struggle is magnificent. Read the whole text at Abbey–Roads2.

This wrestling in the night can also suggest the spiritual combat involved in overcoming temptation and sin - perhaps even our unconscious resistance to God’s grace.

It is something few of us ever realize, this intimate contact with God amidst our greatest struggles; in the experience of our deepest, darkest, and most painful moments. Oftentimes we cannot perceive His presence, much less His plan for us - while our human nature seeks desperately to repel the experience. And our Lord seems reluctant to give us any evidence of His love during these times, except that which Jacob received, the painful dislocation of his hip. Again, for me, this image suggests that in and through our woundedness, we thus enter into a deeper humility, with less confidence in our own devices and a greater dependence and confidence in the mercy and love of God.

. . . Having completed His sacrifice, and giving up His spirit, the side of Christ is pierced and out flowed blood and water. It is as if this heart of Christ, having spent itself totally in compassion for sinful man, has one last treasure to give in death. This is the final act, the completion of Christ’s total gift to us and to the Father.

Be sure to visit Rationabile Obsequium, the splendid new blog of a recently ordained priest whom I am privileged to count among my friends. Don't miss the homily of Father B's First Mass of Thanksgiving on the mystery of the pierced Heart of Christ. Bravo, dear Father!

O Lord Jesus Christ present in this wonderful sacrament,
I desire at this hour to make reparation to Thy Eucharistic Heart
and to open myself to Thy Love
for the sake of those who refuse or ignore it.

Increase Thou my faith,
that I may believe firmly in the truths and mysteries Thou hast revealed to Thy Church,
for the sake of those who do not believe.

By my attention to Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for indifference to Thy Love,
for coldness, and for irreverence in Thy sacramental presence.

By my gratitude to Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for ingratitude toward Thee
Who remainest hidden and forgotten in the tabernacles of so many locked churches.

By my trust in Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for those who do not trust Thee,
for those are afraid to trust Thee, and for those whose trust in Thy Love
has been weakened by sins of scandal, by the weight of life’s hardships, or by painful loss.

By my hope in Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to help those tempted to despair of Thy Mercy.
Allow me, I beseech Thee, to hope for those who have no hope
and, because Thou didst pour out Thy Blood for them, let not one of them be lost.

In spite of my weakness and inconstancy, I desire, by this humble act of reparation
to obtain for all who yearn for Thy friendship,
a share in the unspeakable sweetness experienced by Thy beloved disciple Saint John
when he rested his head upon Thy Heart
on the night before Thy Sacred Side was opened by the soldier’s lance.

Let my desire to be open to the Love of Thy Eucharistic Heart
serve to repair the brokenness of the most wounded and fragile members of Thy Mystical Body.

By the mysterious workings of Thy Holy Spirit and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
let the reparation and adoration Thou hast inspired me to offer in Thy presence
bring reconciliation to those alienated from Thy Church,
healing to souls in need of Thy mercy,
and choice graces to Thy priests. Amen.

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.

Blessed Marie de Jésus Deluil Martiny was the "First Zelatrice", or promoter, of the Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart. The Work was founded at the Visitation Monastery of Bourg-en-Bresse in 1863. The above photo shows Daughters of the Heart of Jesus at adoration in their chapel in Rome.

The Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart
or Association of Presence to the Heart of Jesus

The Aim of the Guard of Honour

"I look round for one that would console Me, and I found none" (Psalm 68:21)

The Guard of Honour was established to respond to this sorrowful complaint of Our Lord. Its members seek, by the conscious dedication of their activities, to offer love and reparation to the Heart of Jesus, outraged by the ingratitude and the sins of men. The wounded Heart of Jesus is, therefore, the Object of the Guard of Honour. Love and reparation are its aim. The practices of the Work are the means.

Anyone may belong to the Association of Presence to the Heart of Jesus (the Guard of Honour) because it imposes no obligation incompatible with one's own state in life. It helps one to live one's own vocation with greater fidelity.

Conditions for Membership:

1) Be enrolled at one of the Association's approved Centres. (See the Enrollment Form given below.)
2) Choose an hour out of each day or night, and offer it to the Heart of Jesus, without changing one's ordinary activities. Unite the offering of one's daily life with the offering of the Blood and Water that flowed from the Wound in the Heart of Jesus.

Offering of the Hour of Presence

O Lord Jesus, present in the Tabernacle,
I offer Thee this Hour
to glorify Thy Heart with my love and reparation.
Accept to this end my thoughts, my words, my actions,
my joys and my sorrows.
Receive, above all, my heart.
I give it to Thee without reserve,
and beg Thee to consume it in the fire of Thy pure love.

Most Precious Offering of the Blood and of the Water

Eternal Father, receive as a sacrifice of propitiation
for the needs of the Church
and in reparation for the sins of the world,
the precious Blood and Water that flowed from the Heart of Jesus,
and have mercy upon us.

I am overwhelmed by this letter from the Congregation for the Clergy. It expresses all that I have tried to say on Vultus Christi and elsewhere. The subtitles in boldprint are my own. I will be returning to the text of the letter in order to meditate its content. I took the photo of the Altar of the Holy Face in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, New York City.

Vatican City, April 22, 2008
Here is the message published by the Congregation for Clergy for the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests. The day will be celebrated May 30, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Reverend and dear Brothers in the Priesthood,

Focusing On That Face

On the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus let us fix the eyes of our minds and hearts with a constant loving gaze on Christ, the one Savior of our lives and of the world. Focusing on Christ means focusing on that Face which every human being, consciously or not, seeks as a satisfying response to his own insuppressible thirst for happiness.

Hearts Wounded By His Love

We have encountered this Face and on that day, at that moment, his Love so deeply wounded our hearts that we could no longer refrain from asking ceaselessly to be in his Presence. "In the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch" (Psalm 5).

Healed By His Flesh

The Sacred Liturgy leads us once again to contemplate the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, the origin and intimate reality of this company which is the Church: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob revealed himself in Jesus Christ. "No one could see his Glory unless first healed by the humility of his flesh.... By dust you were blinded, and by dust you are healed: flesh, then, had wounded you, flesh heals you" (St. Augustine, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Homily, 2, 16).

Mercy That Embraces Our Limitations

Only by looking again at the perfect and fascinating humanity of Jesus Christ -- alive and active now -- who revealed himself to us and still today bends down to each one of us with his special love of total predilection, can we can let him illumine and fill the abyss of need which is our humanity, certain of Hope encountered and sure of Mercy that embraces our limitations and teaches us to forgive what we ourselves do not even manage to discern. "Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts" (Psalm 42[41]).

The Father’s love was shown to us
In Christ our Saviour’s open Heart;
Now we are drawn to share his Cross
And in his Passion take our part.

We are the Father’s gift to Christ;
He loved his own until the end.
His burden light we bear with joy
and to his yoke we gladly bend.

Where captive sinners cry for help
The Servant-King will always be;
The strength of mercy’s arm to show;
Love’s Captor leaves the captive free.

His Heart is open to receive
All who a home and refuge seek;
The lance has pierced an open door;
Behold Love’s hospitality!

Lord, open wide to us your Heart;
Let restless hearts find rest in you.
Healed by your love, by love renewed,
Now make us wounded healers too.

Give us to gaze upon your Heart,
That we by faith therein may dwell
Until we see you face to face
Eternally your love to tell.

O Heart of God the Father’s joy,
O Heart of Christ, the Spirit’s lyre,
Receive our evening sacrifice,
Like incense, we await your fire. Amen.

A Hymn for Vespers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
M.D.K., O.Cist.
8. 8. 8. 8.

I was compelled to write this prayer a few years ago. Last February, while preaching a retreat at the Franciscan Convent of Perpetual Adoration in Drumshanbo, County Leitrim, Ireland, I proposed it to the wonderful local people who came every evening to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. On the final evening of the retreat we recited it together before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Our Lord responded with the customary divine largesse of His Heart.

Prayer of Reparation to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

O Lord Jesus Christ present in this wonderful sacrament,
I desire at this hour to make reparation to Thy Eucharistic Heart
and to open myself to Thy Love for the sake of those who refuse or ignore it.

Increase Thou my faith,
that I may believe firmly in the truths and mysteries Thou hast revealed to Thy Church,
for the sake of those who do not believe.

By my attention to Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for indifference to Thy Love,
for coldness, and for irreverence in Thy sacramental presence.

By my gratitude to Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for ingratitude toward Thee
Who remainest hidden and forgotten in the tabernacles of so many locked churches.

By my trust in Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for those who do not trust Thee,
for those who are afraid to trust Thee, and for those whose trust in Thy Love
has been weakened by sins of scandal, by the weight of life’s hardships, or by painful loss.

By my hope in Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to help those tempted to despair of Thy Mercy.
Allow me, I beseech Thee, to hope for those who have no hope
and, because Thou didst pour out Thy Blood for them, let not one of them be lost.

In spite of my weakness and inconstancy, I desire, by this humble act of reparation
to obtain for all who yearn for Thy friendship,
a share in the unspeakable sweetness experienced by Thy beloved disciple Saint John
when he rested his head upon Thy Heart
on the night before Thy Sacred Side was opened by the soldier’s lance.

Let my desire to be open to the Love of Thy Eucharistic Heart
serve to repair the brokenness of the most wounded and fragile members of Thy Mystical Body.

By the mysterious workings of Thy Holy Spirit and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
let the reparation and adoration Thou hast inspired me to offer in Thy presence
bring reconciliation to those alienated from Thy Church,
healing to souls in need of Thy mercy,
and choice graces to Thy priests. Amen.

The thoughts of His Heart
are to all generations;
He will save their souls from death
and give them to eat in time of famine.
(Psalm 32:11, 19, Introit of the Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus).

To All Generations

The thoughts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are to all generations, touching all, excluding no one. By His death, He rescues us from death; by the mysteries of His Body and Blood, He feeds every hungry heart.

All Priests

On this World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, we recall that the thoughts of the Heart of Jesus embrace all priests from the first ones assembled with him in the Cenacle on the night before He suffered to those who will welcome Him when he returns in glory.

Beset by Sin and Repaired by Love

The Heart of Jesus has willed to have need of priests, weak men beset by sin and repaired by love. The Heart of Jesus sends out his priests for the healing, reconciliation, and restoration of those who, like themselves, stand at every moment in need of mercy. Speaking to a priest, Our Lord said:

"There has never been in all of history a single priest whom I have not destined for a great holiness. My Heart has suffered much because so many of my chosen ones have refused my gifts and, preferring their own ways to mine, gone into the outer darkness where it is night.

My Heart burns to see my priests all ablaze with Eucharistic holiness. The altar is the source of priestly holiness. The kiss given to the altar at the beginning and end of Holy Mass means that the priest recognizes this. By kissing the altar, he makes himself vulnerable to my piercing love. By kissing the altar he opens himself unreservedly to all that I would give him and to all that I hold in the designs of my Heart for his life. The kiss to the altar signifies total abandonment to the priestly holiness that I desire and to the fulfillment of my desires in the soul of my priest.

The holiness to which I call my priests, the holiness to which I am calling you, consists in a total configuration to me as I stand before my Father in the heavenly sanctuary, beyond the veil. Every priest of mine is to be with me both priest and victim in the presence of my Father. Every priest is called to stand before the altar with pierced hands and feet, with his side wounded, and with his head crowned as my head was crowned in my passion. You needn’t fear this configuration to me; it will bring you only peace of heart, joy in the presence of my Father, and that unique intimacy with me that I have, from the night before I suffered, reserved for my priests, my chosen ones, the friends of my Heart."

My Heart Thirsts for You

Mother Marie des Douleurs, writing for priests in the 1930s,
placed these words in the Heart and mouth of Our Lord:

“I have need of this body of priests
who continually will live their Mass,
who will continue my Passion.
My immolation must go on until the end of time;
I must find priests who will hand over to me
their bodies, their souls, their whole being so that in them,
I may be the one whom nearly no one accepts to recognize,
the Crucified.
You whom I have chosen
and marked for this mission glorious above all others,
will you not understand, will you too go away?
My Heart thirsts for you.
Do you not see all the souls torn away from me?
If my priests do not continue me, I am alone and powerless.”

Priests Passionately Loved

Mother's text, like the message of Our Lord to a priest cited above, is almost frightening in its lucidity and crushing in its implications, but it is meant to inspire today in each one a more ardent prayer for all priests, chosen and passionately loved by the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Feast Instituted by Benedict XV

On 9 November 1921, Pope Benedict XV instituted the feast of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus to be celebrated on the Thursday within the Octave of the Sacred Heart with a Proper Mass and Office. The feast continues to be celebrated in some places and by some communities, notably by the Redemptorists who maintain it in their Proper Calendar. In instituting the feast, Pope Benedict XV wrote:

The chief reason of this feast is to commemorate the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist. By this means the Church wishes more and more to excite the faithful to approach this sacred mystery with confidence, and to inflame their hearts with that divine charity which consumed the Sacred Heart of Jesus when in His infinite love He instituted the Most Holy Eucharist, wherein the Divine Heart guards and loves them by living with them, as they live and abide in Him. For in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist He offers and gives Himself to us as victim, companion, nourishment, viaticum, and pledge of our future glory.

Even to the Consummation of the World

The adorable mystery of the Eucharist sums up, contains, and communicates to us the entire mystery of Christ: His incarnation, life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If you seek the open Side of the glorious ascended Christ, you will find it in the Eucharist. If you seek the pierced Heart of Christ, beating with love for the Father and with mercy for sinners, you will find it in the Eucharist. The Communion Antiphon of the Mass of the feast is meant to be repeated and treasured. It is, at once, a promise and an invitation: "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Mt 28:20).

Here is my own translation of the Proper of the Mass of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, together General Intercessions. The lessons, Gradual, and Alleluia can be found in most older missals in the section entitled "Local Feasts."

Many years ago, as I was standing in the rain in front of the grotto at Lourdes on a cold February morning, a saintly old priest, the Chanoine Croset, told me that it was time for me to pass from having hopes to having hope. Passer des espoirs à l'espérance. This came back to me this morning as I meditated the text from Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans given as today's Second Reading: "In hope Abraham believed against hope" (Rom 4:18–25). I cannot help but relate this word to the magnificent Act of Hope written by Saint Claude La Colombière:

An Act of Hope and Confidence in God

My God, I believe most firmly that Thou watchest over all who hope in Thee, and that we can want for nothing when we rely upon Thee in all things; therefore I am resolved for the future to have no anxieties, and to cast all my cares upon Thee.

People may deprive me of worldly goods and of honors; sickness may take from me my strength and the means of serving Thee; I may even lose Thy grace by sin; but my trust shall never leave me. I will preserve it to the last moment of my life, and the powers of hell shall seek in vain to wrestle it from me.

Let others seek happiness in their wealth, in their talents; let them trust to the purity of their lives, the severity of their mortifications, to the number of their good works, the fervor of their prayers; as for me, O my God, in my very confidence lies all my hope. "For Thou, O Lord, singularly has settled me in hope." This confidence can never be in vain. "No one has hoped in the Lord and has been confounded."

I am assured, therefore, of my eternal happiness, for I firmly hope for it, and all my hope is in Thee. "In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be confounded."

I know, alas! I know but too well that I am frail and changeable; I know the power of temptation against the strongest virtue. I have seen stars fall from heaven, and pillars of firmament totter; but these things alarm me not. While I hope in Thee I am sheltered from all misfortune, and I am sure that my trust shall endure, for I rely upon Thee to sustain this unfailing hope.

Finally, I know that my confidence cannot exceed Thy bounty, and that I shall never receive less than I have hoped for from Thee. Therefore I hope that Thou wilt sustain me against my evil inclinations; that Thou wilt protect me against the most furious assaults of the evil one, and that Thou wilt cause my weakness to triumph over my most powerful enemies. I hope that Thou wilt never cease to love me, and that I shall love Thee unceasingly. "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded."

On June 9, 1899, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The eighty-nine year old Pontiff was prompted to do this by two letters written to him "upon the order of Our Lord" by a Religious of the Good Shepherd named Mother Mary of the Divine Heart (Droste zu Vischering), the first on June 10, 1898, and the second on January 15, 1899. Here is an extract from her second letter:

"When, last summer, Your Holiness was suffering from an indisposition which, given your great age, filled the hearts of your children with cares, Our Lord gave me the sweet consolation [of knowing] that He would prolong the days of Your Holiness, so as to bring about the consecration of the entire world to His Divine Heart. . . .

On the eve of the Immaculate Conception, Our Lord gave me to know that by means of this new impetus given to the worship of His Divine Heart, He would make a new light shine upon the whole world . . . . I seem to see this light (interiorly), the Heart of Jesus, this adorable sun, sending down its rays upon the earth, at first narrowly, and then more widely, and finally illumining the entire world. I recognized the ardent desire He has to see His adorable Heart more and more glorified and known, and to spread abroad His gifts and blessings upon the whole world.

And He said: 'By the brightness of this light, peoples and nations will be illumined, and by its ardour they will be warmed again'. . . . One might find it strange that Our Lord should ask for this consecration of the entire world and not content Himself with [that of] the Catholic Church. But His desire to reign, to be loved and glorified, and to set ablaze all hearts with His love and His mercy is so ardent that He wants Your Holiness to offer Him the hearts of all those who belong to Him by Baptism to facilitate their return to the true Church, and the hearts of those who have not yet received spiritual life by Holy Baptism, but for whom He has given His life and His Blood, and who are equally called to be one day children of the Holy Church, to hasten by this means their spiritual birth."

Mother Mary of the Divine Heart died in her cloister in Portugal as the Church was singing First Vespers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 8, 1899. The following day, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the following prayer:

The feast of Saint Lutgarde, a Cistercian, and one of the first mystics of the Sacred Heart, occurs on June 16th. Some years ago I was given a piece of her wooden choirstall: one of my most treasured relics!

Wounded by Love

Saint Lutgarde was a contemporary of Saints Francis and Clare. She was born in 1182, just one year after the little Poor Man of Assisi. Both were destined to share in the Passion of Christ; both would bear the impression of Christ’s wounds. Saint Lutgarde is often depicted — as are both Saint Bernard and Saint Francis — held in the embrace of Jesus Crucified, and invited to drink from the wound in His Sacred Side.

Mother of Preachers

The prolific multiplication of Cistercian-Benedictine monasteries of women in the Low Countries obliged the White Nuns to turn to the newly founded friars, disciples of Francis and Dominic, rather than to their brother monks, for spiritual and sacramental assistance. Lutgarde was a friend and mother to the early Dominicans and Franciscans, supporting their preaching by her prayer and fasting, offering them hospitality, ever eager for news of their missions and spiritual conquests. Her first biographer relates that the friars named her mater praedicatorum, the mother of preachers.

Where His Treasure Was, There Was His Heart

Among Cistercians and Trappists, June 17th marks the memorial of Blessed Marie-Joseph Cassant, a Cistercian monk of the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-du-Désert beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 3, 2004. Father Marie-Joseph died on June 17, 1903; he was twenty-five years old. Solemnly professed for three years, he had been a priest for only nine months. From childhood he wanted nothing else. “Where your treasure house is, there is your heart also” (Mt 6:21).

The Greatness of the Priesthood

In his last letter to his family, he wrote, “For such a long time we hoped against hope to be able to have the whole family together after my ordination so as to share the joy of being present and receiving Communion together at my first Mass. The good Lord heard our deepest wishes. It now remains to us to thank Him and to enter more and more deeply into the greatness of the priesthood. Let us never dare to equate the Sacrifice of the Mass with earthly things.”

An Intercessor

Since 1903 more than 2200 persons from thirty different countries have attested to favours received through the intercession of Father Marie-Joseph. The catalogue of graces attributed to the young monk is impressive: conversions, reconciliations, cures, and comfort in uncertainties and doubts. My friend Father Jacob and I went in pilgrimage to his tomb in 1982 and prayed that both of us might become priests. I was ordained four years later.

Towards La Trappe

Father Marie-Joseph’s road to the priesthood was not an easy one. His parish priest judged him intellectually inadequate for theological studies. After tutoring him for fifteen months in French and Latin, he saw that the young Joseph was not suited for the diocesan seminary. He directed him instead to the Trappe of Sainte-Marie-du-Desert where the monks were ordained to the priesthood after a simpler course of studies, given that they had no pastoral responsibilities or outside ministry.

June 17th is the dies natalis of Marie–Adèle Garnier, Mother Mary of St. Peter, Foundress of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Tyburn, O.S.B. In 1913 Blessed Columba Marmion wrote to one of her spiritual daughters, saying, "The special characteristic of your Mother is heroic confidence in the midst of impossibilities."

Monastic Roots

Marie–Adèle Garnier was born in France on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15, 1838. She was baptized on the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, September 12. Marie–Adèle’s native Burgundy is the land of Cluny, of Cîteaux, and of Paray–le–Monial. Her life was marked, from the very beginning, by an environment shaped by the Rule of Saint Benedict, by the ardour of Saint Bernard, and by the mystery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Heart of Jesus and the Eucharist

As a young woman, Marie–Adèle grew in awareness of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, Priest and Victim: the Sacred Heart truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar where ceaselessly He glorifies the Father and intercedes for all men. Marie–Adèle was impelled by the Holy Spirit to seek a life wholly illuminated by the Sacrifice of the Mass, and marked by perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Happy, So Happy

In 1872, Marie–Adèle, after having read an article on the proposed basilica of Montmartre, heard an inner voice saying to her: “It is there that I need thee.” “At the same moment,” she writes, “I saw an altar raised on high and sparkling with lights, dominated by the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance. I felt so overcome by this that I had to lean against the door to save myself from falling. And then I felt so happy, so happy, that I could make nothing of it.”

Like many of her contemporaries drawn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Marie–Adèle heard the interior summons to a life of reparation and doxology. “I felt Jesus speaking to my heart, illuminated by a light of surpassing brightness; He told me that it was His Will that His Heart present in the Holy Eucharist should be the object of the worship of Montmartre, and that the Blessed Sacrament should be exposed there night and day.”

Salutary Failure

Marie–Adèle first attempted to respond to her vocation by living in solitude on Montmartre, close by the site of what would become the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. God allowed her to experience a salutary failure without, however, withdrawing the attraction to a life of reparation and adoration at Montmartre. Her first sojourn at Montmartre ended on the feast of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 15, 1876.

Beginnings

In 1898, having returned to Montmartre with a companion, Marie–Adèle began a hidden life of adoration, reparation, and intercession for the Church under the special protection of Saint Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and Saint Michael the Archangel. From the beginning the Rule of Saint Benedict inspired and guided the new monastic family. On June 9, 1899, Marie–Adèle, now known as Mother Mary of St. Peter, and her first daughters, made their profession in the crypt of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the altar of Saint Peter. Two days later, June 11, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the whole human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Tyburn

The anti–clerical laws of 1901 obliged the fledgling community to leave Montmartre for England. Mother Mary of St. Peter and her daughters established themselves at Tyburn in the heart of London on the site of the cruel torments and death of England’s glorious Catholic Martyrs. Her companion, Mother Agnes, wrote, “And we ourselves, little as we were, but supporting our littleness on the Heart of Jesus, we, too, were coming to labour, within the limits of our vocation, in the great work of the conversion of England.”

Blessed Columba Marmion

From 1908 onward, Mother Mary of St. Peter was under the direction of the Benedictine Abbot Blessed Columba Marmion. It was to Abbot Marmion that she wrote on December 23, 1909: “In spite of this humiliating burden of misery and worries, my soul dwells in her God, because He supports her, holds her up, carries her, sustains her in a life of faith, of love, of confidence, not sensibly consoling, but supremely happy!”

Happy With God and With My Children

Abbot Marmion died in 1923, leaving Mother Mary of St. Peter and her daughters to mourn his passing and, at the same, to live in gratitude and joy from his spiritual patrimony. The following year on June 17, after much suffering, Mother Mary of St. Peter died. Her last intelligible words were: “I am so happy with God! And with my children.” Today Mother Mary of St. Peter's Benedictine Congregation of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart has monasteries in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Peru, New Zealand, Ecuador, Colombia, and Rome, Italy.

Commanded from the Heart

“I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44). “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Lk 6:28). These are not suggestions; they are not pious recommendations. They are clear precepts of Christ: commandments conceived in His merciful Heart and addressed to each of us without exception.

The Prayer From the Cross

It is no coincidence that this Gospel passage should be given us in this month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. One cannot receive the Forgiving Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist and persist in refusing anyone forgiveness. One cannot approach the Pierced Heart of Jesus and not be drawn into His prayer to the Father from the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).

Obedience

The prevalent culture of options and of personal choices has all but rendered us impermeable to the commandments of Our Lord. We prefer to think of them as suggestions or as “talking points.” Contemporary sensibilities in the world and, alas, even in the Church, resent the objective precept, the non-negotiable commandment, the mandate coming from above. A combination of the effects of original sin and actual sins of pride has conditioned us to want to discuss everything, to debate everything, to argue the value of any law coming from above us or outside of us. Our Lord presents us with just such a commandment. It is not a suggestion. It is not open to discussion. It is not the subject of debate. It is a divine commandment. In obeying it, we obey God. In neglecting to obey it, we neglect to obey God.

Blessings and Prayer

Insofar as we consider ourselves disciples of Christ, we are bound to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who speak evil against us. We are commanded to do good to those who hate us. This good that we are commanded to do is, first of all and above all, prayer.

The Prayer of Christ

There is no greater force for good than prayer. There is no better way to do good to those who hate us than by asking the light of the Face of Christ to envelop them and penetrate them. There is nothing more beneficial to those who afflict us than confident recourse to the pierced Heart of Jesus. There is no more powerful blessing of those who curse us than the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered on their behalf. For those speak evil against us there is no prayer more powerful than the prayer of Christ the High Priest who, in every Mass, stands before His Father, pleading and interceding for those who approach God through Him.

To Damage, Crush, Break, Ruin, or Vex

Mother Church, with her ancient experience of human nature, provides us with the means of obeying this commandment of our Lord. The Roman Missal contains a Mass specifically for this purpose. It is entitled Pro Affligentibus Nos, “For Those Who Afflict Us.” The title of the Mass speaks volumes. Opening my Latin dictionary to the entry for affligo, I see that it means to throw down, to afflict, damage, crush, break, ruin; humble, weaken, or vex. If you have ever felt thrown down, if you have ever felt afflicted, damaged, crushed, broken, ruined, humbled, weakened, or vexed, you need to enter wholeheartedly into the Mass Pro Affligentibus Nos.

The Power of Prayer

There is a mysterious power in praying for those who have hurt us, in interceding wholeheartedly
— for those who have spoken ill of us,
— for those who have damaged our reputations,
— for those who have incited others to think less of us,
— for those who have hurt us emotionally, physically, or spiritually,
— for those who have been abusive toward us,
— for those who have cursed us,
— for those have broken our hearts, betrayed us, or rejected us.

Our Lord commands us to pray for them, not only for their sakes, but also for our own. Our own spiritual liberation, our own inner healing from resentment, hatred, and lingering bitterness is contingent upon our persevering obedience to the commandments of Christ in the Gospel.

The Root of So Much Suffering

Prayer for those who afflict us has, at times, immediate and astonishing results. Persons suffering from physical complaints — chronic illnesses, pains, and weaknesses — have been completely healed after praying sincerely for those with whom they are at enmity. Persons suffering from emotional illnesses — depression, chronic jealousy, addictive patterns of behaviour, and irrational fears — have been liberated from these after obeying Our Lord’s commandment to pray for those at the root of their suffering.

Conquerors Through the Sacred Heart

Prayer for those who afflict us sets in motion concentric circles of reconciliation and healing. In praying for those who have hurt you, place no limits on the munificence of God. Ask boldly. Beg God to overwhelm them with His choicest blessings, to make them profoundly and truly happy in this world and in the next. This kind of prayer, made in obedience to the commandment of the Lord, radiates an invisible but supremely efficacious love: the very charity of God “poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which He has given us” (Rom 5:5). “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom 8:37)., conquerors, that is, through the Sacred Heart.

The Open Side of Jesus Crucified

Look at this remarkable painting of Jesus Crucified. The focus of the composition is the wound in His Sacred Side. An angel holding a chalice is hovering just beneath it to receive the outpouring of His Blood. There are also angels stationed beneath His wounded hands. A fourth angel stricken with astonishment and grief looks on.

Saint Francis of Assisi

At the foot of the Cross, close to the wounded feet of Jesus, kneels Saint Francis of Assisi, embracing the saving wood. Saint Francis is closest to the feet of Jesus because he was called to walk in lowliness, poverty, and humility, in imitation of the Son of Man who "had no where to lay His head" (Mt 8:20).

Saint Benedict

On the left is Saint Benedict with his hands crossed over his breast. This is the ritual gesture of the monk when, on the day of his profession, he sings the second part of the Suscipe me, Domine: "Let me not be confounded in my expectation" (Ps 118:116). Saint Benedict is gazing at the Face of the Crucified with an extraordinary intensity of compassion and love. One could draw a direct line from the Face of Jesus to the face of Saint Benedict. This is what he means when he says in his Rule that one desiring to become a monk must "truly seek God" (RB 58:7).

Saint Romuald

On the right one sees Saint Romuald, whose feast we celebrate today. He is seated — rather like Mary of Bethany in Luke 10:39 — with his hands hidden in the sleeves of his cowl. These are subtle allusions to the hidden life in which Saint Romuald sought the Heart of Jesus, not by much doing (the hidden hands) but, rather, in much listening (the "Marian" posture). You will notice that Saint Romuald is not looking at the Face of the Crucified; he is focused on the wound in Jesus' Sacred Side. Therein he seeks to hide himself like the dove in the cleft of the rock.