Friday, June 7, 2013

Most Sacred Heart

Heart of Jesus, tabernacle of the Most High.
Heart of Jesus, house of God and gate of heaven.
Heart of Jesus, glowing furnace of charity.
Heart of Jesus, desire of the everlasting hills.
Heart of Jesus, patient and rich in mercy.
Heart of Jesus, rich to all who call upon Thee.

Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance.
Heart of Jesus, source of all consolation.



In this morning’s parable Jesus compares the repentance of a sinner to the rescue of a lost sheep by a loving shepherd. From Christ’s perspective God is always running after us, pursuing the lost one, from our side this sense of the pursuit of a loving God who has made the first move in our direction is expressed in our desire to repent. As usual God makes the first move, we respond. And Jesus tells us that consequently there is then very great joy 
in heaven.

We celebrate today God’s tenderness, God’s loving pursuit. We celebrate the reality that our God enfleshed in Jesus and his deeds and compassion will always, always be the God with a broken, open, wounded heart. And so the invitation is to honestly even joyfully take ownership of our lostness, my very real need for mercy, my desperate need to be found and sought out by Jesus. My sinfulness, my apartness from God can never estrange me from him, but instead, once I beg for his mercy, become a very great, greasy shoot which will lead me right into his broken Heart.

Today here and now the Sacred Heart of Jesus notices us, lost in our isolation and confusion, all the stuff that does not fit, and he rushes toward us without delay to take us to himself, even into his wounded side as refuge. God loses himself in love over and over again. He is searching for us relentlessly.

Excerpts from the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus precede 
excerpts from this morning's homily.