The loving heart of Jesus is opened up for us by a
cruel spear, a spear wielded by a soldier whom Christian tradition calls
Longinus. When he was given his orders
that day, crucifying a man was probably just a routine part of his job as a
Roman soldier assigned to keep the peace of the Empire - a task like polishing
his armor. It is possible to imagine
that his own heart had been hardened to the point of the ultimate inhumanity it
is to crucify someone, torturing a person to death. Yet, what Longinus would have then called
Fate and we would call Divine Providence had placed his hardened heart and the
divine-human heart of Jesus just the length of a spear apart from one
another. His hardened heart is literally
near to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and near to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary. The Tradition tells us that when
he thrust his spear into the side of Jesus to insure he was dead, a flood of
blood and water flowed out upon him from the heart of Jesus. Thus, Longinus,
already starting to be moved by what he was witnessing around him, was, as it
were, baptized in this bath of salvation flowing from the side of Christ. The traditional story says the bath healed
him of an eye disease so that his full vision was restored, and, more
importantly, healed his hardened heart so much that he eventually became a
Christian missionary who would himself die in witness of his own love for
Jesus, the Son of God and Man, who loved him and all of us to the end.
The cleansing and enlightening waters of Baptism
in which all Christians, like St. Longinus, have been bathed call us now to
drink from the chalice of salvation filled with the precious blood that flowed
from the side of Christ—flowed from the wound caused by Longinus' spear. Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for
this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant,
which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. We might notice our own spiritual vision
becoming more acute. We might notice our
own wounded hearts healing and becoming ever softer, more human, and,
therefore, more divine.
Saint Longinus, Gianlorenzo Bernini. Excerpts from Father Luke's homily for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.
Saint Longinus, Gianlorenzo Bernini. Excerpts from Father Luke's homily for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.