O Sacred Heart of Jesus, Fountain of eternal life, your Heart is a glowing furnace of love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary. O my adorable and loving Savior, consume my heart with the burning fire with which yours is inflamed. Pour down upon my soul those graces which flow from your love. Let my heart be united with yours. Let my will be conformed to yours in all things. May your will be the rule of all my desires and actions.
These are words of Saint Gertrude the Great, a Benedictine nun of the thirteenth century, whom we remember today. Her ardor inspires us to follow Christ more fervently. One of her visions finds her resting at the open wound in Christ's side and listening to the beating of his Heart. Let us go with Gertrude to Christ's side and rest there.
O God, you are my God. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water. Psalm 62
Andrea del Verrocchio, Christ and Saint Thomas, bronze, 1483, Orsanmichele, Florence.
