June 15, 2012 Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

[이안드레아]

2012년 6월 15일 금요일 예수 성심 대축일

제1독서

호세아 예언서. 11,1.3-4.8ㅁ-9
주님께서 이렇게 말씀하신다.
1 “이스라엘이 아이였을 때에 나는 그를 사랑하여, 나의 그 아들을 이집트에서 불러내었다.
3 내가 에프라임에게 걸음마를 가르쳐 주고 내 팔로 안아 주었지만, 그들은 내가 자기들의 병을 고쳐 준 줄을 알지 못하였다. 4 나는 인정의 끈으로, 사랑의 줄로 그들을 끌어당겼으며, 젖먹이처럼 들어 올려 볼을 비비고, 몸을 굽혀 먹여 주었다.
8 내 마음이 미어지고, 연민이 북받쳐 오른다. 9 나는 타오르는 내 분노대로 행동하지 않고, 에프라임을 다시는 멸망시키지 않으리라. 나는 사람이 아니라 하느님이다. 나는 네 가운데에 있는 ‘거룩한 이’, 분노를 터뜨리며 너에게 다가가지 않으리라.”

제2독서

에페소서. 3,8-12.14-19
형제 여러분, 8 모든 성도들 가운데에서 가장 보잘것없는 나에게 은총을 주시어, 그리스도의 헤아릴 수 없는 풍요를 다른 민족들에게 전하고, 9 과거의 모든 시대에 만물을 창조하신 하느님 안에 감추어져 있던 그 신비의 계획이 어떠한 것인지 모든 사람에게 밝혀 주게 하셨습니다.
10 그리하여 이제는 하늘에 있는 권세와 권력들에게도 교회를 통하여 하느님의 매우 다양한 지혜가 알려지게 되었습니다. 11 이는 하느님께서 우리 주 그리스도 예수님 안에서 이루신 영원한 계획에 따른 것입니다. 12 우리는 그리스도 안에서 그분에 대한 믿음으로, 확신을 가지고 하느님께 담대히 나아갈 수 있습니다.
14 이 때문에, 나는 아버지 앞에 무릎을 꿇습니다. 15 하늘과 땅에 있는 모든 종족이 아버지에게서 이름을 받습니다.
16 아버지께서 당신의 풍성한 영광에 따라 성령을 통하여 여러분의 내적 인간이 당신 힘으로 굳세어지게 하시고, 17 여러분의 믿음을 통하여 그리스도께서 여러분의 마음 안에 사시게 하시며, 여러분이 사랑에 뿌리를 내리고 그것을 기초로 삼게 하시기를 빕니다.
18 그리하여 여러분이 모든 성도와 함께 너비와 길이와 높이와 깊이가 어떠한지 깨닫는 능력을 지니고, 19 인간의 지각을 뛰어넘는 그리스도의 사랑을 알게 해 주시기를 빕니다. 이렇게 하여 여러분이 하느님의 온갖 충만하심으로 충만하게 되기를 빕니다.

복음

요한. 19,31-37
31 예수님께서 숨을 거두신 날은 준비일이었고 이튿날 안식일은 큰 축일이었으므로, 유다인들은 안식일에 시신이 십자가에 매달려 있지 않게 하려고, 십자가에 못 박힌 이들의 다리를 부러뜨리고 시신을 치우게 하라고 빌라도에게 요청하였다.
32 그리하여 군사들이 가서 예수님과 함께 십자가에 못 박힌 첫째 사람과 또 다른 사람의 다리를 부러뜨렸다. 33 예수님께 가서는 이미 숨지신 것을 보고 다리를 부러뜨리는 대신, 34 군사 하나가 ?막?그분의 옆구리를 찔렀다. 그러자 곧 피와 물이 흘러나왔다.
35 이는 직접 본 사람이 증언하는 것이므로 그의 증언은 참되다. 그리고 그는 여러분이 믿도록 자기가 진실을 말한다는 것을 알고 있다.
36 “그의 뼈가 하나도 부러지지 않을 것이다.” 하신 성경 말씀이 이루어지려고 이런 일들이 일어난 것이다. 37 또 다른 성경 구절은 이렇게 말한다. “그들은 자기들이 찌른 이를 바라볼 것이다.”

http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings-audio.cfm

June 15, 2012

Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Reading 1
Hos 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9

Thus says the LORD:
When Israel was a child I loved him,
out of Egypt I called my son.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
who took them in my arms;
I drew them with human cords,
with bands of love;
I fostered them like one
who raises an infant to his cheeks;
Yet, though I stooped to feed my child,
they did not know that I was their healer.

My heart is overwhelmed,
my pity is stirred.
I will not give vent to my blazing anger,
I will not destroy Ephraim again;
For I am God and not a man,
the Holy One present among you;
I will not let the flames consume you.

Responsorial Psalm
Is 12:2-3, 4, 5-6

R. (3) You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
God indeed is my savior;
I am confident and unafraid.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
With joy you will draw water
at the fountain of salvation.
R. You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
Give thanks to the LORD, acclaim his name;
among the nations make known his deeds,
proclaim how exalted is his name.
R. You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
Sing praise to the LORD for his glorious achievement;
let this be known throughout all the earth.
Shout with exultation, O city of Zion ,
for great in your midst
is the Holy One of Israel!
R. You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.

Reading II
Eph 3:8-12, 14-19

Brothers and sisters:
To me, the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given,
to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ,
and to bring to light for all what is the plan of the mystery
hidden from ages past in God who created all things,
so that the manifold wisdom of God
might now be made known through the church
to the principalities and authorities in the heavens.
This was according to the eternal purpose
that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
in whom we have boldness of speech
and confidence of access through faith in him.

For this reason I kneel before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory
to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Gospel
Jn 19:31-37

Since it was preparation day,
in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath,
for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one,
the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken
and they be taken down.
So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first
and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.
But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead,
they did not break his legs,
but one soldier thrust his lance into his side,
and immediately blood and water flowed out.
An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true;
he knows that he is speaking the truth,
so that you also may come to believe.
For this happened so that the Scripture passage might be fulfilled:
Not a bone of it will be broken.
And again another passage says:
They will look upon him whom they have pierced.

REFLECTION
Devotion to the Sacred Heart is but a special form of devotion to Jesus. His heart is, above all, the emblem of love and whatever in Jesus is connected with this love. Devotion to the Sacred Heart, being directed to the living heart of Jesus, thus becomes familiar with his whole inner life, with all his virtues and sentiments, and finally, with his infinitely loving and lovable nature.
There is still another extension, very naturally made: when speaking of a big heart, our allusion is to a person, just as when we mention the Sacred Heart we mean Jesus. When the word “heart” is used to designate a person, it is because that person is considered in relation to his or her generosity and moral life. The love of Jesus, his heart, embraces us all; and the better we understand it, the more firmly shall we be convinced that nothing can vie with it, for making Jesus live in us and for bringing us, who live by it, to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and all our strength. No other practice can ever exhaust the riches of our devotion to the Sacred Heart!

http://www.staygreat.com/

rex fell silent

At once blood and water poured
out. John 19:34

Rex seemed to be carrying a
heavy burden. It spilled over into
his life and often made him rude.
Rex had a great tenor voice, and
the chaplain asked him to be in
the choir for Good Friday.
After Holy Week, Rex began to
change, so much so that a friend
ask him about it. Rex said: "It all
began when the chaplain said
that Jesus died for me. "That
made me wonder if I was worthy
of such a sacrifice." Then Rex fell
silent. Finally he said, "I have
always been so ashamed of his
father, who is in prison. Because
of what the chaplain said, I've
decided to live my own life and try
to become worthy of Jesus'
sacrifice. retold from Marion Ash

What might I do to try to become
worthy of Jesus' sacrifice for me?

God is waiting eternally
to be born in each one of us.

Meister Eckhart

h

ttp://www.franciscanretreats.net/

On this Friday of Ordinary Time the Church calendar celebrates another Solemnity. Now we have had three of the sixteen solemnities in a row: The Most Holy Trinity, The Body and Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi ), and now, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I found a short history of this feast on-line. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus goes all the way back to the 11^th century, but it remained strictly a private devotion until the 16^th century. The first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated in Rennes, France , on August 31, 1670, through the efforts of St. John Eudes (1602-1680). It took the later visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) to make the devotion a universal feast of the Church.

The “great apparition” or vision of St. Margaret Mary took place on June 16, 1675, during the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi in which vision Christ asked her to request that this feast of the Sacred Heart be celebrated on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi (remember that previously Corpus Christi was always celebrated on a Thursday), in reparation for the ingratitude of people for the sacrifice Christ made for them in reconciling them to the Father. In 1856, Pope Pius IX extended this feast to the universal Church.

We would all do well today, I believe, to be aware of our ingratitude to Jesus for all he has done and still is doing for all of us daily. Like most everything else in life, we human beings manage to arrive at a point where we take it for granted. AA always urges the recovering alcoholics to develop an “attitude of gratitude” to their Higher Power for their gift of quality sobriety. Not a bad attitude for all of us to acquire toward our Lord Jesus whose gifts for us are beyond numbering.

http://www.evangeli.net/gospel/gospel.html

«One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a lance»

Today, before our very eyes —or better still before our interior eyes, illuminated by faith— is the figure of Christ who, having just died on the Cross, has had his side pierced by the Centurion's sword. «Immediately there came out blood and water» (Jn 19,34). What a distressing but at the same time eloquent sight! There is not even the slightest room for doubt: Jesus is 100% dead. What's more that mysterious “water” which would not have flowed out of a normal healthy body, would indicate, according to modern medicine, that Christ would have died of a heart attack or what could even have been described as a burst heart. It is only in these cases that there occurs a separation of the serum and the red blood cells. This would explain the anomalous “blood and water”.

Christ, therefore has truly died, and He has died because of our sins, for what He desired with most urgency, the cancellation of our sins. «With my death, I have defeated death and have exalted Man to the sublimity of Heaven» (Meliton of Sardis). God, who has kept to his promise of raising his Son from the dead, will also keep to his second promise: He will also raise us from the dead and will seat us at His right hand. He requires of us a minimum condition: to believe in Him and to allow ourselves be saved by Him. God never imposes himself on anybody. He fully respects human liberty.

Of that Man who's heart they stabbed «They will look upon the man whom they have pierced» The Apocalypse, too, confirm‎s this: «Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him: and they also that pierced him» (Rev 1,7). This is a sacred requirement of divine justice: in the end even those who have obstinately rejected it will have recognise the truth. Even the self-idolising tyrant, the ruthless killer, the proud atheist... all of them without exception will feel obliged to kneel down before Him, acknowledging him as the one and only true God. Isn't it more worthwhile to become friends with Him as of now.

http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html

When I was a child, I too thought as a child. What I learned about the devotion to the Sacred Heart was that if I went to Mass and communion on nine consecutive first Fridays, I would get to heaven because I would have the grace of final penitence. I certainly saw this as insurance to ward off my fear of paying dearly in hell for my sinful nature.

I just read through the prayer of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun who lived in the 17th century in France . It reads like something from a very different world, long ago and far away. If you want to find it, try Google.

I realize that this may be construed rather arrogant, but what I thought I would try my hand at is a prayer of consecration for the feast of the Sacred Heart based upon the structure of the Eucharistic Prayer. The structure of this prayer comes from the Jewish tradition of blessing before meals: Praise for creation, thanksgiving for redemption, and petitions. It proves my thesis that Jews and Baptists bless God; Catholics bless things.

So, here’s one shot at it. You’ll note that the section on petition becomes the act of consecration itself. Let’s see if it works.

Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Great and worthy of all praise are you, God, creator of heavens and the earth!
How glorious is your name!
At the dawn of time as your Spirit hovered over the waters,
all life poured forth from your creative Word –
The sun, moon, and stars join in the chorus of praise to you.
All the birds of the air, all fish of the sea, and all creeping things adore you.
Women, men, and children bless your name in countless languages throughout the earth.
You indeed are the Fountain, the Source, the very Wellspring of Life!

We do well always and everywhere to offer you thanks, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
How glorious is your name!
In the fullness of time, Mary received the joyful proclamation of overshadowing love from your messenger, Gabriel.
The Word humbled himself, taking on human form, indeed the form of a slave.
The waters of birth and the waters of the Jordan give you thanks.
We remember with gratitude Jesus’ death, descent among the dead, and rising to life.
As his heart was pierced, he revealed the mystery of Love Outpoured.
When he breathed his last, he handed over his Spirit.
Countless men, women, and children have been brought to Life through your Gift.
May this same Spirit make of us an everlasting gift to you.
You are indeed the Spring that waters the New Creation by your Spirit.

With a grateful heart, I join with all disciples to offer all my life to you.
As you have given to me so generously, I return to you all I have and all I am.
You, our Triune God, are the Center, the Foundation of all there is.
What else can I present to you, my all, who have given all?
From now until my final breath, I surrender everything to the service of your Reign.
How glorious is your name, O God, through all the earth!

Amen.

http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/

"They shall look on him whom they have pierced"

Do you know the heart of Jesus – a heart that was pierced for your sake and mine? Of all the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death, John mentions that the soldiers pierced his heart with a lance. This was a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10: “when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him”. The heart of Jesus was pierced for our sake. He willingly went to the cross and laid down his life as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. If we want to understand the depth and breadth of God’s love for each of us, then look upon the heart that was pierced for you and for me. That is the reason Jesus went to the cross, to redeem us from slavery to sin and death.

True love does not count the cost, but gives everything for the beloved. Jesus withheld nothing, but gave everything he had for our sake. Saint Augustine of Hippo says that “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us to love.” In the cross of Christ we see the love of God broken and pierced for our sake. Jesus reigns triumphant at the right hand of the Father. He has risen in glory for our sake and he intercedes for us in heaven. He stands before the throne of heaven with his marks of victory – his pierced side, hands, and feet. Who can fathom the love of God? For all eternity we will gaze upon him who was crucified and who rose for our sake. The Lord Jesus calls us to lay down our lives in sacrificial love for one another. Only a broken and contrite heart can fathom the mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Do you love as Jesus loves, with a broken heart that yearns for all to know the love and mercy of God?

“Lord Jesus, your love knows no bounds. Break my heart with the things that break your heart that I may love generously as you love.”

Psalm 34:19-22

19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivers him out of them all. 20 He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. 21 Evil shall slay the wicked; and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

http://www.daily-meditations.org/index2.html

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to recognize the love of Jesus for us which culminated with the piercing of His heart at His crucifixion. It is a love that is ongoing. He loves us as much today as the day He died for us on the Cross.

The word "Love" has become distorted and misunderstood in our secular age, often limiting the meaning to superficial, lustful sexuality. Christ modeled the purest form of love, that love demonstrated by sacrificial giving of oneself. That does not mean if we follow His example that we would lose our very life for others, but rather that we go out of our way to be kind and loving toward all. It is a simple message, and one that Christ repeated and demonstrated over and over again during His ministry on earth.

Today let us ponder that message of Christ that we love and care for one another.

~ Joan of Jesus, OCDS |

http://www.contemplative.com/weekday_readings.htm

The Solemnity of the Feast of the Sacred Heart,

The article, “Ascension, Parousia, and the Sacred Heart:Structural Correlations,” by Giorgio Buccellati, appeared in the Spring 1998 edition of Communio which is a theological periodical dedicated to the living tradition of the Catholic Church, exploring the depths of the theology of Von Balthasar, De Lubac, Ratzinger, John Paul II and others.

This meditation is based on the article. The quotes are from the article unless otherwise noted.

The basis of the theology of the Sacred Heart is the real physical presence of the risen Jesus.That presence was manifested in a number of recorded appearances of the risen Jesus to His disciples, and before His final ascension into heaven. After His ascension, the physical presence of Jesus, glorified yet real, continues now in the mystery of heaven: “Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

Quickly in the early Church several visualizations of the physical glory of the ascended Jesus take place.The first is to Stephen the deacon at his trial before his martyrdom.(The second is the appearance of Jesus to Saul on his way to Damascus .)

Stephen bears witness not only to the Name of Jesus as Savior but to the presence of Jesus in the glory of God, sharing in the Glory of God.Stephen saw “God’s Glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.55) and then again, “Behold, I see the heavens open and the son-of-man standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.56).Stephen could have said “God validated the ‘message’ of Jesus, causing the person of Jesus to recede in the background in favor of his spiritual or social doctrine.”

“No: what haunts Stephen with joy, and the members of the Sanhedrin with horror, is the risen humanity of a very concrete Jesus.Jesus, their immediate contemporary, is still perceived as sharing, physically, in the unimaginable glory of the Ineffable.A claim, a blasphemy.”

Think how this truth has an “impact” on the Church.“Jesus chooses to refer to himself as specially human and mortal at the very moment that he projects himself beyond death as resurrected.And Stephen is struck with a vision of Jesus’ risen humanity, a mortal Jesus who shares in God’s glory. … His very specific humanity, sealed by death, and then risen from it, was in some way on a par with the transcendence of the Ineffable.”

Here’s where the concept of “parousia” comes in.The basic meaning of the Greek word, parousia, is presence.Usuallyparousia is used in the context of Christ’s second coming.But the more basic meaning is that the presence of Jesus is now; and it is so great and omnipotent, that it will endure until the end, when the presence will be made manifest completely throughout creation on the last day.Thus the humanity of Jesus is present because of its being filled with the glory of the Trinity, “seated at the right side of God.”

In this mystery of the ascension,the apostles and the first Christians lived in the mystery of the Trinity without using the theological and philosophical terms the Church would later use to guard the Mystery in its being handing down faithfully throughout the ages.“Their contemporary Jesus, the human-mortal (son-of-man) who was now present and coming in divine glory (the parousia), was ‘sitting at the right sides of the Power’:this was their insight into the Trinity.”

Our faith delivers to us the fact of Jesus’ ascension and His session (His sitting) in the glory of the Triune Godhead.The ascension must not be thought of as a myth, born out of the insight of the Apostles into the resurrection of Jesus as a divine manifestation.No.Jesus is particular and concrete, a fact.So is His death.So is His resurrection.So, too, is His ascension in the reality of His humanity.The Gospel and Acts of Luke, in their account of the ascension, are “intended to be as much of a factual account as the one relating the events of Pentecost, which are also found exclusively, and only once, in Luke.”

Thus the early preaching of the Church is set on the witness of Jesus within two factual events of His life:from the baptism of John “until the day in which he was lifted up away from us” (Acts 1.21-22) and 1^st Timothy 3.16 which gives the “core of worship” as “a sequence which begins when Christ ‘was shown in the flesh’ and ends when he ‘was taken up in glory.’”

The Ascension is not only an event but it is “a state.”It is a new beginning.As the Incarnation was an event at the annunciation to Mary,it also continues as a state.Jesus’ state as God and Man in the Person of the Word continues.So, “the Ascension is also a state which declares a new modality of being.”

The enunciation of our faith is that Jesus “sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father”(the Council of Rome AD 382).“During Jesus’ lifetime, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, God was man.After the Ascension, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, man was within the Trinity.”And Stephen is the first martyr.That is, he witnesses in his own blood that Jesus is seated in the glory of God.

All that we have said is related to Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, in her assumption into heaven.The body of Mary shares in the glory of the ascended Christ.She shares as an anticipation of our own resurrection and our sharing in the glory of God corporeally at the last day and in the re-creation of the world in Christ’s final victory.“In this light, the Assumption is not an elegant act of kindness on the part of God for his mother; it is an ontological implication of her having been outside our culture of sin, and a proclamation of what the redemption of our culture will mean for us once restored to the same status.”

In sharing with other religions in dialogue, as for example,with the Buddhists, we must maintain the absolute difference in our ontological understanding of what our ultimate state will be.We are not absorbed spiritually into a One so that all duality is lost.The concreteness and particularity of the risen and ascended Jesus, as this particular Man—son-of-man—is in glory.So we too are to be risen in our particularity and concreteness of persons.The sacred duality of our mysticism is that we are united completely to the Other in love in a sharing in the divine life while always remaining who we are, as Jesus remains who He is.

Finally, then, devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the reality of the Heart of Jesus now in glory.Jesus now is in the glory of His ascended humanity.Jesus loves us with all His heart now in the most literal sense.The heart of Jesus is real; it pulsates with divine and human love in the oneness of that Divine Person, the Word who is Jesus.

All the Sacred Scripture readings speak of the searching of Jesus for us, the lost sheep.When Jesus speaks of the greater Father, Lord of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise….Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you.It is His heart which is truly joyous.It is His heart that has a yearning love for each of us, as He has shown in the private revelations to St. Margaret Mary and to St. Maria Faustina, “the Secretary of Divine Mercy.”

When we sit or kneel in silent, centered prayer of the heart, we are one with the ascended Christ, one in the love of His heart.There are some verses in Ephesians which I find connect the heart prayer practice of sitting in the intentionality of love with “the session”—“the sitting”—of Christ in His glory:

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), AND RAISED US UP WITH HIM, AND MADE US SIT WITH HIM INTHE HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST JESUS….”(Ephesians 2.4-6).Even now! At this moment!And our prayer practice is the simple intentionality of consenting to this state of sharing in the ascended glory of the Son of God.

The concreteness of our sitting or kneeling in quiet prayer is one with the fact of Christ’s ascension and His state of glory at this very moment.The act of our intention of love is one with the love in the heart of Christ.Let our Holy Eucharist be a thanksgiving for this mystery of our humanity sharing now in the glory of the Triune God which is heaven.

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There is some gruesome detail here. In crucifixion a man dies primarily of asphyxiation. He breathes by pushing and pulling himself up painfully on raw wounds, but when he no longer has the strength to do this he can no longer breathe. Clearly, by breaking the legs of the two thieves, the soldiers were hastening their deaths in this way. When they found Jesus already dead they thrust a spear into his heart, just to make sure.

From the beginning, Christians have seen a great deal of significance in this. For a start, it fulfilled the Scriptural prophecies, “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.” But they saw a special significance in the blood and water that gushed from his side. The blood signified that the lamb had indeed been sacrificed, and the water signified the Spirit. Christian writers saw in this the two sacraments, Baptism and Eucharist. These two sacraments are basic to the life of the Church, which is born out of the side of Christ. Eve was born out of Adam’s side in the Genesis story. Here, the new Eve (the Church) is born out of the side of the new Adam, Christ.

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UNIMAGINABLE LOVE

"Thus you will be able to grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love, and experience this love which surpasses all knowledge, so that you may attain to the fullness of God Himself." 뾇phesians 3:18-19

God's word promises that by His grace we can grasp fully and personally experience Christ's love. This is impossible for us, but nothing is impossible with God (Mk 10:27). It's difficult to imagine experiencing the fullness of Christ's perfect, infinite, and crucified love. Nonetheless, He will do in our lives more than we can ever ask or imagine (Eph 3:20). "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Cor 2:9).

Jesus has given us an experience of His infinite love through the prophetic vision of the Sacred Heart. No one ever thought of a picture in which the heart was outside the body. This seems bizarre, even repulsive. However, the Sacred Heart has communicated the tender, healing, personal love of God for us. The vision of the Sacred Heart is one of the most confirmed, powerful, and life-changing prophecies in the history of the Church. Every day, look at a picture of the Sacred Heart and let the Lord show His love for you in a way you've never imagined possible.

Prayer: Jesus, may my heart be overwhelmed by Your love for me (see Hos 11:8).

Promise: "It was I Who taught Ephraim to walk, Who took them in My arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks." 뾊os 11:3-4

Praise: Joe was abandoned by some of those he loved and served most. Through a picture of the Sacred Heart in Joe's bedroom, Jesus reassured Joe of His never-ending love.

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From today’s readings:“My heart is overwhelmed, My pity is stirred.... You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation..... that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.... a soldier thrust his lance into His side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. ”

Year for Priests

Today, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is the beginning of a special “Year for Priests” decreed by Pope Benedict XVI. The intention of the year, the Pope explains, is specifically “to deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a more forceful and incisive witness to the Gospel in today’s world.” The Holy Father mentions St. John Vianney, the patron saint of priests, as a particularly inspiring example to follow.

I and other priests have our work cut out for us - I’m certainly aware of how often I fall short of the example of St. John Vianney, let alone the example of Jesus, our great High Priest! And yet, despite our failings and clear unworthiness, God has chosen us priests for service in His Church to Him and His holy people - it’s God’s plan, and God’s idea, and we can only dedicate ourselves, as much as possible, to doing things God’s way!

Especially throughout this Year for Priests, consider the ways God will use you to strengthen the holiness of priests - please pray for priests and future priestly vocations every day, and do your part in this Year for Priests!

Link to Pope Benedict’s Letter Proclaiming this Year for Priests:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20090616_anno-sacerdotale_en.html

http://www.judeop.org/dailyhomilette.htm

Why does the soldier stick his lance into Jesus’ side? Is he cruelly trying to pile on disgrace? Or perhaps he mercifully means to put Jesus out of his misery if there is any life left in him? One commentator suggests this soldier’s motive is beside the point. He says that by mentioning the incident, John the Evangelist merely wants to show that Jesus is really dead. More important than its exegetical meaning, the symbolic meaning of the act has captured the imagination of Christians through the centuries. The lance thrust into Jesus’ side pierces his heart indicating that like most people in the world Jesus suffers a broken heart.

Reviewing the gospel, we see much reason for Jesus’ feeling abandoned and broken. His people, the Jews, have almost unanimously rejected him. The supposedly law-driven Roman government has knowingly played into the hands of the Jewish conspirators. One of his closest disciples has betrayed him while another, the leader of the pack, has denied him. Yes, Jesus is spurned by those whom he has cared for.

In this world having a broken heart is not as remarkable as what we do with it. Basically, there are two options. We might allow the bitter experience to teach us that others suffer a similar fate and need consolation. Or we might sulk and complain about our pain. Symbolically again, Jesus takes the former route. Blood and water signifying the grace of Baptism flow from his wound. This same grace enables us also to respond with compassion to the suffering of others.

http://www.judeop.org/daily_bread.htm

They will look upon him whom they have pierced. Our faith can seem complicated at times, but the love Jesus has for us is simple to understand. Reflect on the pierced body that hung on the cross. There is no more profound image of love than this stark image of selflessness and sacrifice. The pain Jesus endured for us was immense. The death was real. But more immense and more real is the love demonstrated in this surrender. We are eyewitnesses to the truth. That we may open our hearts to this love and reflect it, we pray. PR