The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today we celebrate the external feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is properly celebrated on the Friday after the Sunday after Corpus Christi. The Church often celebrates beloved feasts more than once—we just can’t get enough of them! On the Feast of the Sacred Heart, we call to mind how our Lord thinks about us all the time. We are always in his heart. The graces we receive daily from God’s thoughtfulness, however, come at a price, as we are reminded in the Gospel today. There is no love without suffering. A soldier thrust a lance through Our Lord’s Sacred heart as he hung on the Cross; blood and water gushed from his open side. Why would blood and water flow in abundance from a corpse? First, because Jesus, though dead, lives forever, and his heart never ceases to beat, his blood never ceases to flow, for the people he loves. Second, the Church is born from Christ’s wounded heart in the sacraments of water and blood--Baptism and the Holy Eucharist--pour upon the world. Christ’s heart is open to all men and women. It is never closed.

Immaculate Heart of Mary

The Church celebrates also the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary the day after the Sacred Heart, although this year the Nativity of St. John the Baptist superseded it. But let’s reflect a little on the Immaculate Heart of Mary, since we missed it this year. Jesus in his infinite love sent his Holy Mother to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, six times in 1917. On June 13, she said to the children:
 
“I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.” All of the evils came to pass: Russia spread her errors to all of Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America (especially Cuba). Nations were annihilated (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, etc.). More Christians were martyred from 1917-1989 than died in the entire world over the previous 19 centuries. The Holy Father was shot by what seems certainly to have been a Soviet-motivated agent on May 13, 1981, but beyond that one attack, Pius XII, Paul VI, and JPII suffered terribly in the brutal persecutions of the Church under communism.

Prayer and Penance

But it was the July 13 apparition at Fatima that, in the words of St. John Paul, “summed up the whole 20th century.” She gave the children three visions, which Lucia called the three “secrets” because Our Lady instructed her not to reveal what the children saw immediately. She allowed the children to see hell, but only for a few seconds—any longer would have caused them to die of fright, as Lucia said later. Our Lady has assured the children that they would go to heaven if they continued leading good and holy lives. Seeing hell for themselves moved the children to pray and do penance for poor sinners.
 
Our Lady had assured the children: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.” Although Russia is more Christian now than at any time since 1917, the triumph of the Immaculate Heart has yet to happen. The West is moving rapidly away from God, even beginning to persecute Christians and peace has yet to come among nations. The eternal destiny of many souls—heaven or hell—depends on the Church’s intercession.  We must continue to pray, do penance, and make our communions of reparation. I have decided to begin promoting the Five First Saturdays of reparation, for which our Lady specifically asked at Fatima. We choose first five Saturdays in a row to attend Mass, pray the rosary, spend 15 minutes of meditation on the mysteries, and make a good confession. I have been negligent in promoting the first Saturdays; may Our Lady forgive me. Let us dedicate ourselves to real prayer and penance. The best penance is to accept patiently, even gladly, the sufferings God allows in our lives. May the evil one in our time be checked by Our Lord’s Sacred Heart. May many may be won over from sin by the Immaculate Heart of Mary, cause of our Joy.

Yesterday was Feast Day of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, and today that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Every year I look forward to More’s letter to his daughter Meg in the daily breviary reading. He wrote it from the Tower of London, having been stripped almost overnight of his great wealth and power in Henry VIII’s kingdom. He died a poor man, rich in nobility.
 
Mother Teresa often said, “Our poor people are great people.” She saw the nobility of the poor, their superior patience, humility and stamina in the face of grinding adversities that would break most of us. On Wednesday, I spent a few hours in her Rio de Janeiro soup kitchen after giving the sisters a retreat.

Today in Brazil, where I’m giving a retreat to the sisters, the Church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi. I heard rockets and gunfire last night and asked a sister this morning if this were in honor of the Feast. She said maybe, but more likely it was the drug dealers. When the dirty goods arrive they send up a rocket to signal for pick up. Soon the police arrive and a little gun battle ensues. But maybe, the sister said sweetly, some of the rockets were for Corpus Christi….
 
This the world Jesus comes to, and where he lives among us in the most holy Sacrament of his Body and Blood. In the slums of Rio de Janeiro, desperate men and hopeless women sell themselves for very little. But they are still human, and they still hope, in some way, that there is a God and that He loves them. There is still much Christianity here in Brazil, much that globalized secularism has not yet extinguished. The local Corpus Christi procession passed by our shelter this morning, with clouds of incense indicating the canopied Blessed Sacrament, throngs of people, and of course a big truck in the middle of it all with a rock band pounding out tunes to the glory of God. Many passersby asked me for a blessing as I stood on the doorstep with a few of our homeless women.

Last week I took a shot at the Fitbit phenomenon and have received not a few emails agreeing with some of what I say but adding that there are valid reasons for using this new technology. One likes the silent alarm feature, and of course many say it keeps them more active. We can probably use this technology wisely, not letting it rule us, and I hope most of us do.
 
Today Our Lady of Fatima appeared for the second time to the three shepherd children one hundred years ago. June 13 is the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua (also known as St. Anthony of Portugal, because he grew up in Lisbon). The parish church in Fatima is named “St. Anthony’s.” I write from Brazil, where I’m giving a retreat to the Missionaries of Charity, to whom I’m giving a retreat. Jesus appeared to Mother Teresa in 1947 (30 years after Fatima) asking her to “come be my light” to a darkening world. In today’s Gospel Jesus defines all Christians as “the light of the world.” In Fatima, Lucia described Our Lady’s final moments in the June apparition thus (from Fr. Andrew Apostoli’s fine book Fatima for Today): “As soon as our Lady finished speaking, she opened her hands and communicated to the children an immense light that enveloped them. Jacinta and Francisco appeared to be in a part of the light that was rising to heaven, while Lucia was in a light spreading over the earth.” Lucia was to be a light spreading over the earth for the next 87 years until she died in 2005. She did so simply by telling the world the immense brilliances she had seen in the summer of 1917.
 
To prepare the children for Our Lady’s visit, God had sent an “Angel of Peace”—the Guardian Angel of Portugal—to them the year before. He prepared them by deepening their understanding and love for the Most Holy Sacrament, showing them a consecrated host and chalice. He directed them to offer reparation for the indifference and sacrileges committed against the Eucharist.
 
It is certainly true that most Catholics (myself included) receive the Holy Sacrament with less attention, reverence, and patience than we should. A simple and effective means of avoiding the apparent indifference with which most Catholics receive Holy Communion is to receive the Sacrament kneeling, on the tongue. No child who kneels and receives on the tongue will fail to confuse the Consecrated Host with an ordinary piece of bread. That is why we have all our First Communicants kneel and receive their first Eucharist on the tongue.
 
Of course, some cannot kneel and some prefer to receive Him in the hand. I would like to propose, however, that we all consider using the altar rail, if you can convince your pastor. Kneeling or standing at the threshold of the sanctuary, gazing at the beautiful altar, we are led to recollect ourselves, to become still. We wait for Jesus to come to us rather than shuffling forward in a line, staring at someone’s back. Waiting at the altar rail makes every communion a bit like Advent, where we wait with Our Lady for Jesus to be born in us. It restores that silence and expectant adoration the Mass so sorely lacks most of the time. Silence in God’s presence is joy, and I have seen so much more joy in the faces of those who wait for Jesus at the altar rail in my parish. Our Lady, lead us to the true joy of knowing your Son!

Fitbits are all the rage, and who would dare speak against them? My siblings and best friends swear by them, and I too have a fitbit. I wore it for two days and it told me everything I ever did. But I have this observation about this clever technology: it’s too much. Do we really want to track every step we take in life? Do we really want to know exactly how many minutes we spent in deep sleep rather than light sleep every night? Is it healthy for us to obsess over every single calorie we ingest and every single calorie we burn off?
 
When my brothers and I were kids we somehow got hold of a tape recorder. We began spending lots of time recording ourselves—staging our own funny radio shows and sportscasts—and then listening to ourselves on playback. We became fascinated and a bit addicted to our own voices. Mom had to intervene. “Dears, it’s not good to listen to yourselves so much.”
 
After a few days, I put aside my fitbit, partly because the plastic band was irritating my wrist. But I think my fitbit may have been causing a deeper irritation. It is not healthy to look too much at ourselves. Does perhaps the fitbit enable an unhealthy obsession with the autonomous self? Does it not perhaps exacerbate a kind of despair that, after all, we are not gods but merely frail flesh?
 
Do not despair! We are not gods, nor angels, but we are not merely meat machines either. We are created in the image and likeness of the One True God, who has given each of us an immortal soul to guide the frail flesh. We are given the use of reason and the power of will. Our reason indicates that, “dears, it’s not good to look at yourselves too much,” and our will affords us the capacity to manage any unhealthy behavior.

Pentecost How was your Lent? Remember getting your ashes way back on March 1st? The Feast of Pentecost brings Ash Wednesday and the entire 90-day Lent-Eastertide cycle to its fulfilment today. And what did the Son of God accomplish by going to the Cross and back, and finally sending the Holy Spirit upon us? He accomplished a perfect sigh of love.

A Sigh of Love

As Bishop Barron, quoting Archbishop Fulton Sheen, mentions in a commentary: from all eternity the Father looks at the Son and the Son looks at the Father. What each sees is utter perfection and beauty. Each sighs his love for the other, and this shared breath is the Spirits Sanctus, love breathed back and forth between Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is a sigh of love, born of beauty. We begin life breathing, so to speak, in union with our mothers, enclosed in their wombs, under their hearts, two hearts beating as one. Once born, we take our first breath of this world’s air and begin to cry, seeking to regain closeness to the maternal heart. We grow older, taking deep breaths, learning to receive and give love, but learning also that all human love is limited. Most of us eventually find love in a particular person, a boy or a girl whose beauty captivates us. We long to breathe together, to become one beating heart again. But this love, only human, disappoints us.

A Refining Fire

Pentecost draws us into the perfect love between the Father and the Son. Their sigh of love fills the world: “a driving wind” fills the house in which the apostles were. They begin to speak with this same breath, speaking only one word: “Jesus.” Jesus is my all in all, as Mother Teresa put it. “Only by the Holy Spirit,” St. Paul testifies, “can anyone say that Jesus is Lord.” Only by the Holy Spirit do we even know that we have a Savior, one who can purify our hobbled human love. The Holy Spirit, however, is not only oxygen to people who are suffocating, but also the fire that feeds on that oxygen. Not only a strong driving wind filled the house, but fire filled the air above the apostles. The sigh of love between Father and Son becomes a fire animating the entire world. Human love needs to be purified. The human embrace can only be fruitful—can bring us to “flourishing” to use a popular word—by virtue of the Holy Spirit. A man and a woman in love humbly ask God’s permission to enter a true embrace, begging the Holy Spirit to fill them on their wedding day. Only after they make their vows before the God’s altar may they kiss. Recklessly entering a “relationship” without first begging help from the Holy Spirit will disappoint us, and eventually hurt everyone around us.

The Sacred Heart

June is the month of Pentecost, and also the month of the Sacred Heart, whose feast follows Pentecost by three weeks (this year, June 23). Jesus opened his heart to us from the Cross, his supreme act of love for his Father. It is when he breathed his last with the words “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” I think, that the Father most loved his Son. God’s love died, and we buried it, on a Friday afternoon, but the Father raised it up again. To “love without limits” (St. Maximilian Kolbe’s aspiration) is now not only possible but certain. But human love must be enclosed within the Sacred Heart, which pours itself out for mankind both from the Cross and on Pentecost.

The Immaculate Heart

​Finally, the month of June also is also the month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose feast day occurs the day after the feast of the Sacred Heart. In Christ’s Mother, we return to Our Mother. Even the Beatles knew that “Mother Mary comes to me” in times of trouble. When we pray to God in and through Our Lady, we recover the lost love we had in the womb of our earthly mothers. Let pray this June, beginning with the Feast of the Holy Spirit, and marked by the Feasts of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, brings us the joy of knowing Jesus.