I Will Not Let the Flames Consume You
June 15, 2012
Solemnity of
the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
By Melanie Rigney
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. (Hosea 11:9)
You will draw water joyfully
from the springs of salvation. (Isaiah 12:3)
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. (Ephesians
3:14-19)
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. (John 19:31-37)
Piety
From the depth of my
nothingness, I prostrate myself before Thee, O Most Sacred, Divine and Adorable
Heart of Jesus, to pay Thee all the homage of love, praise and adoration in my
power. Amen. (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque)
Study
The thing about being a devotions writer is that you’re
always trying to come up with a new or different way to share what the Lord has
placed on your heart, to listen to what God wants you to take from your own
piety, study, or action that’s relevant and will help others on their journeys.
Then there are those times you can’t improve on perfection.
But more on that in a minute.
The solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has its modern
roots in St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun who lived in the latter part
of the 17th century. It’s said that from her earliest days, she
displayed intense love for the Eucharist. As she grew, she had visions of
Christ, usually of him on the cross. At one point, he complained to her about
his love being ignored. After she became a nun, she established the Holy Hour
and, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia,
spent from 11 p.m. to midnight on the eve of the first Friday of each month
to share in Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was then that Jesus
revealed to her his desire to be loved by all of us and to see his heart as a
source of love, mercy, sanctification, and salvation.
It wasn’t until more than a hundred years later, in 1856,
that the solemnity of the Sacred Heart was added to the Church’s general
calendar. And now, another 150-plus years later, we may ask ourselves how and
what we are to pray on this day, what exactly about Jesus’s heart we are to
contemplate—his love for us as a man? His love for us as part of the Trinity?
Our love for him, as limited in understanding as it is? His desire, in simple
yet challenging language, comes to us from St. Mary Margaret, and I don’t think
anyone alive today could come up with a better devotional direction:
He
showed me that it was His great desire of being loved by men and of withdrawing
them from the path of ruin that made Him form the design of manifesting His
Heart to men, with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, of
sanctification and salvation which it contains, in order that those who desire
to render Him and procure Him all the honour and love possible, might
themselves be abundantly enriched with those divine treasures of which His
heart is the source.
In other words, He’s done so very much for us, and asks so
very little in return—just love.
Action
How will you show Christ today that you love Him as much as
a human being can?
No comments:
Post a Comment