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Our parish is blessed this summer by the presence of Joseph McDaniel, a seminarian with the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. A gifted teacher and speaker, Joseph offered the following reflection after Mass this morning. I hope you will find it as inspiring as I did.
He also presented a beautiful half-hour devotion to the Sacred Heart that you can view here on our parish YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyE-qWkAgkM
We give our hearts to our spouses, our children, our friends, our careers.
To give our heart to someone, to something, is to give of our life and our love, and hopefully, to receive love and life in return.
But we also know that, sometimes, when we give our heart to someone, to something, we do not receive love and life in return.
We receive a wound instead.
We know this from our own experiences, or the experiences of those close to us.
We know of relationships grown cold because of indifference, dashed upon the rocks of betrayal, or ended prematurely because of death.
We know of years spent building up something in our careers, only to see it taken from us or thrown away by those to whom we entrusted it.
It seems that when we give our hearts to someone, to something, our hearts sometimes become emptied, through both our own voluntary giving and the involuntary bleeding that ensues when they become wounded.
It sometimes seems that the greater the love, the greater our self gift, the greater the possibility of being wounded, and the more it hurts when it happens.
When feel like we have nothing left to give, we may ask ourselves,
“Why bother give my heart to anyone, to anything, anymore?”
“How can I possibly give when my heart has been emptied?”
It is precisely at these moments of emptiness when Jesus says to us,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest...for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:28).
When we are feeling hardened and empty of heart, Jesus invites us to draw near to his gentle, humble heart, because he knows exactly what it is like to give of one’s heart to another and to be wounded for it.
When God willed the human family, when God willed each of us into existence, Jesus foresaw each of the many great and small ways in which our sin would wound his own heart, even unto the nails of Calvary.
Yet, he chose to love us anyway, to give us his Heart anyway, even to the point of “emptying himself” on the Cross. And it is from that Heart, as St. Bonaventure writes, that flows the power of the sacraments of the Church “to confer the life of grace” (Office of Readings, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus). It is to that Heart, that Love of God to whom we bring our own hearts, from whom we can drink “a spring of living water” to refresh us when our own hearts feel wounded and empty.
It is that Sacred Heart of Jesus, who gives Himself to us, here and now, until the end of time, as the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.
As we approach the Sacred Heart of Jesus, may we come before Him singing for joy, praying together, as St. Francis de Sales wrote at the conclusion of his Treatise on the Love of God:
“O love eternal, my soul needs and chooses you eternally!
Come Holy Spirit, and inflame our hearts with your love!
To love - or to die! To die – and to love!
To die to all other love in order to live in Jesus’ love, so that we may not die eternally.
That we may live in your eternal love, O Saviour of our souls, we eternally sing, “Live, Jesus! Jesus, I love! Live, Jesus whom I love! Jesus I love, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.” (Book 12, Chapter 13).
It seems that when we give our hearts to someone, to something, our hearts sometimes become emptied, through both our own voluntary giving and the involuntary bleeding that ensues when they become wounded.
It sometimes seems that the greater the love, the greater our self gift, the greater the possibility of being wounded, and the more it hurts when it happens.
When feel like we have nothing left to give, we may ask ourselves,
“Why bother give my heart to anyone, to anything, anymore?”
“How can I possibly give when my heart has been emptied?”
It is precisely at these moments of emptiness when Jesus says to us,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest...for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:28).
When we are feeling hardened and empty of heart, Jesus invites us to draw near to his gentle, humble heart, because he knows exactly what it is like to give of one’s heart to another and to be wounded for it.
When God willed the human family, when God willed each of us into existence, Jesus foresaw each of the many great and small ways in which our sin would wound his own heart, even unto the nails of Calvary.
Yet, he chose to love us anyway, to give us his Heart anyway, even to the point of “emptying himself” on the Cross. And it is from that Heart, as St. Bonaventure writes, that flows the power of the sacraments of the Church “to confer the life of grace” (Office of Readings, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus). It is to that Heart, that Love of God to whom we bring our own hearts, from whom we can drink “a spring of living water” to refresh us when our own hearts feel wounded and empty.
It is that Sacred Heart of Jesus, who gives Himself to us, here and now, until the end of time, as the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.
As we approach the Sacred Heart of Jesus, may we come before Him singing for joy, praying together, as St. Francis de Sales wrote at the conclusion of his Treatise on the Love of God:
“O love eternal, my soul needs and chooses you eternally!
Come Holy Spirit, and inflame our hearts with your love!
To love - or to die! To die – and to love!
To die to all other love in order to live in Jesus’ love, so that we may not die eternally.
That we may live in your eternal love, O Saviour of our souls, we eternally sing, “Live, Jesus! Jesus, I love! Live, Jesus whom I love! Jesus I love, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.” (Book 12, Chapter 13).
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