GOD IS LOVE


SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS  

Deut 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4,6-8,10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30

Great Things hidden from the Wise

We celebrate the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ is a mystery, as coming from the mystery of the Son of Man. The human heart of Jesus Christ is a symbol and reality of the love of the Son of Man for his brothers and sisters. It is a human representation of the heart or love of the Son of God for us, his own people and creatures. As he revealed in Heb 2:14, that he took on our nature, that he may share everything in common with us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.” The Father brought us into existence to be the inheritance and the companions of His Beloved Son. The love of the Son for his own could not let him be, but made him take on our nature and appear among us to take back what rightfully belongs to him. With a love that can never be surpassed, he ransomed us from the powers of evil and darkness that held us bound. The Son’s love for us is equally the revelation of the Father’s love for us; for the Father created us with the love He has for His Unbegotten Son. Hence, the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the channel of all these loves is a mystery of love.

The passage from Deuteronomy witnesses to the Father’s love for us, His creatures. This love the Father has for all human persons is directed to all. But can only find an entrance into the faithful. Anyone without faith in God cannot recognise, acknowledge, and accept the love of God. Hence, the love of God the Father seemed to be revealed only to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and his children, as noted by Moses. “Moses said to the people: ‘You are a people consecrated to the Lord your God; it is you that the Lord our God has chosen to be his very own people out of the peoples on the earth. If the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, it was not because you outnumbered other peoples: you were the least of all peoples. It was for love of you and to keep the oath he swore to your fathers that the Lord brought you out with his mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” God is so loving that he searches all over the globe for anyone who believes in him that He may show faithful love to such a one. He found such a person in Abraham and showered him with love. He extended the love to his children and children’s children, generation after generation; only if they continue in faith, for faith is necessary for the reception of God’s love. They must believe that God exists and rewards those who seek Him.

The Psalmist makes us understand that what is extended to the thousand generations of those who believe and trust in God is His everlasting love. Once directed to a person who opens up in faith, it is unending, continuing to the thousandth generation. “The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.” This mysterious nature of God’s love is the same in the three Persons of the Trinity. But we know it through our experience of the Son of Man, who is the Son of God in human nature. We know the love of God through our encounter with the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Heart is therefore the revelation of the mystery of God’s love for us men. This is what our Lord means when he says: “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.” This confirms what we said above: that God’s love is only known by those who humble themselves in acknowledging God’s existence, thereby opening themselves to receive the Creator's love. Faith enables us to accommodate the revelation of God in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Subsequently, faith reveals the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ to us. By believing in the Son of Man, we come to know the love the Father has lavished on us in sending His Only Begotten Son to be our Saviour. Saint John beckons us to direct our thoughts to these mysteries that we may be aflame with the love of God. “God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him; this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.” So, there is no way of knowing that God is love without gazing at the pierced Heart of Jesus Christ hanging on the Cross of Calvary. Each of us who has the Holy Spirit of the Son is born from that fount of love and mercy. Therefore, the nature of every Christian is love, for God is love. From this reasoning, we understand that there is no Christian without the Holy Spirit; His presence in our hearts makes the fountain of living water flow from deep within us, just as from the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who glory in the Heart of your beloved Son and recall the wonders of his love for us, may be made worthy to receive an overflowing measure of grace from that fount of heavenly gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.        

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