Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has a special place among priests and religious. Those who live this voluntary celibacy choose a Lover who is Divine, so it follows that the Heart of the Divine would be their particular resting place. St. John Vianney said, "The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus." To be a religious is not a forgoing of love, but rather a deeper, more intimate, and more passionate love affair. We are all made for Heaven, for deepest union with the Divine, and those who enter the priesthood or religious life are choosing, are drawn to seek in a special way, that union as much as possible while still on earth.
Religious life is not a career choice, a job to be done, a work to accomplish. It is not temporary. It is a permanent state in life. Just as those who marry vow to love, honor, and cherish their spouse all the days of their life, the vowed religious binds herself to the Heart of Jesus irrevocably. They are rightly seen as married to Christ. It is their particular duty to seek Christ at every moment. And what a sweet duty it is! His yoke is easy and His burden light!
In the Heart of Christ is found the sweetest of loves, the gentlest of Lovers. He is the wellspring of compassion, mercy, gentleness, and tenderness. The human heart is a delicate thing. Easily wounded, quick to fear, but also capable of much love. Loving so deeply that it hurts. The Heart of Jesus is a human heart. It has felt the pain, sorrows, joy, and love that we have all felt. The heartache of the Passion, of those who rejected His love, literally broke His Heart. While He was on the Cross, His Heart burst from the intensity of His love and suffering. A love like that is something that is hard to resist. Anyone who truly meditates on this love, on the love of the Heart of Christ, would be hard pressed to turn away.
The Heart of Jesus draws you in. It fills your entire being with sweetness, and instills a deep serenity and holy longing within your soul. If we all let this love transform our lives, we will see a world transformed by caritas, this burning charity. As we celebrate this Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, let us pray that we would be so lost in the depths of that Sweet Heart, that we would live our lives to the beat of His Heart; that every heartbeat of His would be the pulse and rhythm of our daily life.
John, the beloved Apostle, delighted to recline against Jesus' Heart. Let us take his example and seek refuge in the Sweet Heart of Jesus and never let Him go! Let us seek Christ through His Most Sacred Heart, and grow in knowledge and intimacy with Him until His sorrows become our sorrows and His joys become our joys.
"Love keeps Him there [in the Blessed Sacrament] as a victim completely and
perpetually delivered over to sacrifice for the glory of the Father and for our salvation. Unite yourself with Him, then, in all that you do. Refer everything to His glory. Set up your abode in this loving Heart of Jesus and you will there find lasting peace and the strength both to bring to fruition all the good desires He inspires in you, and to avoid every deliberate fault. Place in this Heart all your sufferings and difficulties. Everything that comes from the Sacred Heart is sweet.
He changes everything into love."
-St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Written by Catherine
