“To know Jesus Christ is to know enough; to know everything and not to know Him, is to know nothing” (St. Louis de Montfort, Love of Eternal Wisdom). How well do we know Our Lord Jesus Christ? How familiar are we with the Sacred Heart? When was the last time we opened the Gospels and actually read them? How often do we try to really plunge into the depths of that Heart, to know and love It more? A weekly reading through your Missal at Sunday Mass is not sufficient. Our whole spiritual life centers around knowledge and love of Christ and His Sacred Heart. What are we doing to foster this knowledge and love?
Do we even know who Christ is? Christ is true God, but also a true man. We know this, and yet too often we still picture Him as a transfigured angel floating around Galilee and Jerusalem. He has a true human nature — eyes that see, ears that hear, hands that touch and feel, a mind that knows, a will that desires and acts, a heart that beats. His Heart is a truly human heart, but also the heart of a God. What does that mean? What does it mean to be loved by a heart that is both truly human — in fact, the most truly human heart that ever existed — but also divine? The Sacred Heart sincerely loves others with a human affection, and manifests His love for them in a human way, in a manner that is perfectly rational, flawlessly ordered, and undoubtedly affectionate. And the Sacred Heart is united hypostatically to the Word of God, united most intimately to His Divinity. Because of this, the Sacred Heart’s human love takes on dimensions and intensities that no other human love ever has or ever could. And that Love of God belongs to all of us — “the charity of God is poured forth into our hearts.” As this Feast of the Sacred Heart approaches, it is time to consider all that God has given to us. How has He blessed me in ways that billions of other human beings have not been blessed? Have I ever sincerely thanked the Sacred Heart for these graces? If so, it has never been sufficient, and so each day is time to start our gratitude all over again. And if we have not thanked Him before now, the time surrounding this Feast is the perfect opportunity to start, the time to begin to really hear those words of the Sacred Heart — “Behold this Heart which has so loved men” — and to ask ourselves…what have we done for Him in return?
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