Canon Martin Edwards
St Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Church
Wandsworth East Hill, London
On Friday we kept the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Here at St Mary Magdalen’s that great feast was kept in some style. A visiting choir, the Southwell Consort, sang a magnificent Mass, and we had a guest celebrant and preacher for the evening Mass. It was a fitting celebration for a very special feast, the Feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated in the week after Corpus Christi which in turn falls in the week after Trinity Sunday. The timing is not an accident. Three Feasts of faith.Three celebrations of the mystery of our God.
The Sacred Heart is a visible reminder of the truth that The Divine love which comes to us through the humanity of Christ has its origin in the Godhead, and that Godhead is sovereign and absolute. The Son of God’s human love for us does not derive from the vagaries of affection, nor is it diluted by the self-indulgence of sadness or desire. The love which comes from the Sacred Heart is a fearless charity that has never been weakened by any of the passions. In Christ’s human soul, the human passions were certainly present, but they were entirely subject to the sway of His human reason, and both His reason and His affections were wholly subject to the will of His Father. The generous warmth which pours out of the Sacred Heart like an unstoppable fountain is a sign that real love, love free from passion, is not only possible, but is also the only true link between humanity and Godhead. A message for our times. So much confusion. That sort of love does not come naturally to us. But it does come supernaturally. It is a gift of faith; more than that, it is the living of that Christian faith.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus teaches us about the love of God; more than that, it teaches us how to love as Christians should.
The love which fills the Sacred Heart of Jesus is that uncompromising and disinterested charity to which the gospel calls, us. All of us. Consider that call, and consider our feeble response. Remember Our Lord’s words when He revealed Himself to Saint Margaret Mary Allocate: “Behold this heart which has so loved mankind, and which has received in return so much ingratitude, so much indifference.”
We can surely do no better than to turn again and again to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
That Heart calls us to reject the glittering prizes of self-fulfilment, which the world parades before us. It calls us to opt instead for the only prize that can ever really satisfy; the love of God. Christ’s Heart reminds us that we are called to rise above our transient passions, called to baptise and harness these passions in the service of righteousness, that righteousness which should characterise the people of God; a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people set apart. The Sacred Heart invites us to love humankind with the same love with which Christ Himself is on fire, not an inconstant fluttering of the affections, but a powerful and active flame which gives itself completely, and powerfully burns away all dross.
Finally, our devotion to the Sacred Heart will remind us of our destiny. Do we need reminding? Yes, we need reminding, because whether we like it or not we are part of a society which is collectively infected, infected with the idolatries of affirmation, reassurance and self-fulfilment. In a word: Pride. The Sacred Heart reminds us that our vocation is to serve none of these false gods, and yet, to those who are on the way to salvation, the Sacred Heart does offer a sort of reassurance, but a reassurance which relates not to our status and comfort in this world, but to our status and comfort in the world to come. When we contemplate the charity of the Sacred Heart, we are gazing
into our destiny; our destiny to beatitude, bliss unending, in the Lord. We shall attain beatitude not by self-fulfilment, but by self-emptying, in strict imitation of our Master.
Who on earth, with any sense, would want to be affirmed when the Sacred Heart of Jesus promises instead that we can, if we wish, be saved?
Sacred Heart 24 