489. The Sacred Heart of Jesus (II)

Meditations no. 232 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Christ’s wounded Heart invites us to make atonement.

On this feast the Church invites us to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s love. While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man -though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For, if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.

God’s infinite love for mankind has been shown to us in Jesus Christ. It is a measureless love, that led him to give his life for us, to full, total self-giving, in order to save us from our sins. On this feast day the Church makes us consider Christ’s redeeming love, and wants us to contemplate him on the Cross, dying out of love, giving the very last drop of his blood. When they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. St John, who describes the scene, insists, as though to convince us of the reality of Christ’s sacrifice: He who saw it has borne witness - his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth - that you also may believe. And he recalls the verse from Scripture: They shall look on him whom they have pierced.

Our Lord, in his infinite desire for atonement, has given us all that he had: in his dead body there is nothing more to give; he has suffered everything for love of us. He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not … But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

Our Father invites us to consider it: Foolish child, look: he has suffered all this for you - and for me. Can you keep from crying? And we, our souls rent with sorrow, say to Jesus in all sincerity: I am yours, I give myself entirely to you. Joyfully will I allow myself to be nailed to the Cross, ready to be, at all the crossroads of the world, a soul dedicated to you, to your glory, to the redemption, the co-redemption of the whole human race.

Reasons for making atonement.

Thus says the Lord: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son … It was I who taught Ephraem to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them … My heart recoils within me.

We cannot be left indifferent by this loving lament. We are only too keenly aware of the sins in our lives, and of our daily faults, and of the offences of all mankind too. And our Lord is still telling us from the Cross, I thirst. Seeing him like that, we can meditate with our Father on how the irresponsibility of so many men and women, who make no effort to avoid deliberate venial sins, pains our Lord very much. It’s normal, they think, and they seek to excuse themselves by saying that we all fall at those stumbling blocks!

Our Father goes on to say: Listen carefully: most of that mob, which condemned Christ and put him to death, also began by shouting - just as the others did -by going to the Garden of Olives - just like the rest of them.

In the end, still carried along by what “everyone” was doing, they did not know how to draw back or did not want to… , and they crucified Jesus!

Now, after twenty centuries, we still have not learned.

We have many reasons for making atonement, many things to offer reparation for. In the first place there are the failures in our own dedication, and our hard-heartedness when it comes to giving ourselves. You see my desires, says St Bernard; your gaze penetrates the deepest designs of my heart. Had I any wisdom, well do you know that I would use it in the service of none but you. But, O God, how well you know me in my errors and all my need. Humble contrition for our failings, and reparation on top of that for the sins of all mankind, which have left the Heart of Jesus forsaken. We want to offer our life, our Father says, our unstinting dedication, in expiation for our own sins; for the sins of all men, our brothers; for the sins committed at all times, and for those that will be committed until the end of time. Above all, for the Catholics, for God’s chosen ones who do not respond, those who betray the special love God our Lord has bestowed on them.

To be second to none in loving; to win all souls for Christ; to offer abundant reparation for the offences committed against the most Sacred Heart of Jesus: these are our ambitions.

Love and atonement: self-giving in sacrifice.

O God, you have made your Son’s Heart, which was wounded by our sins, a treasury of limitless grace and love. Grant that we may pay full honour and reparation to him by the homage of love we offer you. We offer this homage above all through our piety and love as God’s children. Our Father taught us to give our human hearts to Jesus on the Cross, in deep, steadfast piety. Enter into the wounds of Christ Crucified. Unite yourself to Christ, so as to be purified, and feel, with him, the insults, and the spitting, and the blows… and the thorns, and the weight of the cross… , and the iron nails tearing your flesh, and the anguish of a forsaken death… And enter into our Lord Jesus’ open side until you find sure refuge in his wounded Heart.

In this way, in union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we will make our whole life into an offering, an act of atonement. Our total dedication to God is in itself reparation for our own sins and for those of all humanity; but our self-giving has always to be irradiated by love. We must never forsake Jesus, but keep close to his Heart constantly, and rejoice in suffering. In the Work all the means are provided, including acts of atonement as a Norm for always. These are the expression of a love that is hurt at seeing such offence done to its Love, and asks for forgiveness, and shares in his suffering. And when we find that our heart is slackening off through weakness, we feel in the depth of our soul, like the Apostles who fell asleep in the Garden of Olives, the loving reproach: Could you not watch with me one hour? Our heart is stirred once more to give itself entirely and not look for any human consolation.

And let’s have no victim mentality, our Father warns us. There is only one Victim: Christ our Lord on the Cross. Compared with what Jesus suffered, any sacrifice of ours pales into insignificance. St Bernard exclaims: What toil and suffering my Saviour underwent in order to ransom me! The things he said were contradicted; his deeds were criticized and made the subject of lies; in his death he became the target for fierce mockery and vicious taunts. He suffered all this out of the great love he bore me.

Mary, who is Co-Redemptrix, whose own heart was pierced by a sword, and who stood at the foot of her Son’s Cross, will help us to keep close to the Heart of Jesus and to offer him continual reparation: especially when we see how greatly people offend him, and when, through our own fault, we ourselves fail to keep watch.