SINCE Jesus Christ desires to be loved unceasingly by man, He must show him unceasing love; and as God, in order overcome and conquer our hearts, had to become a man whom we could feel and touch, in order to make His conquest secure, He must continue to make man feel a sensible humanized love. The law of love is perpetual, and so also must be the grace of it. This sun of love must never set on the heart of man; if it does, a chill will settle on man's heart, and the coldness of death and of neglect will kill it. The human heart gives itself only to life and unites itself only to an actual love which is felt and which furnishes actual proofs of its reality.
Well all the love of the Saviour in His mortal life, His love as a child in the Crib, His zealous love as an apostle of His Father in His preaching, His love as a Victim on the Cross, all these loves are gathered together and are triumphant in His Heart, glorious and living in the Blessed Sacrament. That is where we should seek this Heart and nourish ourselves with its love. It is also in heaven, but for the angels and saints. It is in the Eucharist for us. Our devotion to the Sacred Heart must therefore be Eucharistic; it must concentrate in the divine Eucharist as in the only personal and living centre of the love and graces of the Sacred Heart for men.
Why separate the Heart of Jesus from His body and divinity? Is it not through His heart that He lives in the Blessed Sacrament, and that His body is alive and animated? Having risen from the dead Jesus dies no more; why separate His Heart from His Person and try to make Him die, so to speak, in our mind? No, no! This divine Heart is living and palpitating in the Eucharist, no longer of a passable and mortal life, subject to sadness, agony, and pain, but a life risen and consummated in blessedness. This impossibility to suffer and die diminishes in no way the reality of His life; on the contrary, it makes that life more perfect. God has never known death, and still He is the source of perfect and eternal life.
The Heart of Jesus therefore lives in the Eucharist, since His body is alive there. It is true that we can neither feel nor see that divine Heart, but things are pretty much the same for all men. This principle of life must be mysterious and veiled; to uncover it would kill it. We can conclude to its existence only from the effects it produces. A man does not ask to see the heart of a friend; one word is enough to tell him of its love. But how will the divine Heart of Jesus make itself known? It manifests itself to us by the sentiments with which it inspires us; that should suffice. Besides, who could contemplate the beauty and the goodness of this divine Heart? Who could stand the brightness of its glory, the consuming and devouring flames of this fire of love? Who would dare look at this divine Ark, on which is written its gospel of love in letters of fire; in which all its virtues are glorified; in which its love has its throne, and its goodness all its treasures? Who would want to penetrate into the very sanctuary of the Godhead? The Heart of Jesus! Why, it is the heaven of heavens, in which God Himself dwells and finds His delights!
No! We do not see the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus! But we possess it; it is ours!
Do you want to know what is its life? It is divided between the Father and us.
This Heart watches over us; while our Saviour, enclosed in the frail Host, seems wrapped in impotent sleep, His Heart remains awake. Ego dormio, et Cor meum vigilat. "I sleep, and My Heart watcheth." It watches over us whether we think of it or not; it knows no rest; it pleads with the Father to forgive us. Jesus shields us with His Heart and wards off the blows of the divine wrath provoked by our repeated offences. His Heart is there, as on the Cross, opened and letting flow upon our heads torrents of grace and love.
It is there to defend us against our enemies, just as a mother to save her child from danger presses it to her heart so that one can not strike the child unless he strike the mother first. “And even is a mother could forget her child,” Jesus tells us, “I will never forsake you.”
The other concern of the Heart of Jesus is for His Father. He adores His Father through His unspeakable humiliations, through His adoration of self-abasement; He praises Him and thanks Him for the blessings He bestows upon men, His brothers; He offers Himself as a Victim to the Justice of His Father; He prays incessantly for the Church, for sinners, and for all the souls He has redeemed.
O God the Father, look down with complacency on the Heart of thy Son Jesus! See His love, listen to His prayers, and may the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus be our salvation!
Continued......
Well all the love of the Saviour in His mortal life, His love as a child in the Crib, His zealous love as an apostle of His Father in His preaching, His love as a Victim on the Cross, all these loves are gathered together and are triumphant in His Heart, glorious and living in the Blessed Sacrament. That is where we should seek this Heart and nourish ourselves with its love. It is also in heaven, but for the angels and saints. It is in the Eucharist for us. Our devotion to the Sacred Heart must therefore be Eucharistic; it must concentrate in the divine Eucharist as in the only personal and living centre of the love and graces of the Sacred Heart for men.
Why separate the Heart of Jesus from His body and divinity? Is it not through His heart that He lives in the Blessed Sacrament, and that His body is alive and animated? Having risen from the dead Jesus dies no more; why separate His Heart from His Person and try to make Him die, so to speak, in our mind? No, no! This divine Heart is living and palpitating in the Eucharist, no longer of a passable and mortal life, subject to sadness, agony, and pain, but a life risen and consummated in blessedness. This impossibility to suffer and die diminishes in no way the reality of His life; on the contrary, it makes that life more perfect. God has never known death, and still He is the source of perfect and eternal life.
The Heart of Jesus therefore lives in the Eucharist, since His body is alive there. It is true that we can neither feel nor see that divine Heart, but things are pretty much the same for all men. This principle of life must be mysterious and veiled; to uncover it would kill it. We can conclude to its existence only from the effects it produces. A man does not ask to see the heart of a friend; one word is enough to tell him of its love. But how will the divine Heart of Jesus make itself known? It manifests itself to us by the sentiments with which it inspires us; that should suffice. Besides, who could contemplate the beauty and the goodness of this divine Heart? Who could stand the brightness of its glory, the consuming and devouring flames of this fire of love? Who would dare look at this divine Ark, on which is written its gospel of love in letters of fire; in which all its virtues are glorified; in which its love has its throne, and its goodness all its treasures? Who would want to penetrate into the very sanctuary of the Godhead? The Heart of Jesus! Why, it is the heaven of heavens, in which God Himself dwells and finds His delights!
No! We do not see the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus! But we possess it; it is ours!
Do you want to know what is its life? It is divided between the Father and us.
This Heart watches over us; while our Saviour, enclosed in the frail Host, seems wrapped in impotent sleep, His Heart remains awake. Ego dormio, et Cor meum vigilat. "I sleep, and My Heart watcheth." It watches over us whether we think of it or not; it knows no rest; it pleads with the Father to forgive us. Jesus shields us with His Heart and wards off the blows of the divine wrath provoked by our repeated offences. His Heart is there, as on the Cross, opened and letting flow upon our heads torrents of grace and love.
It is there to defend us against our enemies, just as a mother to save her child from danger presses it to her heart so that one can not strike the child unless he strike the mother first. “And even is a mother could forget her child,” Jesus tells us, “I will never forsake you.”
The other concern of the Heart of Jesus is for His Father. He adores His Father through His unspeakable humiliations, through His adoration of self-abasement; He praises Him and thanks Him for the blessings He bestows upon men, His brothers; He offers Himself as a Victim to the Justice of His Father; He prays incessantly for the Church, for sinners, and for all the souls He has redeemed.
O God the Father, look down with complacency on the Heart of thy Son Jesus! See His love, listen to His prayers, and may the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus be our salvation!
Continued......
