June 16, 2023
Friday after Corpus Christi, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
June 16, 2023
Dt 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4, 8, 10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30
How often, when you are lying there, do you hear your heartbeat? I don’t know about you, but I often do. And when I do, and I am trying to sleep, I think to myself, “Be quiet, I’m trying to sleep!” But if that would happen, I would be dead. I guess not the worst thing in the world for me, but for those I would leave behind, it would be devastating. So, I lay there thinking, how good it is that I have a heart that beats, one that loves, and keeps me going. How fitting it is that we think of these things today on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our heart has always been the “center” or essence of us being a person. Our heart is the bountiful origin of our emotional lives and the love we have to offer. So is it also with Jesus’ heart, the One who gave everything for the love of us. His heart has an endless, burning love for us, as long as we turn to Him to receive it.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus began in the early 11th century. No one is quite sure exactly when or where it started, but there is evidence of worship and devotion to the “wounds of Jesus” from which the Sacred Heart emerged. Until the 16th century, devotion to the Sacred Heart was sporadic, but in the 16th century, several mystics received apparitions and words from the Lord to meditate on the Sacred Heart. One in particular, Margaret Mary Alacoque, a nun from the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary in France, received multiple apparitions of Jesus. In one such apparition, she was given a vision of what the Sacred Heart would look like. And during another apparition, Jesus instructed her to spread a devotion of expiatory Love: Frequent reception of Holy Communion, and an observance of a Holy Hour, especially on the first Friday of the month. In a later apparition, Jesus asked for a feast day to be celebrated on the Friday after Corpus Christi. The feast day began in cloistered communities and the first worldwide feast day of the Sacred Heart took place on June 11, 1899, after being commissioned by Pope Leo XIII. (13th).
Margaret Mary Alacoque also said that in these apparitions, 12 promises or blessings would occur when one meditates on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
They are:
- I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.
- I will give peace in their families.
- I will console them in all their troubles.
- I will be their refuge in life and especially in death.
- I will abundantly bless all their undertakings.
- Sinners shall find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
- Tepid souls shall become fervent.
- Fervent souls shall rise speedily to great perfection.
- I will bless those places wherein the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and venerated.
- I will give to priests the power to touch the most hardened hearts.
- Persons who propagate this devotion shall have their names eternally written in my Heart.
- In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.
So, the next time you hear your heart beating, know that it is not just your heart, but Jesus’ heart beating in you as well. As Jesus says in the Gospel today: “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Spend some time gazing on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, receive the rest He has offered, and you, too, will receive the blessings and promises Margaret Mary Alacoque said would occur.
Saint James Catholic Church 