Jesus is God’s love song to our world: “God
sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through
him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”
Two thousand years ago God walked our planet. The historical life of Jesus is the the story of this love. We are all familiar with the story as it moves from Mary’s dwelling at Nazareth, to the cave of Bethlehem, to the hill country of Galilee, to Golgotha outside Jerusalem, to the upper room of Pentecost. In the final decades of the seventeenth century God chose to express anew God’s love for our world. This time God chose to appear in France to a Visitation nun St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690). This time Jesus appears holding a flaming heart in his outstretched hand. He seems to be inviting us to accept personally the love he is offering: “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” And he seems to be inviting us to spread knowledge of this love throughout the world. He tells Margaret Mary to make known to the Church his desire that devotion to his Sacred Heart be established through holy hours, through first Fridays and through an annual feast. She solicits her Jesuit confessor St. Claude La Colombiere to assist her. On this Feast of the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart, Jesus speaks to us: Will you embrace me? Will you allow the fire of my love to warm your heart? Will you spread knowledge of this love to your neighbor? Will you be that love for one another? Our response has enormous consequences for each of us if we want to abide in God’s heart: “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in them.” |