A reflection on the depth of God’s love for us, based upon the recent Solemnity of the Sacred heart of Jesus, celebrated the second Friday after Pentacost.
Newsroom (02/07/2022 11:59, Gaudium Press) Each of us has within us a heart that beats day and night and clearly discerns our own tastes and preferences. However, how different is the adorable Heart of Jesus, human and, at the same time, divine! No movement of this Heart will ever deviate from the benevolence of the Holy Trinity.
Once created, He united Himself to the designs that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit had for Him, from all eternity and for all eternity, and manifested to God the most perfect and sublime love, penetrated with respect, adoration and submission.
Unlimited love – because his human nature is hypostatically united to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity – capable of embracing infinite possible humanities to be created and that falls in profusion upon the order of the universe coming out of his hands, in particular upon the creatures that possess his same nature.
Knowing our miseries and weaknesses, He tolerates everything, compassionate, without ever diminishing His love, despite the countless occasions when we give Him cause to do so…
An open road to reach God
To become incarnate in order to remedy so many evils, God chose the peak moment of the peoples’ decadence. According to our standards, human ingratitude toward God was enough for Him to say “enough!” and abandon humanity to its own wickedness. On the contrary, moved by compassion for his creature, God wanted to become incarnate, uniting divine and human nature in the Person of the Word.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus would suffice to make our confidence unshakable, which is hope strengthened by firm conviction. The practice of this theological virtue gives us a yearning, full of certainty, that thanks to God’s benevolence – and not because of our own merits – we will one day attain the beatific vision, making use of the resources that He puts at our disposal.
It is proper for those who seek perfection to realize how insufficient their nature is and how much they need supernatural help in the practice of virtue, for Scripture says that the just man sins seven times a day (cf. Pr 24:16).
However, when we are faced with our weaknesses, let us not lose even a shred of confidence, certain that, deep down, they provide Providence with an opportunity to manifest its great mercy even more. We must abandon ourselves unreservedly into the hands of the Divine Shepherd and allow ourselves to be led as mere objects of his infinite goodness. The celebration of the Divine Heart could be called, then, the feast of unshakable trust.
Heart of Jesus, full of kindness and love
A few hours before the piercing of the Heart of Jesus by Longinus’ lance, when the Passion was about to be consummated, Our Lord addressed a plea to God: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).
Why did Jesus want to call Him Father and not Lord? It seems that the moment of divine indignation had arrived, in view of the rejection of the spotless Lamb. At that moment, He reminds the Eternal Father of His condition as Son, trying to move Him as much as His Sacred Heart was moved, and letting His desire to save even those who were martyring Him become apparent.
Now, these executioners had no idea who they were crucifying, and were obliged to nail a supposed criminal to the cross, in obedience to an order they had received. But we, when we gravely offend God, cannot claim that we do not know what we are doing, since mortal sin requires full knowledge and deliberate consent to what is done.
Father, forgive him for he knows what he is doing!
We should therefore make the firm resolution to turn our hearts to God, despite our countless miseries, by praying: “Lord, true God and true Man, standing on the Cross, your first thought was to forgive those who begged you, because they did not know what they were doing. And this desire was fulfilled: through the effect of your prayer, on the same day they opened their eyes to your divinity, as the Roman centurion attested (cf. Mt 27:54; Mk 15:39). But, Lord, they were less sinners than I am, because they did not know what they were doing, and I know what I am doing and how miserable I am. O Jesus, O Sacred Heart, how many times have I been your tormentor!”
“How many times have I been the cause of your crucifixion! This is why, on this Solemnity, I implore you: be my intercessor with the Father, now that you are seated at his right hand! Your mercy was shining brightly in the eyes of all history when You spoke this first word: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. I ask You to make it shine even brighter, imploring:
‘Father, forgive him, for he knows what he does!’ When You forgive those who know what they do, You use greater clemency than when You forgive those who do not know. Is Your Heart not boundless? Lord, here is someone who offers You the opportunity to show, more than on the Cross and on Calvary, the infinite goodness deposited by the Holy Trinity in Your Sacred Heart. Have pity on me and implore forgiveness for all my sins committed with full conscience.
This is the greatness of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart! It is the feast of mercy, of benevolence, of forgiveness! Let us implore, through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, that He enlarge our hearts, increasing their capacity to receive the immeasurable goodness of His Sacred Heart, and the grace never to distrust His generosity.
Msgr. João Scognamiglio Clá Dias
Text excerpted, with adaptations, from Heralds of the Gospel Magazine n.210, June 2019.
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