Sacred Heart

Jesus wanted to show us his heart as the heart that loved so deeply. This is why we have this commemoration today, especially of God’s love. God loved us, he loved us with such great love. I am thinking of what St Ignatius told us.... He pointed out two criteria on love. The first: love is expressed more clearly in actions than in words. The second: there is greater love in giving than in receiving.

These two criteria are like the pillars of true love: deeds, and the gift of self. The shepherd close to his flock, to his sheep that he knows one by one. The Lord loves us tenderly. The Lord knows the beautiful science of caresses — God’s tenderness. He does not love us with words. He approaches us, and in being close to us gives us his love with the deepest possible tenderness.

More difficult than loving God is letting ourselves be loved by him. Lord, I want to love you but teach me the difficult science, the difficult habit of letting myself be loved by you.... Perhaps this is what we should pray for at Mass.

07.06.13

“The Lord set his love upon you and chose you” (Dt 7:7).

God is bound to us, he chose us, and this bond is for ever, not so much because we are faithful, but because the Lord is faithful and endures our faithlessness, our indolence, our lapses.

God was not afraid to bind himself. This may seem odd to us: at times we call God “the Absolute”, which literally means “free, independent, limitless”; but in reality our Father is always and only “absolute” in love: he made the Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob for love, and so forth. He loves bonds, he creates bonds; bonds that liberate, that do not restrict.

We repeated with the Psalm that “the love of the Lord is everlasting” (cf. Ps 103[102]:17). However, another Psalm states about we men and women: “the faithful have vanished from among the sons of men” (cf. Ps 12[11]:1). Today especially, faith is a value that is in crisis because we are always prompted to seek change, supposed innovation, negotiating the foundation of our existence, of our faith. Without faithfulness at its foundation, however, a society does not move forward, it can make great technical progress, but not a progress that is integral to all that is human and to all human beings.

God’s steadfast love for his people is manifest and wholly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who, in order to honour God’s bond with his people, he made himself our slave, stripped himself of his glory and assumed the form of a servant. Out of love he did not surrender to our ingratitude, not even in the face of rejection. St Paul reminds us: “If we are faithless, he, Jesus, remains faithful for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tm 2:13). Jesus remains faithful, he never betrays us: even when we were wrong, He always waits for us to forgive us: He is the face of the merciful Father.

This love, this steadfastness of the Lord manifests the humility of His heart: Jesus did not come to conquer men like the kings and the powerful of this world, but He came to offer love with gentleness and humility. This is how He defined himself: “learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Mt 11:29). And the significance of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which we are celebrating today, is to discover ever more and to let ourselves be enfolded by the humble faithfulness and the gentleness of Christ’s love, revelation of the Father’s mercy. We can experience and savour the tenderness of this love at every stage of life: in times of joy and of sadness, in times of good health and of frailty and those of sickness.

God’s faithfulness teaches us to accept life as a circumstance of his love and he allows us to witness this love to our brothers and sisters in humble and gentle service. This is what doctors and healthcare workers in particular are called to do in this Polyclinic of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. Here, each of you brings a bit of the love of the Heart of Christ to the sick, and you do so with proficiency and professionalism. This means remaining faithful to the founding values that Fr Gemelli established as the foundation of the Italian Catholic University, to unite scientific research enlightened by faith with the education of skilled Christian professionals.

Dear brothers and sisters, in Christ we contemplate God’s faithfulness. Every act, every word of Jesus reveals the merciful and steadfast love of the Father. And so before him we ask ourselves: how is my love for my neighbour? Do I know how to be faithful? Or am I inconsistent, following my moods and impulses? Each of us can answer in our own mind. But above all we can say to the Lord: Lord Jesus, render my heart ever more like yours, full of love and faithfulness.

27.06.14

It is not us who first loved God, it's the other way around: it is He who loved us first.

The prophets used the symbol of the almond blossom to explain this reality highlighting the fact that the almond blossom is the first to bloom in spring.

God is like that: he is always first. He's the first to wait for us, the first to love us, the first to help us.

However, it is not easy to understand God's love as is narrated in the passage from today liturgical reading in which the Apostle Paul speaks of "preaching to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ.”

It is a love that cannot be understood. A love that surpasses all knowledge. It surpasses everything. The love of God is so great; a poet described it as a “bottomless sea without shores…” This is the love that we must try to understand, the love that we receive.

Throughout the history of salvation the Lord has revealed his love to us: He has been a great teacher.

God did not reveal his love through power but by loving His people, teaching them to walk, taking them in His arms, caring for them.

How does God manifest his love? With great works? No: He makes himself smaller and smaller with gestures of tenderness and goodness. He approaches His children and with his closeness He makes us understand the greatness of love.

God sent us His Son. He sent Him in the flesh and the Son humbled himself until death.

This, is the mystery of God's love: the greatest greatness expressed in the smallest smallness. This, allows us to understand Christianity.

Jesus teaches us the kind of attitude a Christian should have; it is all about carrying on God’s own work in your own small way: that is feeding the hungry, quenching the thirsty, visiting the sick and the prisoner.

Works of mercy, pave the path of love that Jesus teaches us in continuity with God’s great love for us!

We do not need great discourse on love, but men and women who know how to do these little things for Jesus, for the Father.

Our works of mercy, he said, are the continuity of this love.

08.06.18

As we commemorate with gratitude the gift of this seat of the Catholic University, I would like to share with you some thoughts in relation to its name. It is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as is this day, the first Friday of the month. Contemplating the Heart of Jesus, we can let ourselves be guided by three words: memory, passion and consolation.

Remembrance. To remember [in Italian, ricordare], means “to return to the heart, to return with the heart”. Ri-cordare. What does the Sacred Heart of Jesus make us return to? To what He did for us: the Heart of Christ shows us Jesus who offers Himself, it is the compendium of his mercy. Looking at it – like John did in the Gospel (19: 31-37), it comes naturally to us to remember his goodness, which is freely given, which can be neither bought nor sold; and unconditional, it does not depend on our actions, it is sovereign. And it is moving. In today’s haste, in the midst of a thousand errands and continuous worries, we are losing the capacity to be moved and to feel compassion, because we are losing this return to the heart, that is, this memory, this return to the heart. Without memory one loses one’s roots, and without roots, one does not grow. It is good for us to nurture the memory of who has loved us, cared for us, and lifted us up. I would like to renew today my “thanks” for the care and the affection I have received here. I believe that in this time of the pandemic it is good for us to remember even of the times we have suffered the most: not to make us sad, but so as not to forget, and to guide us in our choices in the light of a very recent past.

I wonder: how does our memory work? To simplify, we could say that we remember someone or something when it touches our heart, when it binds us to a particular affection or lack of affection. And so the Heart of Jesus heals our memory because it brings it back to the fundamental affection. It roots it on the most solid base. It reminds us that, whatever happens to us in life, we are loved. Yes, we are loved beings, children whom the Father loves always and, in any case, brothers and sisters for whom the Heart of Christ beats. Every time we peer into that Heart we discover ourselves “rooted and grounded in love”, as the Apostle Paul said in today's first reading (Eph 3:17).

Let us cultivate this memory, which is strengthened when we are face to face with the Lord, especially when we let ourselves be looked upon and loved by Him in adoration. But we can also cultivate among ourselves the art of remembering, of treasuring the faces we meet. I think of the tiring days in hospital, at university, at work. We run the risk that everything will pass without a trace, or that only fatigue and tiredness will remain. It is good for us, in the evening, to look back on the faces we have met, the smiles we have received, the good words. They are memories of love and they help our memory to find itself again: may our memory find itself again. How important these memories are in hospitals! They can give meaning to a sick person’s day. A fraternal word, a smile, a caress on the face: these are memories that heal inside, they do the heart good. Let us not forget the therapy of remembering: it does so much good!

Passion is the second word. Passion. The first is memory, remembering; the second is passion. The Heart of Christ is not a pious devotion, so as to feel a little warmth inside; it is not a tender image that arouses affection, no, it is not that. It is a passionate heart - just read the Gospel -, a heart wounded with love, torn open for us on the cross. We have heard how the Gospel speaks of it: “One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (Jn 19:34). Pierced, He gives; in death, He gives us life. The Sacred Heart is the icon of the Passion: it shows us God’s visceral tenderness, his loving passion for us, and at the same time, surmounted by the cross and surrounded by thorns, it shows us how much suffering our salvation cost. In its tenderness and pain, that Heart reveals, in short, what God’s passion is. What is it? Man, us. And what is God’s style? Closeness, compassion and tenderness. This is God’s style: closeness, compassion and tenderness.

What does this suggest? That, if we really want to love God, we must be passionate about humanity, about all humanity, especially those who live the condition in which the Heart of Jesus was manifested, that is, pain, abandonment and rejection; especially in this throwaway culture that we live in today. When we serve those who suffer we console and rejoice in the Heart of Christ. One passage in the Gospel is striking. John the Evangelist, at the very moment when he recounts the pierced side, from which blood and water flow, bears witness so that we may believe (cf. v. 35). Saint John writes, that is, that at that moment the testimony occurs. Because the piercee Heart of God is eloquent. It speaks without words, because it is mercy in its pure state, love that is wounded and gives life. It is God, with closeness, compassion and tenderness. How many words we say about God without showing love! But love speaks for itself, it does not speak of itself. Let us ask for the grace to become passionate about the man who suffers, to become passionate about service, so that the Church, before having words to say, may keep a heart that beats with love. Before speaking, may she learn to safeguard her heart in love.

The third word is comfort. The first was remembrance, the second passion, the third is consolation. It indicates a strength that does not come from us, but from those who are with us: that is where strength comes from. Jesus, the God-with-us, gives us this strength, his Heart gives us courage in adversity. So many uncertainties frighten us: in this time of the pandemic we have found ourselves to be smaller, more fragile. In spite of so many marvellous advances, this is also evident in the medical field: so many rare and unknown diseases! When I find people in the audiences - especially children - and I ask: “Are you ill?” - [they answer] “A rare disease”. There are so many of them today! How hard it is to keep up with pathologies, with treatment facilities, with healthcare that is really what it should be, for everyone. We could become discouraged. That is why we need consolation - the third word. The Heart of Jesus beats for us, always repeating those words: “Courage, courage, do not be afraid, I am here!”. Courage, sister, courage, brother, do not lose heart, the Lord your God is greater than your ills, He takes you by the hand and caresses you, He is close to you, He is compassionate, He is tender. He is your comfort.

If we look at reality from the greatness of his Heart, the perspective changes, our knowledge of life changes because, as Saint Paul reminded us, we know “the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19). Let us encourage ourselves with this certainty, with God’s comfort. And let us ask the Sacred Heart for the grace to be able to console in turn. It is a grace that must be asked for, as we courageously commit ourselves to opening up, helping one another, carrying one another’s burdens. It also applies to the future of health care, especially “Catholic” health care: sharing, supporting each other, moving forward together.

May Jesus open the hearts of those who care for the sick to collaboration and cohesion. To your Heart, Lord, we entrust our vocation to care: let us make every person who approaches us in need feel they are dear to us. Amen.

05.11.21