A Sunday Thought About Loving The Sacred Heart of Jesus and The Price We Pay

While June is the month devoted to the Sacred Heart, our devotion to Jesus Heart doesn't end there. The Sacred Heart isn't just a symbol or metaphor. It is literally the Heart that beats here and now in His Glorified Body. 

If we love Jesus, we understand the importance of knowing and developing an awareness and devotion to His Sacred Heart.

So on this Sunday, let's take a few moments to re-energize that devotion with these words from one of our Catholic spiritual writers:

“It is our happy privilege to be called to love the Sacred Heart. I say it is a happy privilege, for divine love is the only soul-satisfying power on earth. Human affections often fail us, and especially at times when we feel that we need them most. It seems that God has commanded creatures not to satisfy our innermost cravings for love and sympathy, our holiest and noblest aspirations, so that we may be obliged to turn to Him and to rest in Him alone.

 “If God’s love be our only goal and happiness, we must be ready to pay the price of His love. This price is the cross. The cross erected on Calvary casts its somber shadows over the wide world and invites restless humanity to come and embrace it. To love Jesus is to suffer with Him, for Him, and in Him. We must suffer in order to love the Man of Sorrows, and we must love in order to learn to suffer more.

“True lovers of the Sacred Heart have a fine understanding of the value of suffering. It is their science, their spiritual secret, and the mainspring of their ardent love. For them Christ Crucified is neither a stumbling block nor foolishness, but the power and wisdom of God. They know that, in doing well and suffering patiently, they please God; for, as St. Peter says, ‘Unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps.” (Fr. Thilges, S.V.D.)

Love of Jesus, love of His Sacred Heart comes with a price. By now we should all know that the price is the crosses we must bear. What is particularly striking in this passage is the idea that we "love in order to learn to suffer more."

And that means we want to suffer more.

Difficult? It sure seems that way to me. But don't the lives of the saints teach us that we can do this? And doesn't their example show us that the more we love, the less difficult it will be? That's one good reason to spend time learning about the saints and developing a serious personal relationship with them.

To the extent we find it difficult to understand and accept the idea of wanting to suffer more for Jesus, we can find all the help we need in the lives of the saints.

Between good spiritual writing like this, and our knowledge of and devotion to the saints, we will know what real love is all about. 

This goes for all those whom we love. With this understanding, we will find that our love for the Sacred Heart will illuminate and elevate our love for each and every one of those whom we claim we love.

A happy thought for a Sunday, no?

Happy Sunday!