June 2022

This month we commemorate the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Most of the time Jesus looks deep in thought.  Maybe he’s tired?  Or maybe he was up late with worry so he needs a nap?  You had to have noticed that, except for the Laughing Jesus (Wheatley, 1973), statues and stained-glass windows show Jesus not quite smiling.

We haven’t seen Jesus face-to-face so we can only attribute to him what we ourselves have experienced, especially as overseers of others.  Exasperation, disappointment, and resignation come to mind.  But I can never picture an unsmiling Jesus as petty and resentful— can you?  And, if he gave me the rolling eyeball, he’d most likely burst out laughing— as if to say “What were you thinking?!!” or “¡Calabaza!” (to quote mom)— instead of giving me a tongue-lashing.

So, when I think of the Sacred Heart, I imagine Jesus and Mary living life fully with Joseph, with their friends, with extended family members, with the greater community.  Together or apart, their collective heart knew no bounds.  Jesus and Mary experienced extraordinary joys and sorrows that they celebrated and endured, respectively, with great faith and love of God.

For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you.  Even as he is for your growth, so is he for your pruning.  […]  And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast (Khalil Gibran; Lanoux, “Collective heart,” June 11, 2021).

June mailing (English & Spanish)

   

   

Prayerful thoughts

Do not let the past disturb you.  Leave everything in the sacred heart of Jesus and begin again with joy (St. Teresa of Calcutta).

Having a personal relationship with Christ means that we are called to ongoing conversion.  It is a journey in which we continually grow in the Lord.  We grow in many ways: we deepen our faith; we get to know the saints and the family of believers; we become more compassionate toward the poor and the hungry; we become better fathers and mothers (Shaun McAfee, 2015).

Jesus is my all, and I desire to belong wholly to him.  It is extreme folly and delusion to look elsewhere for my true happiness (St. John Eudes).

Sacred Heart of Jesus, living and life-giving fountain of eternal life, infinite treasury of the divinity and glowing furnace of love, you are my refuge and my sanctuary.  Adorable and glorious Savior, consume my heart with that burning fire that ever inflames your heart.  Pour down on my soul those graces that flow from your love.  Let my heart be so united with yours that our wills may be one  and mine may, in all things, be conformed to yours.  May your will rule both my desires and my actions (St. Gertrude the Great adapted by St. Alphonsus Liguori).

This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father….  In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith and then, planted in love and built on love with all God’s holy people, you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14, 16-19).

“This twofold mercy abounds in the heart of the Lord Jesus— his long-suffering in waiting for the sinner and his readiness in granting pardon” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).

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Blessings 2024…  April 2024…  February 2024…  January 2024…  March 2024…

Blessings 2023…  April 2023…  August 2023…  Christ’s glory…  Christmas 2023…  December 2023…  February 2023…  Flame within…  God’s gift…  January 2023…  July 2023…  June 2023…  Love’s heart…  March 2023…  May 2023…  November 2023…  October 2023…  September 2023…

Blessings 2022…  August 2022…  December 2022…  Journey’s light…  July 2022…  Kiss of God…  May 2022…  Mourning joy…  November 2022…  October 2022…  October saints…  Presence…  September 2022…  Sight…  Sitka’s St. Michael…  St. Michael prayers