The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, challenge us to attend to the image of Christ and the prompting of the Spirit to grow in Love for all Creation.
The text from the Book of Deuteronomy declares Israel as His treasured possession.
Psalm 103 offers thanksgiving for God’s Goodness.
* [Psalm 103] The speaker in this hymn begins by praising God for personal benefits (Ps 103:1–5), then moves on to God’s mercy toward all the people (Ps 103:6–18). Even sin cannot destroy that mercy (Ps 103:11–13), for the eternal God is well aware of the people’s human fragility (Ps 103:14–18). The psalmist invites the heavenly beings to join in praise (Ps 103:19–22). (Psalms, PSALM 103, n.d.)
The First Letter of John declares God Is Love.
* [4:7–12] Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives. One who loves shows that one is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very being is love; one without love is without God. The revelation of the nature of God’s love is found in the free gift of his Son to us, so that we may share life with God and be delivered from our sins. The love we have for one another must be of the same sort: authentic, merciful; this unique Christian love is our proof that we know God and can “see” the invisible God.
* [4:13–21] The testimony of the Spirit and that of faith join the testimony of love to confirm our knowledge of God. Our love is grounded in the confession of Jesus as the Son of God and the example of God’s love for us. Christian life is founded on the knowledge of God as love and on his continuing presence that relieves us from fear of judgment (1 Jn 4:16–18). What Christ is gives us confidence, even as we live and love in this world. Yet Christian love is not abstract but lived in the concrete manner of love for one another. (1 John, CHAPTER 4, n.d.)
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus thanks His Father and offers the Gentle Mastery of Christ.
* [11:25–27] This Q saying, identical with Lk 10:21–22 except for minor variations, introduces a joyous note into this section, so dominated by the theme of unbelief. While the wise and the learned, the scribes and Pharisees, have rejected Jesus’ preaching and the significance of his mighty deeds, the childlike have accepted them. Acceptance depends upon the Father’s revelation, but this is granted to those who are open to receive it and refused to the arrogant. Jesus can speak of all mysteries because he is the Son and there is perfect reciprocity of knowledge between him and the Father; what has been handed over to him is revealed only to those whom he wishes.
* [11:28–29] These verses are peculiar to Matthew and are similar to Ben Sirach’s invitation to learn wisdom and submit to her yoke (Sir 51:23, 26).
* [11:28] Who labor and are burdened: burdened by the law as expounded by the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 23:4).
* [11:29] In place of the yoke of the law, complicated by scribal interpretation, Jesus invites the burdened to take the yoke of obedience to his word, under which they will find rest; cf. Jer 6:16. (Matthew, CHAPTER 11, n.d.)
Ed Morse comments that today’s gospel provides encouragement for those undertaking these challenges of love and obedience, but not so much for those who choose to elevate their own wisdom and learning. Self-sufficiency leads to alienation. But our Lord beckons those who recognize their need to come and have a relationship with Him, receiving His mercy, love, and friendship. Because he is “meek and humble of heart”, he calls us gently. But he alone is strong enough to free us from the wayward desires that can enslave us.
Lord, let us look soberly at the way we are living. Help us to examine our pretentions to the non-existent, which we sometimes embrace because we look away at the sight of the truth. Give us faith and courage to leave behind the false bulwarks that we think protect us, but instead separate us from your love and mercy. Help us to respond to your gentle call. Thanks be to God. (Morse, 2023)
Don Schwager quotes “The grace of Christ bears us up,” from an anonymous early Christian teacher.
"'My yoke is easy and my burden light'... The prophet says this about the burden of sinners: 'Because my iniquities lie on top of my head, so they have also placed a heavy burden on me' (Psalm 38:4)... 'Place my yoke upon you, and learn from me that I am gentle and humble of heart.' Oh, what a very pleasing weight that strengthens even more those who carry it! For the weight of earthly masters gradually destroys the strength of their servants, but the weight of Christ rather helps the one who bears it, because we do not bear grace; grace bears us. It is not for us to help grace, but rather grace has been given to aid us." (excerpt from the INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW, HOMILY 29: PG 56:780) (Schwager, n.d.)
James Hanvey SJ, Master of Campion Hall, University of Oxford.explains that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus will always be central to the life of the Church and why it is the foundation of our intimacy with Christ.
Here is the meaning of reparation: when we become servants of this love in our families, communities and our world, we become ministers of compassion and agents of healing. We want to return this love; to make amends for what we or others have broken. This is not guilt but recognition and gratitude. The Sacred Heart of Jesus opens the eyes of our hearts. Just as we cannot make Christ into a faceless abstraction so we cannot make anyone we love into a faceless project. We do not see a problem or a threat but only a person, a history; we cannot read a statistic without realising that it is also a story, a life: not a someone or somebody that could be anyone or anybody, but this person who has a name given to him or her by a father, a mother or someone who loved them from the very beginning of their life and did not wish them to be invisible and unknown. Out of this personal relationship and resistance to the impersonal, the work of reparation begins: whatever is broken we can work to repair; whatever is lost, we can go in search of. Whoever feels humiliated and despised, we can esteem and restore. Whoever is abandoned, used and abused, we can work to bring into the heart of the community with justice and compassion. We can speak the name of those who are forgotten, whose lives are counted as without value, and write their stories in the book of life. (Hanvey, 2016)
Friar Jude Winkler describes how God loved Israel in the rescue from the Pharaoh in the text from Deuteronomy. The letter of John defines love as a choice to live and die for the other. Friar Jude reminds us that the Marian apparitions mostly involve simple trusting people and the yoke that Jesus offers is shared with Him.
Brian McLaren reminds us that our work and collaboration honors the One Reality that makes up our lives. It’s not that religion is holy and the secular is profane. It’s that both religion and the secular can be holy, and both can be desecrated. Ultimately, the religious and the secular are not two things, but one: life.
Our work is to stop the desecration of life in both its religious and secular dimensions … and to restore both the religious and secular to a creative dynamism that deserves and inspires appropriate reverence. Because business can be truly holy work; in fact, some of the most important spiritual breakthroughs in the world today are happening through people in the world of business. Politics and governance can be holy work; in fact, some of the greatest saints and prophets today are brave activists and political leaders.
Entertainment and education can be holy work; in fact, artists, entertainers, teachers, and scholars are filling the spiritual void left by religious leaders who have painted themselves into any number of theological corners. Science and tech can be holy work; in fact, surprising numbers of researchers and inventors are driven by curiosity and love so powerful they invite the adjective divine. Yes, even religion can be holy work, though so often it has disappointed us. Every dimension and vocation of life can be holy, even though they often are not….
Those of us who stay Christian must start this truly urgent but also un-rushable work in our own household. What we don’t redeem, what we don’t acknowledge and learn from, will haunt us until we do…. We can join with our counterparts in other traditions—including secular traditions and institutions—to become collaborators in a civilization-wide spring cleaning, preparing our species for the new beginning we all need if we are to survive on this beautiful, fragile planet. If we don’t learn to re-consecrate everything as holy and spiritual, we will desecrate everything. [1] (McLaren, 2023)
We are invited to be joined to Christ in our kenosis and transformation to deeper loving relationships.
References
Deuteronomy, CHAPTER 7. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/7?6
Hanvey, J. (2016, November 4). Alive with love: the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Thinking Faith. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/alive-love-sacred-heart-jesus
Matthew, CHAPTER 11. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/11?25
McLaren, B. (2023, June 16). Reconsecrating Our Lives — Center for Action and Contemplation. Daily Meditations Archive: 2023. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/reconsecrating-our-lives-2023-06-16/
Morse, E. (2023, June 16). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/061623.html
1 John, CHAPTER 4. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1john/4?7
Psalms, PSALM 103. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/103?1
Schwager, D. (n.d.). Heavenly Things Revealed to Infants. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2023&date=jun16a
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