Deep in Divine Presence

The Church recognizes today the need that we open ourselves to the overflowing of spiritual riches which are described in the texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Prophet Hosea writes of the Love of God using  examples from family life. Friar Jude Winkler reminds us that most of the writing of the prophet compares the love of God for Israel to the love of a husband for an unfaithful wife. The text today uses the example of the love of a parent for the ungrateful son. This battle of the parent who continues to support and call back the ingrate is a quality of love which is beyond that expected by society. Isaiah recognizes that the Love which is our strength and the source of the glorious deeds is in our midst, and as the prayer of Paul for the Ephesians proclaims is the mystery hidden for ages in God, becomes strength in our inner being through the Holy Spirit and Christ dwelling in our hearts. The symbol of the heart is not as complete for us, with the modern experience of the understanding of its biological role as a pump, as for the people in Jesus time. The heart centered life of course, but it also was the seat of wisdom and the origin of spiritual and physical life. The Gospel of John brings the Love described by Hosea and Isaiah to Sacrament as water and blood are signs of the Presence and the sacrifice of human life to death in testimony to the boundless desire of the Divine in be in communion with people, as Paul lived in his commission, of the whole world.