Dear Sacred Heart and St. Mary on the Lake,
The month of June is the month of the Sacred Heart. When Jesus revealed Himself and His Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque perhaps His most famous encouragement was this: “Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love”. I love the Sacred Heart window in Sacred Heart’s sanctuary. Facing east, each morning the rising sun pours light through that Heart wreathed in fire.
Many times, when I look out over those at Mass they are bathed in warm red light from the Sacred Heart. That light is present at Sunday Masses, at Baptisms, at Funerals, at Weddings, during the silent moments when someone slides into the Church to spend a few minutes in prayer, and it shines on those gathering for Reconciliation. It is an image of what the Christian life is meant to be. Our whole life is bathed in that red glow. If we could hold onto that perspective how our lives would change.
In this light everything is meant to be, and able to be, shared with Christ. Joys are magnified when shared with Him and sorrows easier to bear in times that can be so dark a light shines forth. In this light it is easier to have patience with others and rejoice in the patience others have with us. It is easier to forgive the one who has wronged us when we see that both I and they are bathed in this same light of His Heart. In a world that can be so isolating we realize in a profound way that we are never alone.
This week take time to pray this prayer of consecration:
I give myself and consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, my person and my life, my actions, pains and sufferings, so that I may be unwilling to make use of any part of my being other than to honor, love and glorify the Sacred Heart. This is my unchanging purpose, namely, to be all His, and to do all things for the love of Him, at the same time renouncing with all my heart whatever is displeasing to Him. I therefore take You, O Sacred Heart, to be the only object of my love, the guardian of my life, my assurance of salvation, the remedy of my weakness and inconstancy, the atonement for all the faults of my life and my sure refuge at the hour of death.
Be then, O Heart of goodness, my justification before God the Father, and turn away from me the strokes of his righteous anger. O Heart of love, I put all my confidence in You, for I fear everything from my own wickedness and frailty, but I hope for all things from Your goodness and bounty.
Remove from me all that can displease You or resist Your holy will; let your pure love imprint Your image so deeply upon my heart, that I shall never be able to forget You or to be separated from You.
May I obtain from all Your loving kindness the grace of having my name written in Your Heart, for in You I desire to place all my happiness and glory, living and dying in bondage to You.
God Bless!
Fr. Todd