A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF THE SACRED HEART
We should never forget that we
are made in the image and likeness of God.
Before God created the heavens and the earth, he existed and he
loved. But if there was only God in this
otherwise empty universe of eternal nothing, how could he love to the fullest
extent? Who else was there to love but
himself? The answer is twofold. First of all, we must remember that God is
love. The perfection of love. And so it is not an imperfection for him to
love himself. Secondly, God is Trinity,
three Persons in one God. The Father
loves the Son, and the Son his Father, and the love that proceedeth from the
Father and the Son is the Holy Ghost. Father
and Son loved from all eternity, and will always love, with that perfect love
that is divine.
God’s love was so perfect that he
wanted to extend the object of his to creatures that he would make out of
nothing. Even though these creatures
would offend him, betray him, insult him with their wickedness, he so loved the
world he created that he sent his only-begotten Son to save us from ourselves. The Incarnation of this Son, when the Word
was made flesh and dwelled amongst us, is the living proof of God’s love for
us. The love that this Son of God showed
for us is beyond our abilities to grasp.
Greater love hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his
friend. And our blessed Saviour lay down
his life not only for one friend or a few dozen friends, but for every single
human being who had ever lived and who ever would live in the future. He lay down his life even for those who would
reject his love, for those who continue to blaspheme his name, who insult his
blessed Mother, who refuse his teachings and so arrogantly defy his
commandments. He lay down his life even
for his enemies. This is the love of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Today, like any other day, we are
travelers. We journey through life,
taking one step after another until we reach our goal. Because, like any journey, our life must have
a goal, a destination. If we lose sight
of that final end, we drift off course and lose our way. So it’s important to think often and
longingly of the heaven that awaits us.
And it’s important that we stay on the path of love that leads us
there. This love must emulate the love
that our Lord showed for us. It must be
a love based on sacrifice, which is true love.
We must abandon our own will and all the things we want that God would
rather we didn’t have—all those sinful desires and the appetites of our fallen
human nature, our attachments to worldly goods and so on. We must fight those temptations to seek our
own pleasures, our own interests, and make them our ultimate goal. And we must love God instead. “If ye love me, ye will obey my commandments”
and the chief of these commandments is simply to love God, to love him
with all our heart and mind and strength.
All our heart. Like the Sacred
Heart is the emblem of God’s love for us, we must make our own heart a mirror
image of the Heart of Jesus that is ready to sacrifice everything for the
object of its love.
If nothing else, we must try to
make up to the Sacred Heart the terrible offences that are committed daily
against him. We can never make
sufficient reparation for these innumerable and infinitely evil sins. He gave us so much love, and in return man treats
him with so much ingratitude, neglect and downright defiance in return. And it’s getting worse. We’re reaching a level of iniquity previously
unknown in this world, where not only do people fall into sin, but do so
willingly and defiantly, marching proudly in the streets to proclaim their
contempt for the God who so loves them that he died for them. It’s beyond our powers of comprehension, and
we are overwhelmed with grief when we think on it. And even then, our horror at the sins of
others does not prevent us from adding to it with our own failures, our own
sins and lukewarm response to the love
of the Sacred Heart. May God forgive us
for what we do to him!
The Octave of the Sacred Heart
lasts until Friday. Even after that, the
month of the Sacred Heart continues for another couple of weeks till the end of
June. Let’s not waste this opportunity
to make reparation in our own small way, through prayer and sacrifice. We owe God so much, and yet we’re prepared to
give him so little. Let’s keep the image
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in our minds and do what we can to give him just a
little of the gratitude and adoration we owe him.
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