“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.”
All sorts of things cause us sorrow: the loss of a loved one, dryness in prayer, an excessively long homily, persecution, global apostasy. Often enough sadness leads to isolation and hence loneliness, to a deadening of the heart and hence insensitivity, to an emptiness of mind and heaviness of limbs. St. Thomas says that sorrow is the most harmful passion we undergo.
But the underlying cause of sorrow is that we first love something or someone. That person is good; his presence is good; his friendship is good. Bodily health is good; sharpness of mind is good; the Christian faith is good. These we love, sometimes with unbelievable intensity. Having them brings us joy; losing them brings us sorrow. And that unbelievable intensity of love can be almost more than we can stand. If our hearts are frozen, love melts them, sometimes to the point where the breast hurts, the heart aches as if to burst.
The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is that of a heart not only crowned with thorns, topped by a cross surrounded by flame. That heart is also pierced and bleeding, pierced by the lance of our indifference and contempt, bleeding with that uncontrollable intensity of love. If any heart was going to burst from love, it was His. The lance was doing Him a favor to relieve the pressure.
The Litany of the Sacred Heart tells us that Christ’s heart was pierced by a lance, that it is the source of all consolation. Consolation from a friend is a most human remedy for sorrow. Not only does a friend share the burden of sorrow that depresses us, but his grieving with us shows his love for us, and experiencing that love is a consolation.
There is no sorrow we can feel that the Sacred Heart does not want to alleviate for us. With Him we are never alone. He wants to fill our minds and give vim to our limbs. Depictions of the Sacred Heart always have Christ looking out at the viewer while pointing to His Heart, so that we can know without fail that our sorrow is His out of love for us.
“What lover would not return love for being so loved?” Asks the hymn at Office today. If He would condole with us out of friendship, so also should we in return. Still He is mocked, still is He maligned, still is He blasphemed. And yet still He loves His persecutors and bleeds from His heart for them. Nothing can turn their hearts from destruction if not the love of His Heart.
We all know how the forces of Satan have turned this month dedicated to the meek and humble Sacred Heart into a month to celebrate infernal pride and the unnatural vice. This very day they will vaunt their deviance and publicly mock what is holy. There is nothing so powerful we can offer the eternal Father in reparation for this public blasphemy and sacrilege as the Heart that cried out, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
