June 27, 2014
Jesus calls God his Father, and God calls Jesus His Son. No one is called Father unless there is a son who calls him Father. And no one is Son unless there is a father who calls him Son. Jesus’ relationship with his Father is one of mutual self-giving and reciprocity of love – the Father giving Himself to the Son and the Son giving himself to the Father. It is a bond of unity between Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. This makes Jesus the perfect Revealer of God; “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son (Mt. 11:27; NRSV).” Jesus is the begotten Son of the Father. He comes from God and he is himself God Incarnate.
Jesus reveals to us the love of the Father through his Most Sacred Heart. Christ’s heart knows all human experiences of pain and suffering, grief and sorrow, loneliness and despair. No single experience of the human heart is alien to him. Christ, moved with his love, took all of our woundedness as his own into his heart, unto his cross. We received the gift of salvation through his pierced heart from which blood and water flowed. Through his resurrection, we were given the “Heart of Christ” – from wounded hearts to healed hearts. He marked our hearts with his own identity as Son of the Father that made us worthy sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.
However, our hearts can get challenged, jolted, and even shattered with life’s experiences such as a progressive illness, death of a spouse, breakdown of relationships, a debilitating depression, and the overwhelming burden of responsibility to take care of an aging parent. As we face these experiences, we start to depend on the strength of our hearts. And as we hold on to the strength of our hearts, we slowly let go of the Heart that is the inexhaustible source of strength.
The Heart of Jesus infuses our hearts with the grace of his strength to withstand all that is unimaginable to bear in life with our own strength alone. This is sheer gift. The greater our dependence on the Heart of Jesus, the greater our hearts can endure anything in life.
Come to think of it, Christ walks with us through the dark alleys of our life. Christ takes us by His hand to pull us out from our self-absorption. Christ takes a share in carrying the weight of the burden on our shoulders. This is the compassionate Heart of Jesus. This is how his Heart gives us strength. We just have to surrender our hearts to his Most Sacred Heart in loving response to his invitation; “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Mt. 11: 28; NRSV).”
What weighs me down today? Come to the Heart of Jesus. Beg from the Heart of Jesus for the grace of his strength. Pray to the Heart of Jesus.
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