The Heart of Christ (2)

(continued)

III

Love is active: it is of its nature overflowing. In Jesus, love can but be for us an inexhaustible source of gifts.

In the collect for the Feast of the Sacred Heart, the Church invites us to call to mind the principal benefits that we owe to the love of Jesus Christ: Praecipua in nos caritatis ejus beneficia recolimus. This contemplation is one of the elements of devotion to the Sacred Heart. How can we pay honour to a love of which we do not know the manifestations?

This love, as we have said, is the human love of Jesus, the revelation of the uncreated love. To this uncreated love, which is common to the Father and the Holy Spirit, we owe everything. There is no gift which does nto find its most profound principle in this love. Who drew beings out of nothing? Love. We sing in the hymn for the feast (Hymn for Vespers): "The earth, the sea, the stars are the work of love":

Ille amor almus artifex

Terrae marisque et siderum.

Yet more than the creation, the Incarnation is due to love. Love caused the Word to come down from the splendours of heaven in order to assume a mortal body:

Amor coegit te tuus

Mortale corpus sumere.

But the benefits which we ought especially to recall, are the redemption through the Passion, the institution of the Sacraments, above all of the Eucharist. It is to the human love of Jesus as well as to His uncreated love that we owe them.

We have seen, in contemplating these mysteries, what deep and ardent love they manifest. Our Lord Himself has said that there is no greater act of love for a man than to give his life for his friends. He Himself has gone as far as this: many virtues shine out in His blessed Passion, but love most of all. It needed nothing less than an excess of love to plunge voluntarily into the abysses of humiliation and opprobrium, of suffering and sorrow, in each phase of the Passion.

And in the same way as love wrought our redemption, so it was love that established the sacraments whereby the fruits of the sacrifice of Jesus are to be applied to every soul of good will.

St. Augustine (Tract in Joan. 120:2) is pleased to recall the expression purposely chosen by the Evangelist concerning the wound made by the lance in the side of Jesus dead upon the Cross. The sacred writer does not say that the lance "struck", or "wounded", but that it "opened" the Saviour's side: Latus ejus aperuit (Jn. 19:34): It was the gate of life that was opened, says the great Doctor; from the pierced Heart of Jesus rivers of graces were to be poured out upon the world to sanctify the Church.

This contemplation of the benefits of Jesus towards us ought to become the source of our practical devotion to the Sacred Heart. Love alone can respond to love. Of what does our Saviour complain to St. Margaret Mary? Of the lack of love in return for His love. "Behold this Heart that has so loved men and which receives from them only ingratitude." It is then by love, by the gift of the heart that we should respond to Christ Jesus. "Who will not love in return the one Who loves him? Who being redeemed will not love his Redeemer?"

Quis non amantem redamet?

Quis non redemptis diligat? (Hymn of Lauds for the Feast of the Sacred Heart)

This love to be perfect must bear a twofold character.

There is affective love; it consists in the different feelings which move the heart towards a person loved: admiration, complacency, joy, thanksgiving. This love gives birth to praise. We rejoice in the perfections of the Heart of Jesus, we celebrate Its beauties, and grandeurs, we delight in the magnificence of Its benefits: Exultabunt labia mea cum cantavero tibi (Ps. 70:23)!

This affective love is necessary. In contemplating Christ in His love, the soul should give vent to her admiration, complacency, joy. Why so? Because we ought to love God with all our being; God wishes that our love towards Him should be conformable to our nature. Now our nature is not that of the Angels, ours is a human nature wherein the feelings have their part. Christ Jesus accepts this form of love, because it is based upon our nature, which He Himself created. See Him, at the time of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a few days before His Passion: "When He was now coming near the descent of Mount Olivet, the whole multitude of His disciples began with joy to praise God with a loud voice, for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: Blessed be the King Who cometh in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven, and glory on high! And some of the Pharisees, from amongst the multitude, said to Him: Master, rebuke Thy disciples." And what does Our Lord answer? Does He silence these acclamations? On the contrary he replies to the Pharisees: "I say to you, that if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out" (Lk. 19:37-40).

Christ Jesus is pleased with the praises that burst forth from the heart to the lips. Our love ought to break out in affections. Look at the saints. Francis, the Poor Man of Assisi, was so transported with love that he sang God's praises as he went along the roads (His Life by Jorgensen, Book 2, chap. 1). Magdalen of Pazzi ran through the cloisters of the monastery, crying out: "O Love, O Love!" (Her Life by Fr. Cepart, t. II, chap. 16). Saint Theresa was thrilled with joy every time she chanted these words of the Credo: Cujus regni non erit finis: "And of His Kingdom there shall be no end" (The Way of Perfection, chap. 23). Read her "Exclamations": you will there see how the affections of human nature burst forth in ardent praise from souls possessed by love.

Let us not fear to multiply our praises of the Heart of Jesus. The Litany of the Sacred Heart, acts of reparation and of consecration are so many expressions of this affective love, without which the human soul does not reach the perfection of its nature.

Of itself alone, this affective love is, however, insufficient. To have all its value, it must be manifested by deeds: Probatio dilectionis, exhibitio operis (S. Greg. Homil. In Evang. 30:1). "If you love Me," said Jesus Himself, "keep My commandments": Si diligitis me, mandata me servate (Jn. 14:15). It is the one touchstone. You will meet souls who abound in affections, who have the gift of tears, -----and yet do not trouble themselves to repress their bad inclinations, to destroy their bad habits, to avoid occasions of sin; who give way as soon as temptation arises, or murmur directly contradiction and disappointments befall them. With them, affective love is full of illusions; it is a fire of straw which quickly burns away into ashes.

If we truly love Christ Jesus, not only shall we rejoice in His glory, and hymn His perfections with every impulse of our soul, not only shall we be saddened at the injuries made to His Heart, and offer Him honourable amends, ----- but, above all, we shall strive to obey Him in all things, we shall accept readily all the dispositions of His Providence towards us, we shall work to extend His reign in souls, to procure His glory, we shall gladly spend ourselves, we shall go so far, if necessary, as to "be spent", according to the beautiful words of St. Paul: Libentissime impendam et superimpendar! (2 Cor. 12:15). The Apostle is speaking of charity towards our neighbours; applied to our love for Jesus, this formula wonderfully sums up the practice of devotion to His Sacred Heart.

Let us gaze on our Divine Saviour; in this as in every virtue, He is our best Model; we shall find in His Person two forms of love.

Consider the love that He bears towards His Father. Christ Jesus has in His Heart the truest affective love with which a human heart can beat. The Gospel one day shows us Christ's Heart, overflowing with enthusiasm for the Father's unfathomable perfections, burst forth in praise before His disciples." At the same hour He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost, and said: I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in Thy sight" (Lk. 10:21) . . .

See again at the Last Supper how His Sacred Heart is full of affection for His Father and how this affection is expressed in an ineffable prayer.

And so as to show the whole world the sincerity and intensity of this love, Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem (Lk. 10:21), Jesus immediately goes to the Garden of Olives where He is to enter into the long series of humiliations and sorrows of His Passion.

This twofold character is found likewise in His love towards mankind. For three days, a multitude of people follow Him, drawn by the charm of His Divine words and the splendour of His miracles. But this multitude, having nothing to eat, begins to be overcome with faintness. Jesus knows this. "I have compassion on the multitude," He says, "for behold they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat. And if I shall send them fasting to their home, they will faint in the way; for some of them came from afar off": Miseror super turbam. What a deep sense of compassion moves His human Heart! And you know how Jesus puts His pity into action: in His blessed Hands, the loaves are multiplied to satisfy the hunger of the four thousand who had followed Him (Mk. 8:2-9).

Above all, see Him at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus weeps. He sheds tears, real human tears. Can there be a more touching, a more authentic manifestation of the feelings of His Heart? And at once He puts His power into the service of His love: "Lazarus, come forth" (Jn. 11:43).

It is love that is revealed in the gift of self; love which, overflowing from the heart, takes possession of the whole being and of all its activities so as to consecrate them to the interests and glory of the beloved object.

What is to be the extent of this love that we ought to show to Jesus in return for His?

It must first of all include the essential and sovereign love which makes us regard Christ and His Will as the supreme good which we prefer to all things. Practically, this love is summed up in the state of sanctifying grace. Devotion, as we have said, means devotedness; but where is the devotedness of a soul that does not seek to safeguard within her at any price, by a watchful fidelity, the treasure of our Saviour's grace? A soul who in temptation hestitates between the will of Christ Jesus and the suggestions of His eternal enemy?

As you know, it is this love which gives to our life all its value and makes of it a perpetual homage, pleasing to Christ's Heart. Without this essential love, nothing is of any worth in God's sight. Hear in what expressive terms St. Paul has laid stress on this truth: "If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing" (Cor. 13:1-3). In other words, I cannot be pleasing to God if I have not in me this essential charity by which I attach myself to Him as to the Sovereign Good. It is too evident that there cannot be true devotion where that essential love does not exist.

Secondly, let us accustom ourselves to do all things, even the smallest, in order to please Christ Jesus. To work, to accept our pains and sufferings, to fulfil our duties of state out of love, so as to be agreeable to Our Lord, in union with the dispositions of His Heart when He lived here below like us, constitutes an excellent practice of devotion towards the Sacred Heart. All our life is thus referred to him.

It is this, moreover, that gives to our life an increase of fruitfulness. As you know, every act of virtue, of humility, of obedience, of religion, done in a state of grace possesses its own merit, its special perfection, its particular splendour: but when this act is dominated by love, it gains a new efficacy and beauty; without losing anything of its own value, the merit of an act of love is added to it. The Psalmist sings to God, "the queen stood on Thy right hand, in gilded clothing: surrounded with variety": Adstitit regina a dextris tuis in vestitu deaurato, circumdata varietate (Ps. 44:10). The queen is the faithful soul in whom Christ reigns by His grace. She stands at the King's right hand, clad in a robe woven of gold which signifies love; the various colours symbolise the different virtues; each one of them keeps its own beauty, but love, which is the deep source of these virtues, enhances their splendour.

Love thus reigns as queen in our heart directing all its movements to the glory of God and of His Son Jesus.

IV

In the same way as the Holy Spirit does not call every soul to shine in an equal manner by the same virtues, so in the matter of private devotion, He leaves them a holy liberty which we ourselves ought carefully to respect. There are souls who feel urged to honour especially the mystery of the Childhood of Jesus; others are attracted by the charms of His Hidden Life; yet others cannot turn themselves away from the meditation of the Passion.

However, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of those which should be especially dear to us. And why? Because it honours Christ Jesus not only in one of His states or particular mysteries, but in the generality and totality of His love, of that love wherein all His mysteries find their deepest meaning. Although being a clearly defined devotion, devotion to the Heart of Jesus bears something that is universal. In honouring the Heart of Christ, it is no longer to Jesus as Infant, Youth, or Victim, that our homage is especially addressed. It is on the Person of Jesus in the plenitude of His love that we especially linger.

Moreover, the general practice of this devotion tends, at the last analysis, to render to Our Lord love for love: Movet nos ad amandum mutuo (Leon XIII, I, c); to penetrate all our activity with love in order to please Christ Jesus. The special exercises of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus are but so many means of expressing to our Divine Master this reciprocity of love.

Herein is a very precious effect of this devotion. For all Christian religion is summed up in the giving of ourselves, out of love, to Christ, and, through Him, to the Father and their common Spirit. This point is of capital imprtance, and I want, before ending this conference, to consider it with you for some moments.

It is a truth, confirmed by the experience of souls, that our spiritual life depends, in great part, on the idea that we habitually have of God.

Between us and God there are fundamental relations, based upon our nature as creatures; there exist moral relations resulting from our attitude towards Him; and this attitude is, most often, conditioned by the idea that we have of God.

If we form a false idea of God, our efforts to advance will often be vain and barren, because they will not be to the point; if we have an incomplete idea of Him, our spiritual life will be full of imperfections and shortcomings; if our idea of God is true, -----as true as is possible here below to a creature living by faith, -----our souls will expand safely in the light.

This habitual idea that we form of God is the key to our inner life, not only because it rules our conduct towards Him, but also because, in many cases, it determines God's attitude towards us: God treats us as we treat Him.

But, you will say, does not sanctifying grace make us God's children? Certainly it does; however, in practice, there are souls that do not act as the adopted children of the Eternal Father. It would seem as if their condition of chlidren of God had only a nominal value for them; they do not understand that it is a fundamental state which requires to be constantly manifested by acts corresponding to it, and that all spiritual light ought to be the development of the spirit of Divine adoption, the spirit we receive at baptism through the virtue of Christ Jesus.

Thus, you may meet with some who habitually consider God as the Israelites regarded Him. God revealed Himself to the Israelites amidst the thunders and lightnings of Sinai (Exodus 19:16 sq.). For this "stiff-necked people" (Deut. 31:27), inclined to infidelity and idolatry, God was only a Lord Who must be adored, a Master Who must be served, a Judge Who must be feared. The Israelites had received, as St. Paul says, "the spirit of bondage in fear": Spiritum sevitutis in timore (Rom. 8:15). God appeared to them only in the splendour of His Majesty and the sovereignty of His power. You know that He treated them with rigorous justice: the earth opened to swallow up the guilty Hebrews (Num 16:32); those who touched the ark of the covenant when their functions did not give them the right to do so were struck dead (2 Reg. 6, 6-7). Poisonous serpents destroyed the murmurers (Num. 21:5-6); scarcely dared they pronounce the name of Jehovah; once a year, the High Priest entered alone, in awe and trembling, into the Holy of Holies, armed with the blood of the victims immolated for sin (Levit. 16: 11 sq.). This was "the spirit of bondage."

There are souls that habitually live only in dispositions of purely servile fear; if they were not afraid of God's chastisement, they would not mind offending Him. They habitually regard God only as a master, and do not seek to please Him. They are like those servants Christ Jesus speaks of in the parable. A King, before going into a far country, calls his servants and confides to them some talents-----pieces of money-----hich they are to trade with until his return. One of the servants lays up his talent in safety, keeping it without turning it to account. He says to the King on his return: "Lord, behold here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin. For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man; thou takest up what thou didst not lay down, and thou reapest that which thou didst not sow." And what does the King answer? He takes the negligent servant at his word. "Out of thy own mouth I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man . . . hy then didst thou not give my money into the bank?" And the King commands that the money which had been given to the servant should be taken away from him (Lk. 19:12-13, 20-24).

Such souls act with God only at a distance, they treat with Him only as with a great Lord, and God treats them in consequence according to this attitude. He does not give Himself fully to them; between them and God, personal intimacy cannot exist; in them, inward expansion is impossible.

Other souls, more numerous perhaps, habitually regard God as a great benefactor; they act as a rule only in view of the reward: Proper retributionem (Ps. 118:112). This working in view of the recompense is not a false idea. We see Christ Jesus compare His Father to a Master who rewards,----- and with what magnificent liberality!----- the faithful servant: "Enter into the joy of thy Lord" (Mt. 25:21). He Himself tells us that He ascends into Heaven to prepare a place for us (Jn. 14:2).

But when, as happens with certain souls, this attitude is habitual to the point of becoming exclusive, besides being wanting in nobility, it does not fully respond to the spirit of the Gospel. Hope is a Christian virtue, it powerfully sustains the soul in the midst of adversity, trial and temptation; but it is not the most perfect of the theological virtues, which are the specific virtues of our condition as childrne of God. Which is then the most perfect virtue? Which is the one who carries the palm? It is, replies St. Paul, charity: Nunc manent fides, spes, caritas, tria haec: major auiem horum est caritas (1 Cor. 13:13).