Suy Niệm Tin Mừng lễ Kính Thánh Tâm cực Thánh Chúa Giêsu,

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng lễ Kính Thánh Tâm cực Thánh Chúa Giêsu,

Hôm nay chúng ta mừng kính trọng thể Trái Tim cực Thánh (Thánh Tâm) Chúa Giêsu. Trong Đại lễ mừng kính Trái Tim (Thánh Tâm) cực Thánh Chúa Giêsu, chúng ta cử hành việc kính nhớ đến thân xác con người của Đấng Cứu Rỗi của chúng ta. Trái tim thật xứng đáng là một biểu tượng của toàn thể thân xác con người. Đó là trung tâm của cơ thể, và nhịp tim là bằng chứng về sự sống của thân xác con người. Trong lễ Thánh Tâm, chúng ta thờ kính những bộ phận thực tế trong thân xác của Đấng Cứu Rỗi chúng ta, Con Tim đã đập ngay từ lúc thân xác được hình thành trong cung lòng của Đức Maria, Trái tim luôm đập đều đạn trong khi ngài đã rao giảng về sự tha thứ và chữa lành những người đau bệnh, Trái tim dừng đập ngay trên Thập giá, Trái Tim đã bị đạm xuyên qua bởi lưỡi đơơòng của tên lính dữ, và Trái Tim ấy lại bắt đầu đập lại một lần nữa ngaỳ lúc Ngài Phục Sinh, và vẫn còn đập đến hôm nay, đập trong thân xác đang ngự ngay bên hữu Đức Chúa Cha.

Hơn nữa, lòng sùng kính Thánh Tâm Chúa Giêsu là sự tận tâm với tình yêu của Chúa Giêsu, tình yêu gấp đôi của Chúa Giêsu: tình yêu Thiên Chúa và tình yêu con người của Ngài. Thánh Tâm Chúa Giêsu là sự tượng trưng cho tình yêu của Thiên Chúa vì Ngài đã tác tạo ra thế giới và cứu chuộc một thế giới con người sa ngã, nhưng Trái Tim này cũng thể hiện tình yêu thương trọn vẹn mà Chúa Giêsu đã dành cho con người, sự đau khổ, Ngài dành cho các môn đệ, đặc biệt cho người " môn đệ Chúa Giêsu yêu. "Thánh Tâm Chúa Giêsu yêu không chỉ với tình yêu của Thiên Chúa, nhưng cũng là trái tim của một con người hoàn hảo, biết yêu trong mối quan hệ tình cảm như mọi người.

Với tình yêu, trong bản tính con người và thiên chúa, biểu tượng Thánh Tâm Chúa Giêsu là một tình yêu vô biên, cho không, Tình yêu cho di mà không được đáp lại. Qua lịch sử loài người, Thiên Chúa đã yêu thương con người với một tình yêu vĩnh cửu, nhưng con người đã vô ơn, không màng để ý tới mà còn xúc phạm đến tình yêu này. Điển hình là những phản ứng đáp trả lại của con người chúng ta đối với tình yêu của Thánh Tâm Chúa Giêsu la những ngọn đòng, những con dao nhọn đâm xuyên qua trái Tin Ngài bằng những bạo lực, những vđàn áp những người yếu thế cô đơn. Như chúng ta đã không đáp trả lại tính yêu của Thiên Chúa cho được xứng đáng mà còn cố gắng để tiêu diệt tình yêu của Thiên Chúa. Tuy nhiên, thay vì ngọn đòng đã hủy Thánh Tâm Chúa Giêsu, thì Trái Tim Chúa Giêsu lại được mở rộng to hơn nữa, và tuôn trào ra máu và nước trong những biểu tượng cuối cùng của món quà hoàn chỉnh.

Hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu mời gọi chúng ta hãy cố học hỏi nơi Ngài, vì Ngài hiền lành và khiêm nhường trong lòng. Chúng ta hãy từ tốn đón nhận lời mời gọi quảng đại này. Nếu chúng ta nghĩ rằng chúng ta biết tất cả mọi thứ hoặc chúng ta có đủ kiến thức và sự khôn ngoan , nhưng chúng ta chưa biết và hiểu được rõ về tình yêu của Chúa Kitô, thí chính chúng ta đang nhầm lẫn. Chúng ta sẽ thực sự khôn ngoan khi chúng ta làm chủ tình yêu: tình yêu Thiên Chúa dành cho chúng ta, tình yêu chúng ta dành cho Chúa trở lại, tình yêu Thiên Chúa dành cho tất cả mọi người khác, tình yêu chúng ta dành cho tất cả những người mà Thiên Chúa yêu thương. Tất cả tình yêu này là một tình yêu. "Nơi điều này mà thực là lòng mến:là không phải vì ta đã yêu mến Thiên Chúa, nhưng là chính Người đã yêu mến ta, và sai Con của Người đến làm hi sinh đền tạ tội lỗi ta." (1Jm 4:10) Chúng ta sẽ không làm chủ được tình yêu cho đến khi nào nhịp đập của trái tim của chúng ta hoà nhập một cách hoàn hảo với nhịp đập của Thánh Tâm Chúa. Lạy Chúa Giêsu, Chúa đã hiền lành và khiêm nhường trong lòng, Xin làm cho trái tim của chúng con được trở nên giống như Thánh Tâm của Chúa

The Solemnity of the Feast of the Sacred Heart,

Friday after Copus Christi Sunday

If we think that we know anything or have a certain amount of wisdom, but we have not yet learned about love, we are mistaken.

Today we celebrate the preeminent devotion, the greatest devotion of Christianity: the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the Sacred Heart we celebrate the human body of our Savior. The heart deservedly stands as a symbol of the whole body. It is at the center of the body, and the heartbeat is evidence of the life of the body. In the Sacred Heart, we worship the actual organ in the body of our Savior, beating from the time of its formation in the womb of the Blessed Mother, beating while he preached forgiveness and healed the sick, stopped by the Cross, pierced by the lance, begun again at the Resurrection, and still, today, beating in the body seated at the right hand of the Father.

Further, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is devotion to the love of Jesus, the twofold love of Jesus: the divine love and his human love. The Sacred Heart is truly symbolic of the love of God which created the world and which redeemed a fallen world, but it also expresses the fully human love which Jesus had for the crowds, for the suffering, for his disciples, particularly for the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” The Sacred Heart loved not only with the love of God, but also was the perfect human heart, loving in right relationship all things.

We are convicted by the Sacred Heart for our lack of love. If it were only a symbol of divine love, the love which created us, so stunning in its infinity, an infinity which is for all but no less infinitely for each, we are by definition incapable of such love, but, since it is also a symbol of Jesus’ human love, we are indicted when we see how much love a human heart is capable of. Consider how, in comparison, we love so little. How small is our love for our families, our friends, and our enemies! How little compassion do we have for the sick, the poor and the suffering!

The love, both human and divine, symbolized by the Sacred Heart is an unrequited love. Through all human history, God has loved humans with an everlasting love, but humans have ignored and insulted this love. There is no greater symbol of the human response to God’s love than the Sacred Heart pierced by a lance. Humans respond with violence against the very symbol of God’s love, as if, unable to repay the love, and refusing to be in debt, they try to destroy the love of God. Yet the lance, rather than destroy the Sacred Heart, only opens it further, pouring forth blood and water in the final symbol of the complete gift.

Jesus invites us today to learn from him, for he is meek and humble of heart. Let us take him up on this generous invitation. If we think that we know anything or have a certain amount of wisdom, but we have not yet learned about love, we are mistaken. We will be truly wise when we are masters of love: the love God has for us, the love we return to God, the love God has for everyone else, the love we have for those whom God loves. All this love is one Love. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” We will not be masters of love until the beating of our hearts is in perfect sync with the Sacred Heart. Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto yours.

The Solemnity of the Feast of the Sacred Heart,

Opening Prayer: Sacred Heart of Jesus, I adore you. I pray with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: “From the depth of my nothingness, I prostrate myself before you, O Most Sacred, Divine, and Adorable Heart of Jesus, to pay to you all the homage of love, praise, and adoration in my power. Amen.”

Encountering Christ:

1. Fount of Mercy: After Christ’s death, the signs of God’s Divine Mercy–blood and water–flowed from his precious body. A key prayer in the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is “O blood and water, which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in you!” From Christ’s suffering and death sprung the fount of the water and blood of his mercy. The Church and her first sacraments were born at this moment from Christ’s side, just as a baby is born with a gush of water and blood: the waters of baptism to cleanse us from sin and the blood of the New Covenant to nourish us. In turn, the Church cares for us like a newborn child with great love and mercy. Through her sacraments, she bathes us with baptism and reconciliation and feeds us with the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

2. Water of Life: The flood of water that flowed from Christ’s side was prefigured by the flood in Genesis that washed away the sin of the world (cf. Genesis 7). The water that flowed is the same water that flowed when Moses struck the rock at Horeb, giving drink to the thirsty Israelites wandering in the desert (Genesis 17:6). This water that flowed was living water, the same living water that is a “spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). This water of life became the waters of baptism, from which we are born of water and spirit: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:6). May the water from Christ’s side wash and cleanse us from all our sins and bring us to eternal life with him.

3. Blood of the Covenant: The blood that flowed from Christ’s side is the blood of the New Covenant. In fact, Christ’s blood ratifies and seals this covenant. In Hebrews, St. Paul explained how Christ secures our salvation by becoming both the priest and sacrifice of this New Covenant (cf. Hebrews 9:11-15). He goes on to establish Jesus as the “mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15). When we eat and drink the holy sacrifice of his Body, we are participating in the altar of the covenant (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-18). In this sacrament, we are purified of our sin and imbued with God’s spirit. He comes to dwell in us through our partaking of his Body and Blood. St. Elizabeth of the Trinity wrote, “When we receive Christ with interior devotion, his blood, full of warmth and glory, flows into our veins and a fire is enkindled in our depths.”

Conversing with Christ: Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me. Pierced for my transgressions, hide me within your open wounds. You bled for me; you burn for me. May I, too, bleed and burn for souls through acts of love and mercy. May I love and serve you and my neighbors as you commanded me.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will make a loving act of devotion to your most Sacred Heart.

Reflection SG.

The heart of Jesus beats according to the glorious plan which God has had from all eternity. The Sacred Heart of the Son of God is the site of God’s love and mercy for us sinners — the utter fullness of God. The heart of the Son of God is a heart of flesh. His heart recoils from harshness and destruction. His heart springs up to life. It’s so warm and delicate that infants press their faces against it and rest in its tenderness.

The heart of Jesus is meek and gentle. Our God of humility invites us to shoulder his yoke and learn from him. (Mt 11:29). The heart of Jesus is wounded, pierced through by our sins. Yet the blood that flows from his Sacred Heart redeems us and the water washes us clean and quenches our thirst. The love in the heart of the Son makes it possible that we can offer back to God what is acceptable to God. The heart of Jesus teaches love. May we be drawn always to his Sacred Heart. May we learn to see Christ in our neighbor? May God be blessed!

Comment: Fr. Raimondo M. SORGIA Mannai OP (San Domenico di Fiesole, Florencia, Italy)

One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a lance

Today, before our very eyes —or better still before our interior eyes, illuminated by faith— is the figure of Christ who, having just died on the Cross, has had his side pierced by the Centurion's sword. «Immediately there came out blood and water» (Jn 19,34). What a distressing but at the same time eloquent sight! There is not even the slightest room for doubt: Jesus is 100% dead. What's more that mysterious “water” which would not have flowed out of a normal healthy body, would indicate, according to modern medicine, that Christ would have died of a heart attack or what could even have been described as a burst heart. It is only in these cases that there occurs a separation of the serum and the red blood cells. This would explain the anomalous “blood and water”.

Christ therefore has truly died, and He has died because of our sins, for what He desired with most urgency, the cancellation of our sins. «With my death, I have defeated death and have exalted Man to the sublimity of Heaven» (Meliton of Sardis). God, who has kept to his promise of raising his Son from the dead, will also keep to his second promise: He will also raise us from the dead and will seat us at His right hand. He requires of us a minimum condition: to believe in Him and to allow ourselves be saved by Him. God never imposes himself on anybody. He fully respects human liberty.

Of that Man who's heart they stabbed «They will look upon the man whom they have pierced» The Apocalypse, too, confirms this: «Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him: and they also that pierced him» (Rev 1,7). This is a sacred requirement of divine justice: in the end even those who have obstinately rejected it will have recognise the truth. Even the self-idolising tyrant, the ruthless killer, the proud atheist... all of them without exception will feel obliged to kneel down before Him, acknowledging him as the one and only true God. Isn't it more worthwhile to become friends with Him as of now.

The Solemnity of the Feast of the Sacred Heart,

Readings: Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9; Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19; John 19:31-37

The article, “Ascension, Parousia, and the Sacred Heart: Structur

al Correlations,” by Giorgio Buccellati, appeared in the Spring 1998 edition of Communio which is a theological periodical dedicated to the living tradition of the Catholic Church, exploring the depths of the theology of Von Balthasar, De Lubac, Ratzinger, John Paul II and others

This meditation is based on the article. The quotes are from the article unless otherwise noted.

The basis of the theology of the Sacred Heart is the real physical presence of the risen Jesus. That presence was manifested in a number of recorded appearances of the risen Jesus to His disciples, and before His final ascension into heaven. After His ascension, the physical presence of Jesus, glorified yet real, continues now in the mystery of heaven: “Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Quickly in the early Church several visualizations of the physical glory of the ascended Jesus take place. The first is to Stephen the deacon at his trial before his martyrdom. (The second is the appearance of Jesus to Saul on his way to Damascus.

Stephen bears witness not only to the Name of Jesus as Savior but to the presence of Jesus in the glory of God, sharing in the Glory of God. Stephen saw “God’s Glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.55) and then again, “Behold, I see the heavens open and the son-of-man standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.56). Stephen could have said “God validated the ‘message’ of Jesus, causing the person of Jesus to recede in the background in favor of his spiritual or social doctrine.”

“No: what haunts Stephen with joy, and the members of the Sanhedrin with horror, is the risen humanity of a very concrete Jesus. Jesus, their immediate contemporary, is still perceived as sharing, physically, in the unimaginable glory of the Ineffable. A claim, a blasphemy.”

Think how this truth has an “impact” on the Church. “Jesus chooses to refer to himself as specially human and mortal at the very moment that he projects himself beyond death as resurrected. And Stephen is struck with a vision of Jesus’ risen humanity, a mortal Jesus who shares in God’s glory. … His very specific humanity, sealed by death, and then risen from it, was in some way on a par with the transcendence of the Ineffable.”

Here’s where the concept of “Parousia” comes in. The basic meaning of the Greek word, parousia, is presence. Usually Parousia is used in the context of Christ’s second coming. But the more basic meaning is that the presence of Jesus is now; and it is so great and omnipotent, that it will endure until the end, when the presence will be made manifest completely throughout creation on the last day. Thus the humanity of Jesus is present because of its being filled with the glory of the Trinity, “seated at the right side of God.”

In this mystery of the ascension, the apostles and the first Christians lived in the mystery of the Trinity without using the theological and philosophical terms the Church would later use to guard the Mystery in its being handing down faithfully throughout the ages. “Their contemporary Jesus, the human-mortal (son-of-man) who was now present and coming in divine glory (the Parousia), was ‘sitting at the right sides of the Power’: this was their insight into the Trinity.”

Our faith delivers to us the fact of Jesus’ ascension and His session (His sitting) in the glory of the Triune Godhead. The ascension must not be thought of as a myth, born out of the insight of the Apostles into the resurrection of Jesus as a divine manifestation. No. Jesus is particular and concrete, a fact. So is His death. So is His resurrection. So, too, is His ascension in the reality of His humanity. The Gospel and Acts of Luke, in their account of the ascension, are “intended to be as much of a factual account as the one relating the events of Pentecost, which are also found exclusively, and only once, in Luke.”

Thus the early preaching of the Church is set on the witness of Jesus within two factual events of His life: from the baptism of John “until the day in which he was lifted up away from us” (Acts 1.21-22) and 1st Timothy 3.16 which gives the “core of worship” as “a sequence which begins when Christ ‘was shown in the flesh’ and ends when he ‘was taken up in glory.’

The Ascension is not only an event but it is “a state.” It is a new beginning. As the Incarnation was an event at the annunciation to Mary, it also continues as a state. Jesus’ state as God and Man in the Person of the Word continues. So, “the Ascension is also a state which declares a new modality of being.”

The enunciation of our faith is that Jesus “sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father” (the Council of Rome AD 382). “During Jesus’ lifetime, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, God was man. After the Ascension, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, man was within the Trinity.” And Stephen is the first martyr. That is, he witnesses in his own blood that Jesus is seated in the glory of God.

All that we have said is related to Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, in her assumption into heaven. The body of Mary shares in the glory of the ascended Christ. She shares as an anticipation of our own resurrection and our sharing in the glory of God corporeally at the last day and in the re-creation of the world in Christ’s final victory. “In this light, the Assumption is not an elegant act of kindness on the part of God for his mother; it is an ontological implication of her having been outside our culture of sin, and a proclamation of what the redemption of our culture will mean for us once restored to the same status.”

In sharing with other religions in dialogue, as for example, with the Buddhists, we must maintain the absolute difference in our ontological understanding of what our ultimate state will be. We are not absorbed spiritually into a One so that all duality is lost. The concreteness and particularity of the risen and ascended Jesus, as this particular Man—son-of-man—is in glory. So we too are to be risen in our particularity and concreteness of persons. The sacred duality of our mysticism is that we are united completely to the Other in love in a sharing in the divine life while always remaining who we are, as Jesus remains who He is.

Finally, then, devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the reality of the Heart of Jesus now in glory. Jesus now is in the glory of His ascended humanity. Jesus loves us with all His heart now in the most literal sense. The heart of Jesus is real; it pulsates with divine and human love in the oneness of that Divine Person, the Word who is Jesus.

All the Sacred Scripture readings speak of the searching of Jesus for us, the lost sheep. When Jesus speaks of the greater Father, Lord of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise…. Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you.

When we sit or kneel in silent, silent prayer of the heart, we are one with the ascended Christ, one in the love of His heart. There are some verses in Ephesians which I find connect the heart prayer practice of sitting in the intentionality of love with “the session”—“the sitting”—of Christ in His glory:

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), AND RAISED US UP WITH HIM, AND MADE US SIT WITH HIM IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST JESUS….”(Ephesians 2.4-6). Even now! At this moment! And our prayer practice is the simple intentionality of consenting to this state of sharing in the ascended glory of the Son of God.

The concreteness of our bodies attentive in quiet prayer is one with the fact of Christ’s ascension and His state of glory at this very moment. The act of our intention of love is one with the love in the heart of Christ. Let our Holy Eucharist be a thanksgiving for this mystery of our humanity sharing now in the glory of the Triune God which is heaven.

Meditation: "They shall look on him whom they have pierced"

Do you know the heart of Jesus - a heart that was pierced for your sake and mine? Of all the Gospel accounts of Jesus' death, John mentions that the soldiers pierced his heart with a lance. This was a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10: "when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him." The heart of Jesus was pierced for our sake. He willingly went to the cross and laid down his life as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. If we want to understand the depth and breadth of God’s love for each of us, then look upon the heart that was pierced for you and for me. That is the reason Jesus went to the cross, to redeem us from slavery to sin and death.

True love does not count the cost, but gives everything for the beloved. God proved his love for us by sending us his beloved Son who withheld nothing from us but gave everything he had for our sake. Paul the Apostle tells us that "Jesus loved us and gave himself up for us - a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2). God's love is perfect and complete because God is merciful, just, and forgiving.

Do you know the love and mercy of Christ for you? Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) said that “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us to love.” In the cross of Christ we see the love of God broken and pierced for our sake. The Lord Jesus who died for our sake now reigns triumphant at the right hand of the Father. He has risen in glory and he now intercedes for us in heaven. He stands before the throne of heaven with his marks of victory - his pierced side, hands, and feet.

Who can fathom the love of God? For all eternity we will gaze upon him who was crucified and who rose - never to die again - for our sake. Only a broken and contrite heart can fathom the mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus calls us to lay down our lives in sacrificial love for one another. Do you love as Jesus loves, with a broken heart that yearns for all to know the love and mercy of God?

“Lord Jesus, your love knows no bounds. Break my heart with the things that break your heart that I may love generously as you love.”