Think for a moment, in a physical way the
heart is the center of who we are. It is the pump that pushes life through us.
Without it we can do nothing. All our other organs, muscles, bones and assorted
other things are important but it is the heart that keeps us alive that makes
everything we do, say and feel possible.
Emotionally the heart is central to what
we feel. It is the home of the emotions. On February 14th we do not
receive or send a card with a gallbladder on the front that says, “I love you!”
No we send a card with a heart on the front. The heart is the place of feelings
and emotions. If we were to write a song, a poem or a story about love we would
talk about the heart. A broken heart means we have lost at or been hurt by
love.
In a spiritual way the heart is important
too. The heart in a spiritual sense is the dwelling place of God. In the Old
Testament, the psalmists and prophets talked about the community or individual
who was without God as having a stony heart. A stony heart has no room for God,
is closed to the presence of God.
So as we see the heart sits at the
center of who we are as human beings. These two days remind us of just how important
the heart is to us. Jesus and Mary had hearts that lead them through their
journeys of life.
Jesus’ Sacred Heart teaches us about
love. It is a heart full of the kind of love that leaves no one behind.
Sometimes that love seems foolish but not in the eyes and heart of Jesus. Every
person is valuable, ever person is important; every person is worth searching for.
Now this doesn’t mean that everyone will be found because some of us don’t want
to be found and some of us even when found don’t want to return. But the love
of Jesus’ Sacred heart will always look, will always search and will always
wait.
This Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
is about love, but it is also about hope; the hope that God is always
searching, looking and waiting for us because we are that special, that
important. The question for today is, “Can we believe in our value, can we
believe in our specialness, can we believe in God’s love for us, can we hope in
the fact that God will find us and bring us home?”
Daily Prayer: We come to you Jesus
on the Feast of your Sacred Heart, for you are our refuge and our hope. You are
the strength that keeps us going through all that is wrong in the our lives, the
forgiveness for all our faults and failings, the comfort for all our struggles,
the peace for all our anxieties, the enhancement for all our imperfections, and
the hope in all our prayers.
You are the only one who never wearies
of us and who offers us grace in the midst of our faults, because you love us
so much with an infinite love. You are the one always in search of us
especially when we follow a different path.
So we ask you loving Jesus, to have
mercy on us and do with us, and be for us, and be within us, whatever you want.
We give our hearts to you, hoping that the gift of love that flows from your
most Sacred Heart will never leave us to face the struggles and difficulties of
life alone. Amen.
Runner’s Thought: Holiness is not
something we can build into a run. Running does not make us holy. However, we
can make our run holy by bringing to our run a sense of God’s Presence. Thus we
can transform our run from the ordinary to the sacred. (Adapted from Roger Joslin- Running the
Spiritual Path)
TGIF everyone! We are in the midst of a
wet Friday here in Pelham. The rain began falling yesterday afternoon and they
say we will see it until Monday or Tuesday. So we will run between the rain
drops the next few days. If you are not here in the northeast I hope your
weather is a bit better.
Regardless of the weather I hope you are
having a good day wherever you are and in whatever you are doing. The official start
to the weekend is not far away so may the hours to its beginning go quickly and
may you and those you love be blessed today and always. If you are traveling be
safe, if you are celebrating be safe. Most of all enjoy your weekend may it be
one filled with family, friends, fun and faith! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr.
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment