Daily Thoughts: Our focus today
and tomorrow is the “heart,” The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart
of Mary. The heart is the center of who we are, physically, emotionally and
spiritually. It is the place where we often think of God’s presence within us.
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?”
Have a blessed Friday everyone! May the
love of God found in the Sacred Heart of Jesus embrace you today and always!
And don’t forget to make a joyful noise with your life today.
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 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.
A Runner’s Thoughts: 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)
Daily Blessing: TGIF everyone! Happy
Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! We are in our last full day of retreat here
in Manitowoc and all the sisters are still with me at least I think they are!
Please keep them in your prayers and say a little prayer that their preacher
can find a few more words of wisdom for them today!
I hope your Friday has started off well wherever
you are and in whatever you are doing. The official start to the weekend is not
far away so I pray that God will bless these morning and afternoon hours of
your Friday so that they will go quickly and bring you into the gift of another
weekend. I pray that you and those you love will be blessed by God’s Love as we
celebrated it in the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus today. If you are
traveling be safe, if you are busy working be safe. Most of all may you be blessed
with a Friday you can enjoy and may it be filled with interesting people,
wonderful experiences, fun, joy, faith, hope and the presence of God! Peace in
Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul
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