In today’s Gospel the tip of the soldier’s lance and the words of St. John the Evangelist converge in pointing out something to us that the Church has contemplated throughout her history: the Heart of Christ, wounded out of love for us, but loving us unconditionally and without every diminishing. The point of that lance is the concluding punctuation mark to the Passion of Our Lord, but the story of love behind it continues, in each and every heart, throughout salvation history and into eternity. The more the Sacred Heart of Jesus is wounded by humanity, the more is shown how deep that Heart’s love is toward each and every one of us.
In the First Reading the Lord describes his love for Israel, a love spurned, like the wounded heart of a father who only wants to care for his child and in exchange receives indifference and rejection. In the Lord’s words we see how justice in his heart says a price should be exacted for such treatment, but also that love is the true driving force behind everything he does, and he cannot love his children any less, no matter what they do. In the Second Reading St. Paul prays that we have the strength to comprehend and know the love of God. It we truly realized how much God loves us, from the hardened sinner to the saint one step from Heaven, we’d die at the thought, not only from whatever we’ve done to wound his heart, but what others have done as well.
In contemplating the Sacred Heart, wounded out of love for us, we also know what is the most pleasing to his Heart: to show him that we appreciate his love by loving him and loving others, and by showing Our Lord that we “get it” by making reparation for all those people who spurn and reject him, knowingly or unknowingly. Let’s live this day contemplating the Heart of Jesus and trying to console him through our own love and understanding toward him and toward others.
Readings: Hosea 11:1, 3–4, 8c–9; Isaiah 12:2–6; Ephesians 3:8–12, 14–19; John 19:31–37.
