Father Paul Weinberger, Pastor
St. William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 25, 2006
A violent storm came up and waves were breaking over the boat so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern asleep on a cushion. They woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
I have a very dear friend, who is in her late 70s now. She was widowed in the mid 90s and is someone who has always been very diligent in household matters, balancing the checkbook, never has paid one penny of interest on a credit card. There is one person in the world that hasn’t done it.
About eight years ago my friend went into a bank to open a new account, which is something she has done all her life at different banks. But because she was 70 and had walked in there alone, signed the little list and sat down to wait, a young man came to her and seeing that she was a senior citizen he began to speak very slowly and LOUDER. Her hearing is perfect. The only thing the young man didn’t do was to pat her on the head.
In a way, his demeanor was saying that he didn’t think she had much sense about things and that she didn’t have much going for her. This is a woman who’d taught on the graduate level in Medical School and someone who is in complete control of her faculties. She bore all this from the young man with the same grace that she does the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
When we speak of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus or the Immaculate Heart of Mary…for many people it is the same as taking some old artifact out if the attic that has been there for years and examining it as they dust it off, only to place it back in the attic very soon.
On the back of your bulletin I have an article that says, Good News, Bad News. The day before yesterday was the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and just a few days before the Solemnity I was mentioning that this would be the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of this Feast being celebrated. I got this conclusion from Pope Pius XII’s May 15, 1956 Encyclical on the Sacred Heart. In the first paragraph he mentions that he was moved to write about this because it was the 100th Anniversary of establishing the Feast and extending it to the whole world. Well, the only thing is, is that when Pope Pius did this in 1956, he published the Decree in September on the 23rd day of 1956. So it wasn’t until the following year that the first universal Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was celebrated.
Some people may be thinking, “so..and…”. Well, the bad news is that I got it wrong. Next year is the 150th Anniversary. The good news is that you and I have twelve months in which to prepare for this great Solemnity and Feast. When Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary in the South of France in 1673 He told her that the reason he appeared to her is that His Heart was on fire for mankind and that it had to be shared. So, we are all encouraged to cultivate a devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus because His love is that which is the center of this devotion.
Dr. Timothy O’Donnell, who is the president of one of the finest Catholic Colleges in the USA, Christendom College, wrote a book I mentioned last week. He wrote “Heart of the Redeemer” and Fr. John Hardon wrote the forward. He was a Jesuit who wrote extensively on the faith; may he rest in peace. Cardinal John O’Connor of New York wrote the preface; may he rest in peace as well. To have these two holy men write the preface for this book shows the stature of the book. It is not to be taken lightly but is demands our attention.
For those who falsely believe that this devotion is something no longer useful and something from the past or an anachronism, Dr. O’Donnell writes,
The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotion whose time has just arrived. We are only just beginning to realize the depth contained in this priceless gift, which Our Lord has given to His Church. The Devotion to the Sacred Heart shall help us to appreciate this age, in which charity has grown cold, the powerfully effective role which emotion and affectivity can play in the spiritual life.
The Devotion to the Sacred Heart wants to engage our emotions and our feelings as well as our mind, hearts, souls. Our entire being is to be engaged in pursuit of True Devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. They say that in life only two things are guaranteed…death and taxes. I would give you this guarantee; I guarantee you that if you begin at this moment to cultivate the Devotion to the Sacred Heart, or if you already have the devotion and begin to redouble your efforts, that in the passing of the next twelve months when we come to this Feast in late spring or early summer next year, you will reap tremendous graces and many blessings from having prepared your heart over those previous months.
The Act of Consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Fatima prayer of Reparation to the Sacred Heart that was taught to the three children by the angel are tremendous helps. The first two lines of the Act of Consecration say,
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I consecrate myself to Your Most Sacred Heart. Take possession of my whole being; transform me into Yourself.
The prayer that was written in the year 2000 by the man who is now Pope Benedict is so similar. I talked about this last week.
Jesus my living Lord, I know that You have just entered my soul and my heart. I surrender myself to You. Please raise me up and transform me.
The Act of Consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is a prayer that we should pray individually. Parents, as often as you can pray this prayer everyday with your children you should. Everyone should be consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as well as every family and home. This consecration should be repeated on a daily basis. In the 4th paragraph of the Act of Consecration, it says,
Give me the deepest love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus in order to serve Him with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Take possession of all my faculties of body and soul. Regulate all my passions: feelings and emotions. Take possession of my intellect, understanding and will, my memory and imagination. O Holy Spirit of Love, give me an abundance of Your efficacious Graces.
What this devotion does and will do is to calm the storm that is raging in the heart of every individual just as Christ calmed the raging wind and waves. He rebuked the waves and commanded the sea to be still. The devotion to the Sacred Heart will work these effects in the human heart. As the Antiphon from Morning Prayer said today;
Help us O Lord for we are troubled. Give the command O God and bring us peace.
St. Augustine said,
O Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.
That restlessness comes from the difficulties, problems, deaths, anxieties and crosses that surround us in the world. By focusing on the Sacred Heart is like a peg in a sure spot. As Dr. O’Donnell points out in his book that Jesus, the Son of God has recently given us this devotion and somehow we think that it is extraneous or superficial…extra. Somehow it is not important. I am paraphrasing of course but Dr. O’Donnell is right! He gave us this devotion to calm the troubled waters of each heart and to lead us to heaven.
In the writings of St. Margaret Mary, she talks about how God was leading her to this devotion from her earliest day. She says,
From babyhood on, You headed me off claiming my heart for your very own though you knew all along how difficult I was going to be. At the dawn of consciousness You showed me the ugliness of sin.
Perhaps she means the ‘age of reason.” It is very much like Our Lady of Fatima did with those three children when she gave them a vision of hell. She showed them the ugly consequence of mortal sin and the children redoubled their efforts to unite their hearts with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I will continue with what St. Margaret Mary wrote.
At the dawn of consciousness You showed me the ugliness of sin. So horrible was the impression it left on me I simply couldn’t bear the slightest stain. Over and over again I found myself saying something I couldn’t understand. “To God I give my purity and vow my perpetual chastity.”
It wasn’t until later that she understood the significance of this prayer.
Once I said it at Mass, between the two elevations, I had no idea what I had done. Neither “vow” or “chastity” meant anything to me but I knew what I wanted.
She would grow to understand these words and later on she would be grateful that she had repeated these words again and again and so often because it helped her to focus her attention on Christ and His Most Sacred Heart and let everything else fall to the side. She then wrote,
The Blessed Virgin Mary always watched over me very carefully. I use to take all my needs to her and she saved me from many a grave danger.
The great grace of this devotion is that it leads to a greater love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Lady, the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The next time within a twenty-four hour period when you are headed for the ground like a kamikaze and crash and burn or see something as hopeless as you have seen in the past and is obviously burdensome to you are harmful to you, turn to the Sacred Heart. This devotion will help you see through your particular problem. St. Margaret Mary writes,
I used to spend the nights as I had spent the days crying in front of the crucifix. There, though I didn’t understand it at the time, Our Lord explained that His aim was the undisputed mastery of my heart and that my earthly life would be one of suffering like His. He would become my Master just for this, to make me aware of His Presence so that I would behave as He did during His cruel sufferings, which He showed me that He had endured for love of me. The effect on my soul was so deep I wouldn’t have had my sufferings stop for even a moment.
Notice how her soul is being transformed. Instead of the “me, me, me,” which is part f our fallen human nature, she is focusing on Him and saying that if all of her sufferings can be offered in reparation for His many sufferings, then so be it. She continues,
He never left me afterwards and I would always see Him crucified or carrying His cross. In the pity and love that filled my heart all my own troubles seemed light. Also, I wanted them; I wanted to take after Jesus in His suffering.
In reading what she said we can see how her soul grew and her heart expanded when she started focusing on Him and His sufferings.
He kept me so hard at what I have just been describing that I lost all my taste for vocal prayers; I simply couldn’t say any before the Blessed Sacrament.
There is no doubt that she lost her taste for vocal prayers because many of them were probably said mechanically as if auctioning tobacco. The tobacco auctioneer has to talk very quickly and that can easily be our way of rattling off prayers to the Sacred Heart.
I used to be so intent on the Real Presence I was never bored.
In the last forty years children have been reported as saying that they are bored in Church. This is probably due to their spiritual immaturity. Today with Churches that are built with the Blessed Sacrament outside the body of the Church and down the hall in some broom closet it is hard to get children to focus. When we have the Blessed Sacrament with us in Church and someone says they are bored in Church, then in reality, if they understand that the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity is in the Tabernacle, in essence they are stating that they are bored in the Presence of the Living God. If you can say that and mean it then you barely have a spiritual pulse in you and this devotion is definitely for you. St. Margaret says,
I used to be so intent on the Real Presence of Jesus I was never bored. Days and nights could have come and gone, food and drink forgotten but I would not have noticed it, content to burn out there like a candle and give back love for love. I couldn’t stay at the back of the Church; I had to get as near as the Blessed Sacrament as possible in spite of the embarrassment I used to feel.
So she mentions she was embarrassed but she was drawn to His Heart.
The only people I envied were those who could often go to Holy Communion and be free to stay with the Blessed Sacrament. That was my idea of happiness.
The writings of St. Margaret Mary help us to see how her constant turning to the Lord and her prayers to the Holy Spirit were affecting a calm in her and this was very different from the world.
The other day I was talking to the Mother Superior at the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Drita Maris.
This name means Light of Mary in Croatian.
She is leaving tomorrow and going to Atlanta. She is being transferred there. Anyway, she called me the other day to talk about Thursday.
Father Paul is the Spiritual Director and Confessor to the Missionaries of Charity in Dallas and he sees them on Thursday.
When I got off the phone I thought to myself that talking to Sr. Drita was like talking to an angel. You can hear it right through the phone. Sister Drita would hate hearing me for say this but it doesn’t matter because she is leaving for Atlanta. Deserter! I imagine that when she hangs the phone up after talking to me the first thing she does is wash off her ear. [Laughter] But this is the kind of thing that the Sacred Heart is doing in the emotions and feelings in the heart of St. Margaret Mary. Jesus is guiding her to leave aside the cares and anxieties, which are all around her, and to focus on His Heart.
In the image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary there is a silver sword going into her heart from the upper left side. This is in reference to the Prophecy of Simeon at the Presentation in the Temple. He told her a sword would pierce her soul so that the thoughts of many may be laid bear. The second or third time the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary He was complaining that He has done so much for all mankind and we are so cold and indifferent.
Let’s look at the beautiful Fatima Prayer of Reparation. It says,
In reparation for all of the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He, Himself is offended.
There are so many ways the Sacred Heart is offended. I remember a notorious example, Andres Serrano’s art exhibit. It was a beaker of urine half filled so that the Crucifix could be placed there upside down. And this is art? Talk about an outrage committed against the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There are so many ways in which the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart are offended. Does it matter to anyone? Does it matter to Catholics?
So Jesus was complaining to St. Margaret Mary that it seemed no one cared. His Heart is on fire and is a flame burning for mankind and for her in particular. He told her,
This hurts me more than everything I suffered during my Passion. Even a little love from them in return and I shall regard all that I have done for them as next to nothing and look for a way of doing still more but no, all my eager efforts for their welfare meet with nothing but coldness and dislike. Then do Me the kindness, you at least, in making up for all their ingratitude as far as you can.
This is where the Sacred Heart asks her to make reparation, repair the damage so to speak. She wasn’t cold and indifferent to the Sacred Heart but others were so she is going to pick up after others and make reparation. This is key to the revelations of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary. It is not leftover. Then Jesus gets down to real particulars and says,
Besides all of this, every Thursday I shall give you a share in that fatal sadness in which I allowed Myself to feel in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We know that after the Last Supper took His Apostles up to the Mount of Olives and took Peter, James, and John with Him further still. Jesus went over to pray and His sweat fell like drops of blood on the ground. His suffering was so intense and through all of it His closest friends were snoring through it all. Jesus reproached them and told them to stay awake so they would not be put to the test. They just snored on. Maybe you think Jesus has gotten over that by now; well, think again!
Besides all of this, every Thursday I shall give you a share in that fatal sadness in which I allowed Myself to feel in the Garden of Gethsemane. Death couldn’t be so hard as the agonizing state to which this sadness will reduce you. You are to get up between eleven o’clock and midnight to keep me company in humble prayer to my Father, exactly as I spent that night in agony. Lie face downwards with Me for an hour not only to allay God’s anger but asking mercy for sinners, but also to soothe in some way the heartache that I felt when My Apostles deserted Me when I had to reproach them for being unable to watch with me even for an hour.
”You mean He is still sore about that?”
Uh..YEA!
During this hour you are to do what I show you
He goes on to say that she must obey her superiors and that she must not do anything without the approval of those who are guiding her, such as her confessor and spiritual director. He didn’t tell her to do anything she wanted like jump off a building or throw herself into a river. She was to offer every suffering and crisis in some way along with these other ideas that He gave her.
In all of these ways what He is doing is exactly what He did in the Gospel today. Jesus didn’t like it when His Apostles slept through his agony in the garden. Look at the gospel where Jesus is asleep while the Apostles are going through a difficulty. They want Him awake now! They want to know if He is afraid that they might die. Boy, they waste no time getting Him up in a heartbeat. But in the garden, Jesus let them sleep, sawing logs on the Mount of Olives.
I will be publishing more prayers on the Devotion to the Sacred Heart every week and as we pursue this devotion in light of the tremendous 150th Anniversary coming up, that the same kind of peace that I mentioned, which is so obvious in the Missionaries of Charity and that St. Margaret Mary experienced, will descend upon individual after individual and begin to change family life. It doesn’t mean that you are going to have a bird's nest on the ground and a cakewalk without sufferings but it will put it all in perspective allowing Him to calm your emotions, feelings, passions, and to guide your intellect. Put it all into His Heart while surrendering yourself to the Most Sacred Heart. He said to the wind and sea to be quiet and still and His Presence in our daily life will have the same calming effect as it did on the wind and the sea.
If you are terrified and you are cultivating this devotion then Jesus turns to you and says,
Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?
I guarantee that if you use this devotion to the Sacred Heart, He will do as I promised.
A violent storm came up and waves were breaking over the boat so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern asleep on a cushion. They woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen