A Shabbas Table: Blessed Feastday of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Blessed feastday everyone...this is one of my favorites : )

Its funny, it all my topsy turvyness in the spiritual journeying over the years, a focus on the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was one thing that stayed constant.... the coreness of the Sacred Hearts run that deep. What's more, ive always felt somehow instinctively that Shabbat (another constant) and devotion to the Sacred Hearts deeply goes together somehow. A phrase keeps coming up of "Sabbath Heart, Sacred Heart". Well, will have to see how that might unravel over time...

About this wonderful feastday today, Elena from Tea at Trianon shares about this best (from here and here):

"I have come to cast a fire on the earth: what will I, but that it be kindled? (Luke 12:49)

During the first millennium of Christianity, many saints wrote with unction of the pierced side of Our Lord, from which flowed "blood and water" (John 19:34), symbolizing the sacraments of the Church. It was not until the later ages, "when the charity of many [had] grown cold" (Matthew 24:12), that Our Lord chose to reveal the hidden treasures of His Sacred Heart. The gnostic excesses of the Manicheans, the upheavals of the Protestant revolt, and the chilling exaggerations of Jansenism required as an antidote the gradual but compelling manifestations of the love and mercy of the Heart of God.

It was in the thirteenth century that mystic souls such as St. Bonaventure, St. Mechtilde, and St. Gertrude began to write explicitly about devotion to the Sacred Heart, focusing on the infinite love which pursues and surrounds us.

St. Gertrude the Great relates that in one of her many visions St. John the Evangelist said to her:

To these latter times was reserved the grace of hearing the eloquent voice of the Heart of Jesus. At this voice the time-worn world will renew its youth, be roused from its lethargy, and again be inflamed with the warmth of Divine Love. ( Love, Peace and Joy by the Reverend André Prévot)

Our Lord told St. Mechtilde:

In this wound of love, so great that it embraces Heaven and earth, unite thy love to My Divine Love, that it may be perfect; and even as iron glowing with fire becomes, as it were, one with it, so let your love be transformed and absorbed into Mine (Ibid.)"

Some other wonderful pointers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus were St John Eudes, St Francis de Sales, and St Margaret Mary. And the Carmelite tradition is most especially strong in its focus there. I agree with Elena, "let us imitate the Carmelite saints in making Jesus the King of our hearts, immersing ourselves into the unfathomable mystery of His love." And i really love this, again from from Reverend André Prévot...

"A life of joy is the most delightful fruit of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.... "We only do that well which we do with joy" (St. Thomas). If, then, we wish to serve God and love our neighbor well, we must manifest our joy in the service we render to Him and to them--"servite in laetitia." Oh, let us do this, and not change the nature of things--God is joy; true devotion is joy; love is joy; sacrifice is the source of joy; the Cross itself is the condition of solid joy. Let us, then, open wide our hearts. It is joy which invites us. Press forward, and fear nothing. Let us always rejoice and ever advance in love and in joy."

Then there iis this poem by Kathryn Mulderink, called Sacrificial Fire, which feels so beautifully connected with the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

Lord, inflame my very being
with that hidden and incessant fire you came to set,
that in the light of this flame of love
I may see into the darkest recesses of my soul
and sacrifice what I secretly treasure
on the altar of my heart.

Show me the way of purification;
help me to sever myself from whatever I hold dear
that keeps me from giving myself
completely, unreservedly, joyfully to You.

I want to sacrifice all of me in that flame, Lord,
that I may be converted by your love
into the servant, the daughter,
You have called me to become.
Moved by the love of a God so good
He created me to always be.

Teach me Your ways, Lord,
trace my steps for me and then walk with me,
lest I lose my way.
Open my eyes to see your light,
enlighten my mind to know your truth,
draw me to yourself, completely transformed, forever.

A Very Blessed Feastday Everyone...and a Wonderful Shabbas and Sabbath : )

(Images from Green Scapula and Chant Art)