Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - Year B

The feast became a celebration in the universal Church in the nineteenth century. At the center of the feast is the heart of Jesus, full of love for the world. According to the Gospel of Saint John, when Jesus died on the Cross, a Roman soldier pierced his side with a spear. "One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out" (John 19:34). An ancient tradition sees in the water and the blood elements of a birth, that from the wounded side of the crucified Jesus the Church was born.

In the tenth century in the West, an identification began between the wounded side of Jesus and the heart. The heart is the place of love and for love of the human person the Christ died for us on the Cross. Sister Marie-Margaret Alacoque from France saw visions in which Jesus asked her to spread the spirituality of the Sacred Heart, a spirituality focused on the love of Christ. She received the support of the head of the Jesuits in the region, Father de la Colombiere.

The readings of the feast this year (Year B) help us understand the importance of the feast. The reading from the Gospel is from John, about the pierced side of Jesus. In the second reading, from the Letter to the Ephesians (3:8-19), Saint Paul describes the love of Christ in awesome terms: "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (3:17-19).

The first reading, from the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hosea, is a particularly moving reading. In it God through the prophet describes his unrequited love for Israel. "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1). The chapter describes the love of the Father for his son and the refusal of the son to accept his love. The love of the Father for the son does not permit him to abandon him. "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim?" (Hosea 11:8). Admah and Zeboiim were towns that were destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah. These towns were completely overturned when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. The term "overturn" refers to complete destruction as described in Genesis 19. The towns were turned upside down and nothing remained of them. Because of God's love, God is unable to do this with his people. "My heart is overturned within me; my compassion grows warm and tender" (Hosea 11:8). Instead of overturning his people, God overturns his heart. Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical about love that he published at the beginning of his papacy, in 2005, commented these verses saying: "God's passionate love for his people - for humanity - is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice. Here Christians can see a dim prefiguration of the mystery of the Cross: so great is God's love for man that by becoming man he follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love" (Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, 2005, n. 10).

On the day after the feast, on Saturday, we honor the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a heart that was in the perfect image and likeness of the heart of her son.