Our hearts have such a deep longing that no great marriage, prestigious career, or good health can fill it. Christian author C.S. Lewis wrote, “if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
Bertrand Russell was an atheist philosopher. At the end of his life, he wrote honestly: “the centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain - a curious wild pain - a searching for something beyond what the world contains, something transfigured and infinite.”
Our hearts long for heaven, our home that is not of this world.
During the month of June, we celebrate the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The secret of Jesus’ Sacred Heart is that he longs for our love.
It may be a good time to ask yourself: do I trust the Lord enough to hand him my poor heart to take care of all my needs?
I have learned a lot about devotion to the Sacred Heart from the saints. Most recently, from St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, or Mother Cabrini, foundress of the missionary sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In a frail health condition, she accomplished great acts of service to the poor. She taught catechism and education classes for Italian immigrants in the United States. She opened orphanages, schools, and hospitals and traveled all over the world. She wanted to build an empire of hope and she did so with the help of Jesus.
“Work in me, oh adorable heart of Jesus, because you know well how incapable I am of doing perfectly everything that you want of me,” she said.
Mother Cabrini opened her heart to Jesus’ invitation and let him fill her being that she might accomplish great acts of loving service.
She almost drowned as a young girl and developed a fear of water. Yet, she crossed the Atlantic Ocean more than 20 times in her efforts to establish hospitals, schools, and orphanages.
I want to have a bold faith in the face of obstacles like Mother Cabrini, who said, “I trust in you, my Jesus. I place my poor soul in your hands - mold me according to your divine will.”
She set her heart on Jesus whose own heart was pierced.
“Mother Cabrini was no stranger to difficulty,” according to the shrine in her name in New York City. “She grew up in a period of deep political unrest in Italy, faced constant financial insecurity in the United States, encountered prejudice, and struggled with ill health and innumerable crises.”
This feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus reminds me of how much he loves me and wants to be the centre of my heart.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee,” St. Augustine of Hippo famously said in his Confessions.
Jesus pours out mercy and grace upon us. He invites us into his holy life. His love is life-giving and constant. With the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we can do anything.
He offers humility and respect for our unique way of living and receiving him. He doesn’t push or pull at us but gently invites us to open ourselves to his ocean of love.
I like to imagine meeting Jesus in the garden of my heart. I imagine this garden to look a bit like the one in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden: “over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents and scents.”
There in the garden it is peaceful, and I can listen more readily to his voice, saying, “I love you, my daughter. Do not be afraid.” Quiet places are helpful for me to hear Jesus’ invitations. I visit chapels and churches, walk in nature, or find a quiet corner of a room.
As Mother Cabrini said, “Let us keep close to Jesus because if we lose him, we have lost everything.”
Welcoming Jesus into my heart’s garden, I show him the winding paths, “and the roses – the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades – they came alive day by day, hour by hour,” to quote Burnett.
“Fair fresh leaves, and buds – and buds – tiny at first but swelling and working magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air.”
It is our longing for God that brings us closer to living a life of holiness. I can trust him with all my cares.
O, Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on me. Jesus, I give you my poor heart. Take care of all my needs.
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