Eight
days after the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Octave days, the Church celebrates
the great Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Except, of course, most Anglicans have never heard of this celebration
and even those churches which realise the Catholic heritage of the Church of
England may not recognise this Feast. This
is to our loss for, as Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
of the USA, preached about at the wedding of their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and
Duchess of Sussex, love is the way; and the one symbol that speaks to all about
love is – the heart. And the Church has
the wonder of the Sacred Heart to offer people – a Heart which is not just
concerned with the joys of love, but also knows about passion and pain. It was while she was kneeling in adoration
before the Blessed Sacrament that Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
displaying Hs Heart, "represented as
a throne of fire with flames radiating on every side. It appeared more brilliant
than the sun and transparent like crystal. The wound received on the Cross
appeared clearly: There was a crown of thorns around the Heart and it was
surmounted by a cross." This is
the Sacred Heart of Christ’s Passion which, unlike other images of love, constantly
reminds us of its true cost. This is a
gift the Church of England sadly neglects.
At Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation of Love is as Love reveals His Presence among us, a Presence we celebrate in and through each Eucharist. It’s a Presence which is Real, a Presence which we need to penetrate and which needs to penetrate us if we are to encounter the Heart of God. At Christmas we behold Love clothed in Flesh, Flesh which suffered, died, rose from the grave and ascended into heaven. Love left us the sacrament of that Presence, and whilst the eye of the body beheld Jesus within Crib the eye of the heart can now begin to see the wonder of Emmanuel – the Love of God with us abiding in the Blessed Sacrament. The great Franciscan saint, Bonaventure, wrote these beautiful words: ‘I have found this Heart in the Eucharist when I have found there the Heart of my Sovereign, of my Friend, of my Brother, that is to say, the Heart of my friend and Redeemer. … Come, my brethren, let us enter into this amiable Heart never again to go out from It.’
In his book The Drawing of This Love the author, Robert Fruewirth, explores aspects of the way the 14th century English mystic, Dame Julian of Norwich, realised how that Divine Love is permeated by compassion. In one chapter he quotes Julian saying: ‘Here I saw a great affinity between Christ and us … for when he was in pain, we were in pain. And all creatures capable of suffering pain suffered with him … So was our Lord Jesus Christ set at nought for us, and we all remain in this way as if set at naught with him, and shall do until we come to his bliss…’ (Ch.18) Divine Compassion lies in the depths of the Sacred Heart – indeed, is the way in which that Heart is to be understood and we can always be present to His compassion when we come before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. So people have longed to look upon that loving compassion and can do so when the Sacrament is exposed to our gaze on the altar. There we can be present to Him as He is present to us when the Sacrament is exposed on the altar; if only every church offered times when this practice so that all can sit or kneel in prayer in His Presence. If churches helped people to come and adore Him who longed – and longs – to be with us! There we can talk with Him or just rest with Him and know that He is fully present to all who come to Him. We could just curl up before Him who opens His Heart to us in the Sacrament of Divine Love.
But even if we cannot find an open church where the brilliance of the Host shines out we can always take Him with us in the tabernacle of our heart for, as St Francis of Assisi wrote in his Rule of 1221: ‘We should make a dwelling-place within ourselves where He can stay, He who is the Lord God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ Dame Julian echoes this theme when later she wrote: ‘Then with a glad expression our Lord looked into his side and gazed, rejoicing and with his dear gaze he led his creature’s understanding through the same wound into his side within. And then he revealed a beautiful and delightful place, large enough for all mankind that shall be saved to rest there in peace and in love.’ (Ch.24) That ‘place’ is His Sacred Heart, a Heart large enough to contain all of us, a Heart enlarged by compassion. This is the Sacrament of Love upon which we are invited to gaze, as Julian gazed on what was revealed to her. It is a wonderful thing that we who have been made part of His Body can gaze on that Body which is lit up with Love – as one might look on a building flooded with light both inside and out, throbbing with all the colours there are against the darkness that surround it – a darkness of both sin and a lack of recognition. This is what we are to realise as we gaze on His Incarnate Body shown to us in the monstrance.
God
enables us to fashion an inner-monstrance
of the heart which is to be the dwelling-place for Jesus where we can adore Him
whenever we visit that place. Few
churches can offer perpetual Adoration but He can always be with us and we can
always adore Him whenever we choose to make this visit to our heart. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if more Anglican
churches – cathedrals, certainly – offered this facility? There is a wonderful Tabernacle House, for
example, in Southwark Cathedral (which may come from the Convent of the sisters
of the Community of Reparation to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament founded in
1869 and ended with the death of the last sister in the early years of this
century).
It’s
exquisitely beautiful to come to Jesus in this way and be able to just rest
with Him – ‘be there’ with Him who is in all places and fills all things yet
who left us this way to realise His presence. It’s a presence that doesn’t require any words
and the only effort is to focus attention on Him and Him alone. To be able to do this in places like
Westminster Cathedral and Tyburn Convent in Hyde
Park Place is a joy which all would benefit from realising. And when that is not possible we can make a
virtual visit to adore Jesus through a number of websites which offer that
facility.
Thankfully
even though we may not be able to visit those places, He dwells in the hearts
of all who turn aside to Him and unlock the door to this inner sanctuary. The Sacred Heart is like a door leading into
the very soul of Christ, towards complete conformity to Him.
"Devotion
to the Sacred Heart has a twofold object: it honours first with
adoration and public worship the Heart of flesh of Jesus Christ, and
secondly the infinite love with which this Heart has burned for us since its
creation, and with which it is still consumed in the Sacrament of our
altars." (St. Peter Julian Eymard)
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