and from thence "by a movement of the soul at once sweet and sublime, to a reflection on, and adoration of, the divine love of the Word Incarnate."  (Pius XII, Haurietis aquas, 104)  Your Heart is therefore the gate of heaven which leads us into the house of God.

This was your design from of old.  From "the infinite horizon" of your Love, you "wished to enter into the limits of human history and the human condition."  You "took on a body and a heart.  Thus, we can contemplate and encounter the infinite in the finite, the invisible and ineffable Mystery in the human Heart of Jesus, the Nazarene." (Benedict XVI, Angelus, June 1, 2008)

And what love is it that we see in your Heart, Jesus of Nazareth?

Since that marvelous event put into play by Mary's obedient fiat, yours is a Love O God which is no longer only impassible.  From the time that you assumed human nature, your Love is both impassible and--scandalous to the Jew and Muslim and foolishness to the Greek philosopher--passible.  You, God, love us through a human Heart, and so divinized that passible human love.  So we may say that you God, through your Heart, suffered the entire gamut of worthy human emotion from grief to joy, but never in a disordered way.  You had a Heart that loved and still loves Mary and loved and still loves Joseph, and loved and still loves your friends. 

You had a Heart which when in Palestine had compassion on the hungry crowds, and the sick, the lame, the blind, the poor, the sinner, and the possessed, which desired to eat the Passover dinner with its friends, and which in its largesse forgave those who did you wrong. You had a heart which in Samaria beckoned to those in darkness. 

Yours was a Heart which was able to suffer affliction, without bitterness or rancor, as it suffered grief at Jerusalem's rejection of your mission, pity for the short-sighted daughters of Jerusalem, agony at the Garden where you sweat blood, and the bitterness of betrayal when it experienced Judas's bitter kiss.  It was a Heart that was livened when you roused in righteous anger against the moneychangers at the temple and overturned their tables and when you railed at pious hypocrites and whitened sepulchers.  It was a Heart that pounded within your rib cage as if it would burst when you trudged the Via Dolorosa.  During this terrible way of pain, your Heart, dear Jesus, was bruised for our iniquities.

It was a Heart which, we learned, by the witness of John your beloved, can break, can stop beating, as when you breathed your last and uttered the words, "It is finished." (John 19:30)  And so this Heart, a Heart which was obedient unto death, which was a victim for our sins and a propitiation for our offenses, is our peace and reconciliation.

Indeed, it was a Heart that can suffer the insult of being pierced, as it was pierced by the lance of a Roman soldier.  Your heart was physically wounded, O Lord, "so that through the visible wound we may behold the invisible wound of love."  (Pius XII, Haurietis aquas, 87)  That is why the Old Testament and the New say: "They shall look on Him Whom they have pierced." (Zach. 12:10; John 19:37)

And from that piercing, what a gift!  From the wounded Heart of the Redeemer and out of His most blessed side was born the Church, the dispenser of the Water and Blood of the Redemption and from "whence flows that plentiful stream of Sacramental grace from which the children of the Church drink of eternal life." (Pius XII, Haurietis aquas, 76)

Yours is a wondrous Heart, one that did not undergo corruption (cf. Acts 13:37), but--mirabile dictu! Alleluia!--healed itself, became glorified, and started beating after a dark three-day hiatus in the cold of a rock tomb.  This is something no other human heart has done.  So it is that your Heart is our Life and Resurrection.  For if your Heart had not started beating again, our faith would be in vain, and we would still be in our sins.  (Cf. 1 Cor. 15:14, 17)  From the point it beat again until the ages of ages, this noble Heart, this Lion of Judah's heart, "will never cease to beat with calm and imperturbable pulsations" of a Love that fails not.  (Pius XII, Haurietis aquas, 61)

But Heart of all hearts, I praise you in universal terms.  Let me also praise you concretely, for your Heart always speaks Heart-to-heart, one-to-one, face-to-face: Cor ad cor loquitur, solus cum solo.  With your divine and human Heart, you love me as if I had been made only for You. 

Your Heart is my Shema Yisrael.  Let me be an Israel to you, that you may see me as your adopted child, your adopted son, and call me out of the evils of Egypt.  Draw me out with the cords of Adam, with the ...
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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Sacred heart, heart of jesus, Love, Divine Love, Trinity, contemplation, contemplative, devotion, meditation, Andrew M. Greenwell

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