The Community of Believers (Acts 4)
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Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Francis writes in his encyclical He Loved Us, naturally prompts us to ask what we can do for our Lord: “Saint Ignatius brings his contemplations to a crescendo at the foot of the cross and invites the retreatant to ask the crucified Lord with great affection, ‘as one friend to another, as a servant to his master’, what he or she must do for him.”
One thing we can all do for Jesus is console Him in His sufferings. Pope Francis turns to his predecessor Pope Pius XI to help us understand this mystery: “Pope Pius XI wished to ground this particular devotion in the realization that the mystery of our redemption by Christ’s passion transcends, by God’s grace, all boundaries of time and space. On the cross, Jesus offered himself for all sins, including those yet to be committed, including our own sins. In the same way, the acts we now offer for his consolation, also transcending time, touch his wounded heart.
“Pope Pius XI makes this clear: ‘How can these acts of reparation offer solace now, when Christ is already reigning in the beatitude of heaven? To this question, we may answer in the words of Saint Augustine, which are very apposite here – ‘Give me the one who loves, and he will understand what I say’.
“Our sufferings are joined to the suffering of Christ on the cross. If we believe that grace can bridge every distance, this means that Christ by his sufferings united himself to the sufferings of his disciples in every time and place. In this way, whenever we endure suffering, we can also experience the interior consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with us. In seeking to console him, we will find ourselves consoled.
Jesus likewise calls us to love our brothers and sisters: “Jesus asks for love. Once the faithful heart realizes this, its spontaneous response is one of love, not a desire to multiply sacrifices or simply discharge a burdensome duty: ‘I received from my God excessive graces of his love, and I felt moved by the desire to respond to some of them and to respond with love for love’.
“We need once more to take up the word of God and to realize, in doing so, that our best response to the love of Christ’s heart is to love our brothers and sisters. There is no greater way for us to return love for love.
Pope Francis again turns to the saints as a model of the love we should have for Jesus and each other. He cites Saint Bernard: "Your affection for the Lord Jesus should be both sweet and intimate, to oppose the sweet enticements of the sensual life. Sweetness conquers sweetness, as one nail drives out another”.
“Saint Francis de Sales was particularly taken by Jesus’ words, ‘Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart’ (Mt 11:29). Even in the most simple and ordinary things, he said, we can “steal” the Lord’s heart. ‘Those who would serve him acceptably must give heed not only to lofty and important matters, but to things mean and little, since by both alike we may win his heart and love… I mean the acts of daily forbearance, the headache, the toothache, the heavy cold; the tiresome peculiarities of a husband or wife, the broken glass, the loss of a ring, a handkerchief, a glove; the sneer of a neighbour; the effort of going to bed early in order to rise early for prayer or communion, the little shyness some people feel in openly performing religious duties… Be sure that all these sufferings, small as they are, if accepted lovingly, are most pleasing to God’s goodness’.
Saint Therese went so far as to offer herself as a martyr to love: “’I offer myself as a victim of holocaust to your merciful love, asking you to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within you to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of your love’. It is important to realize that, for Therese, this was not only about allowing the heart of Christ to fill her heart, through her complete trust, with the beauty of his love, but also about letting that love, through her life, spread to others and thus transform the world. Again, in her words, ‘In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be love… and thus my dream will be realized’. The two aspects were inseparably united.
Pope Francis concludes, “The sacrifices and sufferings required by these acts of love of neighbour unite us to the passion of Christ.”
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.
Michael Haverkamp Jr. is a lifelong member of the Roman Catholic Church. He is grateful to his parents for raising him in the faith. He resides in Columbus, Ohio with his amazing wife and three sons. By day he is a (usually) mild-mannered grant writer. You can read more of his writing at his blog, buildonrock.org.
