Today I sat in a trance for before me was the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today I sat in a trance for before me was the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

The words of a co-worker, not verbatim but with the same intense thanks.  At a younger age a cousin of my mother was a nun with the Visitation Order in Wheeling, W Va.  At a special celebration for her and several other sisters, she handed me a handful of Sacred Heart badges.  When my co-worker was drafted and sent to Vietnam I handed one of these badges to take with him.  Upon returning from active duty he told me he never took this sign of grace out of his pocket.  During battle he recounted that many around him were hit by enemy fire, some were killed, but he never got a scratch.  

This was not a good-luck charm or some magic genie that protected him.  It was the trust he had that the Sacred Heart would see him through and would bring him home.  There can be moments when an austere outward sign of Jesus Christ, a cross or some other symbol that many wear to tell the world of their allegiance to Christ, may make others wonder at this outward symbol that perhaps this person is acting too religious.  Not a chance since each of us must find and use whatever we get from any exposure to the Lord and his presence within us.  Any of these incidentals might just be the impetus to move closer to Christ, with or without an austere attire.  

Can anyone who has found Christ while living a life that is less than holy let go of the item that brought to our searching quest the path to find what we already had from eternity?  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”  (Jer  1: 8).  

I wonder how many of the same type of people who are leaning into apostasy could be turned around and allow this austerity to erase their semblance of denying God and find he never left our side?  If only they would for a moment drop their pride and see face to face the silence of God standing before them. 

All around us are signs of life without God; the choice is theirs to deny ever knowing him.  And everywhere there are symbols that reflect austerity just waiting to be adopted by those who are not certain about what they see and are reluctant to pick one up and embrace the grace that will begin immediately. 

Isn’t it strange how the Lord calls us with a challenge that at first appears ridiculous.  The Lord asked Francis of Asisi to rebuild his church.  Off he went collecting bricks and other needed materials to reconstruct a physical building when the Lord was referring to the spirit of the Church.  Or when Jonah had to spend three days and nights in the stomach of a whale in order to save the City  of Nineveh.  Through all the avenues that the Lord sends us after a call that might even confuse most of us, we will discover he was reaching into our unborn lives with a task we would never have chosen ourselves.

Take a moment and look beyond our human mind and see the Sacred Heart of Jesus coming closer every moment of our hidden future, known already to God.

Ralph B. Hathaway