O Jesus meek and humble of Heart, make my heart like unto thine, truly beating and throbbing in the Eucharist!
Reflection
This Homily was preached by Father Edmond Kline in 2005 on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Father Edmond Kline was a former E.W.T.N. Friar who is now a Diocesan Priest in the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas.
Today, Holy Mother Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the 1600’s, Our Blessed Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary revealing His Sacred Heart and requesting the establishment of the Feast, the Friday after Corpus Christi, in order to make reparation for sins, which offend His Sacred Heart.
In the first reading, Moses told the people, “The Lord set His heart on you and chose you. It was because the Lord loved you and because of His fidelity, that He brought you with a strong hand from the place of slavery and ransomed you from Pharaoh”. Do not these words echo the love of God for us, in the person of Jesus, who set His Heart on us, and chose to free us, from the slavery of sin, and ransom us, from the devil, at the price of His Agony, His Passion, and the piercing of His Heart on Calvary. St. John said, “in this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might have life through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but He loved us, and sent His Son as expiation for our sins”.
Today, the Sacrifice of Mass, the re-presentation of Calvary, is the manner in which we come in contact with God, who is love; receive His love, in the Eucharist in Holy Communion; and in which Jesus offers Himself in expiation for our sins.
As one approaches Mother Angelica’s Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Child Jesus stands holding in His hand, His Sacred Heart. The giving of His Heart to us represents, the giving of His pure and perfect love in the Eucharist offered for us in the Mass. And this little Child took His flesh and blood from Mary. The tiny Heart of God was formed within her womb, and began to beat for love of mankind, in unison, with her Immaculate Heart. The Blessed Virgin was first to praise, adore and love with grateful affection, the Heart of the hidden Jesus. The body and blood of her Son, including His Sacred Heart, would someday be offered to nourish sinful humanity in the Eucharist, but only to be sacrilegiously and irreverently pierced by ungrateful men, on the wood of the Cross. At the Last Supper, the first Mass, John leaned against the beating Heart of Jesus. He too praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection the Heart of Christ. He heeded the Lord’s words, “Come to me, all you who are burdened and I will give you rest”, and in return He received a meek and humble Heart, to receive the grace, to stand at the foot of the Cross, as He watched love from His wounded side.
However, Judas, the betrayer left the Last Supper, the institution of the Eucharist, to receive 30 pieces of silver; His heart not meek and humble, but prideful & wicked. What ingratitude! What irreverence! What sacrilege! What lack of love, to leave as the Lord God’s meek and humble Heart, is given as food, for eternal life in the Blessed Eucharist.
And today, the irreverence, sacrileges and indifference continue to afflict His meek and humble Eucharistic Heart. Today, the Eucharist is not sold for 30 pieces of silver, but sold on an auction block on the Internet. Today, how many churches find hosts in hymnals, under pews, and even in the parking lot. Today, how many sacristans pour His precious blood into the sewer. Today, how many unworthily and sacrilegiously receive Holy Communion after committing serious sins, without going to confession, such as missing Mass on Sunday, Internet pornography, impurity, contraception, and fornication. Today, how many after receiving the Sacred Host in Holy Communion, do as Judas, and leave Mass without offering thanks to Him, whom out of love, gave His body and blood on the Cross, to become our food in the Eucharist! Today, how many receive the Eucharist, as though it was ordinary food, and not Jesus, the Son of God, who loves us! Pope Benedict XVI, in his Corpus Christi homily, said, “The Risen One, present in the form of bread (The Eucharist), cannot be "eaten" as a simple piece of bread.” The Eucharist is not bread! The Eucharist is not perishable food! The Eucharist is Jesus. The Eucharist is God! The Eucharist is love! It looks like bread and wine, tastes like bread and wine, but it is really and truly Jesus Christ. And within the Eucharist is His beating Heart. St. Peter Julian Eymard said, “The Divine Heart is living and palpitating in the Eucharist.”
St. John said that it was in His love, God sent His only Son as expiation for our sins. Due to the many sacrileges, outrages, and indifference toward our Lord in the Eucharist, Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary, as she adored the Eucharist in a monstrance, and revealed His Sacred Heart. Our Divine Lord said, “Behold this Heart, which has so loved men, so much that it spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify to them its love. In return, the greater part of ingratitude, by reason of contempt, irreverence, sacrilege, and coldness that they show me in the sacrament of love.” On every first Friday, and especially today, on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, our Lord desires, we go to confession, and receive Holy Communion, offering it, as an act of reparation for sins, which wound His Sacred Heart.
We can also, come to love, adore, and praise with grateful affection, the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus in the tabernacle, and in the many adoration chapels. How many holy souls come to adore Jesus for an hour, in the wee hours of the night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the Eucharistic Adoration Chapels of so many parishes throughout the world.
Pope John Paul II in His Apostolic Letter, Mane Nobiscum Domine, “The presence of Jesus in the tabernacle must be kind of a ‘magnet pole’ attracting an ever greater number of souls enamored of Him, ready to wait patiently, to hear His voice, and as it were, to sense the beating of His Heart.” Perhaps, Jesus is in the Eucharist is speaking to us from the depths of His beating Heart.
My dear friends, Come to the beating Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist! Come to His Heart, and make reparation for the sins of irreverence, ingratitude, and sacrilege! Come and offer Him praise, adoration, thanksgiving and love! Come to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, and He will give you rest! Come; spend an hour, to receive His love, from His beating Heart!
O Mother of the Heart of Jesus, who gave us His flesh and blood, and His beating Heart in the Eucharist, draw us to your Son, that we may make reparation, crying out in Eucharistic adoration, “May the Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament be praised adored and loved with grateful affection at every moment in all the tabernacles and in every adoration chapel, of the world, unto the end of time! O Jesus meek and humble of Heart, make my heart like unto thine, truly beating and throbbing in the Eucharist!
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