By Sister Mary Clare, O.C.D.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Heart that was wounded and opened for us; opened that we may enter in. In the Anima Christi we pray: “Within your wounds hide me.” Hide me from what? For what purpose? The Heart of Christ is a refuge for every sinner and the delight of every saint. When His Heart was pierced with the lance and blood and water flowed out giving birth to the Church and the sacraments for our salvation, it did not then afterwards close up. Christ took His wounded Heart with Him into heaven, where it remains open, inviting us who have been bathed in the waters of baptism and the blood of forgiveness and redemption to enter in. He desires to be our refuge and His Heart to be our school of love.
“May the Heart of Jesus Christ be our school! Let us make our abode there. Let us study its movements and attempt to conform ours to them. Yes, O Divine Jesus, I want to live there.” (St. Claude la Colombiere)
When we take up our abode in the Heart of Jesus, He hides us from the self-deception that love is easy, merely a pleasant feeling, or some sweet sentimentality. While on earth, the Heart of Christ was always turned in filial and loving trust to the Father, moving in unison with Him, looking to him for all things in meekness and humility. His was a Heart fully embraced and enfolded in the love of the Father, yet it was also a Heart painfully betrayed and wounded by men. Love is both a painful and exhilarating reality. The passion behind it is a powerful thing that strengthens the will to endure the most excruciating suffering for the beloved, to fight for her or him without yielding … and experience the most exalted ecstasy that is the fruit of their union won at all costs. It is for this union that our Lord’s Heart remains open for us. It is this fierce and passionate love that He wishes to teach us and to give us the grace to live. He bids us to enter in. He carries His Heart open to the Father, to present every Christian soul as the treasure that He bears therein. So let us take the prayer of St. Claude above as our own and heed the advice of Mother Luisita who encourages us to take “the Sacred Heart of Jesus to be your love, your guide and your consolation.”
