As the world grows colder and many men and women seem heartless, a disciple of Christ can find ample consolation and solace in drawing near to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord and to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus and
Immaculate Heart of Mary
The pure and selfless love of Our Lord and Our Lady will fill in each disciple’s heart the gaps formed as a result of living in these evil days. The selfless, merciful love found in the Sacred Heart of Our Lord and in the Immaculate Heart of Mary will more than rectify the deficiencies caused by the reception of inhumane treatment from our fellow human beings.
As recorded in Matthew 24:12, Our Lord, just before His passion and death, prophesied about a wicked time in the far future wherein, “because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold.”
You don’t have to look far for examples of how truly heartless so many are these days, leading many to conclude that we are indeed living in the end times. Many men and women are so cold as to even advocate for the killing of children within the womb.
Then there is the unprecedented number of murders in our cities. In the heart of our country, the city of Chicago charts shootings by the dozen and numerous homicides, weekend after weekend. And if you travel south of the border to Mexico, you find a nation run by cartels, annually causing hundreds of innocent deaths. Mexico may be a Catholic country, but it’s also a deadly nation for Catholic priests to work in.
Scripture teaches man is made in the image of God
Though we are beings made in the image of God, fallen human beings often act like animals — or worse.
The disciples of Christ know that, because of Our Lord’s sacrificial death to redeem us from sin, we no longer need to live like animals. Because of our redemption in Christ, we can live as “sons of God,” made in the image and likeness of God Himself.
We, the descendents of Adam and Eve, can be the sons and daughters God desired us to be, created as we are in His image. No excuses suffice for us not to be holy and good, as God Himself is holy and good.
One way human beings can demonstrate that they are descendents of God is to be merciful, as God Himself is abundantly merciful. Reflect on your behavior. Do your actions show that your love is unconditional? Do you share the gifts God gave you generously, or are you stingy with them?
In the upcoming Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for the grace required to remove from your heart anything that does not come from God, and pray that it be filled with God’s own selfless love.
Of all gospel passages, John 3:16 remains a favorite for many Christians. For decades now, Cubs fans in Chicago have held up placards in Wrigley Field during baseball games to remind the world at large Who Jesus is and what He is all about — how God with a profound, selfless love for His creation, sent His own Son into the world to redeem it completely: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
In this article, I have been using the word “love” always accompanied by an adjective or two. I purposely chose not to use the word by itself, unaccompanied by at least one adjective. The word “love,” by itself, can be ambiguous because it is wildly overused.
For the gays, “love is love” means sodomy is A-okay. For foodies, love means that they really like some food dish. And for most, love is just another synonym for the word “like.” For example, “I love dogs, but I hate cats.”
My experience has been that those individuals who work the word “love” into all things can sometimes be the most unloving sorts of individuals — the sort who are dishonest in their words. For example, when showing an acquaintance your home, their use of effusive adjectives like “love” makes you wonder if they like how you redecorated your front room or are just the sort to mock you for your decorating tastes. And we all know that there are some people who get their jollies principally by mocking others.
The Crucifixion
Sadly, of all the characteristics of Our Lord that fallen human beings like to mock, it’s His unconditional, selfless love. For fallen human beings that eke out their day-to-day lives with only a care for themselves, looking out for the good of other human beings is not on the list of concerns. And these sorts of people cannot comprehend at all Our Lord’s passion and death to redeem humanity. This is because they abhor sacrificing anything — even for their own good, let alone for the good of another.
For these selfish sorts of men and women, it’s all about satisfying their lusts when they want them sated.
In the month of June, when the Church traditionally celebrates the Feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we have witnessed an LGBTQ-mob hijacking. In centuries past, Catholics celebrated these feasts during June to honor how God’s very nature is limitless, selfless love. Now, these June feasts of the Church are sparsely observed by the faithful, and the fallen masses have been redirected into celebrating gay pride. Most cities now honor the sin of sodomy all month long, and some cities even have parades to celebrate it. Sadly, the love expressed in these public parades is far from Godlike.
All this gay pride nonsense is nothing more than large numbers of people mocking God, and making fun of how they are not made in His image and likeness. Even if they were mere animals, this would be disordered, as animals do not engage in same-sex lifestyles.
This June, instead of celebrating sin in any fashion, celebrate how in God’s Son, Jesus, we have proof of God’s very nature — a nature that is holy and pure, a nature that is beautiful and good, a nature that embraces all tenderly, even the weak and the powerless.
This June, celebrate how Our Blessed Mother, in her pure and Immaculate Heart, faithfully carried out every wish of God out of a profound, selfless love. The truly good news to celebrate this June is that we, as human beings made in God’s very image and likeness, can act like God by loving selflessly, just like His Son, Jesus, did. And we can obey God humbly, as Mary His Mother did.