9781644135945

The Light of the World
riches of Christ the liturgy finds buried in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which contains all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and in which dwells the fullness of divinity. In the Sacred
Heart of Jesus, God bestows upon us, through His infinite mercy, the inexhaustible treasures
of His love (Collect).
The unsearchable riches of Christ are hidden in His Sacred Heart, which is the symbol and
summation of His inexhaustible sanctity and loving mercy. It contains the inexhaustible fullness
of His life: His thoughts, His intentions, His desires, His feelings. It contains the entire prayer
life of Jesus, and His holy, divinely perfect, and unbroken adoration of the Divinity; it contains
His praise, His thanksgiving, His subjection to the Father in heaven and in our tabernacles on
earth. It contains the inexhaustible plenitude of His graces, virtues, and holiness. There, too, is
concentrated the perfection of His life of obedience, His voluntary emptying of Himself, His
sublime humility, His love of poverty and of suffering. In this heart He lives His life of love
for the Father and for us sinners; here the fire of His zeal for our eternal salvation burns most
brightly. The Sacred Heart contains all the merits which Christ earned from the moment of
His first entrance into the world to His last breath of life on the cross. In the Sacred Heart is
concentrated all the wealth of atonement and satisfaction which the Son offered to the eternal
Father during His life on earth. The Sacred Heart wields irresistible power over Satan and the
elements, and over the spirits and hearts of men; He Himself has declared: “All power is given
to Me in heaven and in earth” (Mt 28:18). In Christ, in His Sacred Heart, “we have redemption
through His blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph 1:7). All
these riches belong to us. The Sacred Heart of Jesus belongs to us, for God has given it to us, as
we are assured in the Collect of the feast: “O God, who in the heart of Thy son, dost mercifully
vouchsafe to bestow upon us the infinite wealth of Thy love.” With the Sacred Heart of Jesus
the wealth of His prayers, His merits, and His satisfactions also belongs to us.
It is our privilege to take in our hands this Sacred Heart and offer it to the Father in the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Thus we can adore the Holy Trinity in a worthy manner and make a
worthy offering of praise; thus we can offer a perfect act of thanksgiving and make full reparation
and atonement for our sins. We can make these offerings of praise, thanksgiving, and reparation
even apart from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, for there is not a single moment of our lives
in which we cannot make use of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and offer it up to the Father. Every
moment of the day and night Jesus loves us, prays for us, thanks the Father for us, and offers
up satisfaction for us. Thus we can always pray in union with the prayers of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus and unite our prayers to His. So, too, when we have been guilty of faults, we can offer
up to the Father the merits of Jesus in satisfaction for our sins. Whenever we stand in need of
grace, we can offer to the Father the Sacred Heart of Jesus with its power of intercession. If we
should have to undergo some suffering, we can unite it to the suffering of Jesus, who at that very
moment is offering up His sufferings and death to the Father on some altar somewhere in the
world. Through Christ we can work, pray, and suffer; through Him we can love God with the
love of the Sacred Heart. The Sacred Heart belongs entirely to us. Through the Sacred Heart
we can pray for those who do not worship Him themselves. Through the Sacred Heart of Jesus
we can love the Father in the name of those who do not love Him, but rather hate Him and
revile Him. Through the Sacred Heart of Jesus we can offer satisfaction for the sinners of the
whole world. How rich and powerful we have become through our possession of the Sacred
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