November 20, 2011
November 20, 2011 Column Father De Celles
Next Sunday: Use of the New Translation. At the Vigil Mass next Saturday evening, November 26, all Masses said in English in the United States will begin to use the entire text of the New Translation of the Roman Missal. It will be an historical day in the life of the Church in America. It will also be the beginning of a very difficult adjustment, but I am confident that if we all approach this with open hearts and minds—positively trusting in the Holy Spirit’s guidance of this Church in this important change—it will be the beginning of a period of tremendous growth in understanding of the Mass that will yield immeasurable spiritual fruit. To prepare for all this, I recommend you read over the new Mass prayers contained in the 2 booklets I mailed you several weeks ago, (also available through links on the parish website). And remember: “The Lord be with you”…“And with your spirit.”
Consecration to the Sacred Heart. Today Bishop Paul Loverde will be consecrating the entire Diocese of Arlington to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the priests throughout the diocese will be consecrating their parishes as well. In today’s bulletin you will find a special insert, a picture of the Sacred Heart, which I invite you to place in a prominent place in your home as your recite the prayer on the back consecrating your home and family to the Sacred Heart. To help you to understand this consecration and the importance the devotion to the Sacred Heart, Bishop Loverde has issued a special Pastoral Letter to the diocese. Below follows a lengthy excerpt from the beginning of that letter. A limited number of copies of the entire Letter can be found at the church exits today, or you may view it by following the link at the top of St. Raymond’s website.
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles
Fountain of Life, Fire of Love
By Most Reverend Paul S. Loverde, Bishop of Arlington
There is a deep longing in the human heart for enduring love, and because God is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8), this deep longing is really a longing for God. God alone can ultimately fulfill this longing of the human heart because He Himself created us with this innermost desire for Him, although so often we do not consciously realize its true source.
No doubt, you and I have heard this truth expressed many times. But, in point of fact, do we really allow ourselves to be caught up into the wonder and power of this reality, which is not crafted by human imagination or ingenuity but which has been inserted into our innermost being by God Himself? Knowing how difficult it is for us to understand and to accept this amazing reality — almost too good to be true — God is relentless in the many ways by which He tangibly reveals this absolute truth, especially in ways which we can more easily grasp. One very tangible and humanly understandable way is the image of the Heart of Jesus, the symbol of God’s ever-faithful love.
“Behold This Heart.” A few years ago, I was privileged to accompany a group of pilgrims to various shrines of France. Among these was Paray-le-Monial, a city in the southeastern part of France and known worldwide as the site of the apparitions of the Sacred Heart to a cloistered Visitation nun, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque…
The well-known appearances of the Lord Jesus in which He revealed His Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary began on the night of December 27, 1673. In this first appearance, the Lord spoke of the immensity of His love for all people and showed her His Heart, “like a sun, ablaze with a dazzling light,” as Saint Margaret Mary was later to record it…. In this same appearance, Jesus mourned the world’s ingratitude, indifference and coldness and asked Saint Margaret Mary for a Communion of reparation on the first Friday of each month.
In 1674, although the exact date is uncertain, Jesus again appeared to Saint Margaret Mary. Later, she wrote down what she heard and saw: “The divine Heart was represented to me as upon a throne of fire and flames. It shed rays on every side brighter than the sun and transparent as crystal. The wound which he received on the cross appeared there visibly. A crown of thorns encircled the divine Heart, and it was surmounted by a cross” …. Once more, Jesus spoke of His burning and pure love for humanity.
The third and most famous apparition took place in June 1675. As Saint Margaret Mary knelt before the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus exposed His Sacred Heart again and spoke these words to her: “Behold this Heart which has loved mankind so much that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love.” Christ then asked that the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi be set apart as a special feast day in honor of His Sacred Heart — “a day on which to receive me in Holy Communion and make a solemn act of reparation for the indignities I have received in the Blessed Sacrament while exposed on the altars of the world.” The Lord then said, “I promise you, too, that I shall open my Heart to all who honor me in this way, and who get others to do the same; they will feel in all its fullness the power of my love” ….
By the time of Saint Margaret Mary’s death on October 17, 1690, devotion to the Sacred Heart was well established in the Visitation community and the areas surrounding Paray-le-Monial. Over the succeeding centuries, thanks also to the efforts of Saint Claude La Colombière and the Society of Jesus, devotion to the Sacred Heart spread throughout the world, culminating in the consecration of the whole human race to the Sacred Heart by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.
Reflecting upon the message and the meaning of the apparitions of Our Lord to Saint Margaret Mary, we can see that through the symbol of His Heart, Jesus Christ desired (and still desires) to show us the depth of His divine love — a love that is faithful, a love that is redemptive, a love that is merciful; in short, a love that seeks out each one of us and calls us to a vital communion with Him…