Blessed Schuster’s Daily Thoughts: The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

What is sweeter…than the Lord’s invitation?

1. A cultus and a special devotion for the Sacred Humanity of the Divine Saviour already appears in the monastic writings of the early Middle Ages, and then later especially in Saint Bernard, in Saint Gertrude, and in Saint Mechtilde.

The revelations made to Saint Margaret [Mary] Alacoque finally determined the Apostolic See to institute a special feast of thanksgiving and reparation ‘to the love that is not loved’. Saint John the Evangelist might repeat today, discussing the consecration of the Church and the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, his words: Et nos credidimus caritati Ejus. (1 Jn 4:16) ‘We have dedicated ourselves to His eternal love.’

Saint Benedict, in the language of his time, describes for us the substance of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, which consists above all in offering oneself as a disciple at the school of Him Who said: ‘Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.’ (Mt 11:29)

Thus, the Holy Patriarch writes:

‘As Faith expands and one advances in monastic observance, with a wide heart and with inexpressible sweetness of love he runs along the way of the divine precepts. So it is that, never departing from His instruction, but persevering in the monastery in His doctrines until death, by the exercise of patience we come to take part in the passion of Christ, so as to be likewise sharers in His kingdom. Amen.’ (Rule, Prologue)

In times when the devotion to the Sacred Heart was still struggling to be recognised in religious circles, the Venerable [now Blessed—tr.] Placido Riccardi managed, for today’s solemnity, to introduce Eucharistic adoration throughout the entire day in the community of St Paul [outside-the-walls].

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2. Showing us His Heart as the model of the choicest apostolic and religious virtues, Jesus institutes a true Dominici schola servitii [school of the Lord’s service], saying, ‘Learn from Me.’

Saint Benedict describes in this school first of all the progress of the good disciple who hungers and thirsts for justice.

The love which, from the Heart of Jesus, blazes up in ours, expands and broadens this same little heart of ours; so that, no longer indeed out of fear, as was perhaps was the case in the beginning, but with inexpressible sweetness of love, it does not walk but rather runs along the road of Gospel perfection. Of this race, with regard to the first followers of St Francis, the Divine Poet says: Sì che correndo gli parve esser tardo. [Cf. Dante, Paradiso, XI.81: ‘Such that running seemed slow to him.’]

We should meditate deeply on the two fruits which, according to Saint Benedict, the Disciple learns at the school of the Sacred Heart:

a) Dilatato corde [With heart expanded]. A wide heart, vaster than the world itself.
b) inenarrabili dilectionis dulcedine [with unutterable sweetness of love]. This sweetness of love, like the little stone of the Apocalypse: quod nemo scit nisi qui accipit (Apoc 2:17, ‘Which no one knows but him who receives it’), cannot be described, because it is unutterable. Only the one who experiences it knows it.

3. In order to obtain all these incalculable fruits at the school of the Sacred Heart, three conditions are nonetheless required:

1) Perseverance in the Dominici schola servitii, without ever distancing ourselves from His teachings: Ab ipsius numquam magisterio discedentes.
2) The monk’s stability in the life of the Community: Usque ad mortem in monasterio perseverantes. The frenzy for singularity and changing of places has deceived many, as the Imitation of Christ writes.
3) Participation in the pains of Christ’s Passion. The Church makes us ask Our Lady for the grace of this communion with Christ Crucified:

Fac ut portem Christi mortem,
Passionis fac consortem
Et plagas recolere.

‘Grant that I may express in myself the death of Christ.
Put me as part of His Passion,
And make me venerate His wounds.’ (From the Sequence Stabat Mater)

It is thus that we hope to obtain the reward: Ut et regno Eius mereamus esse consortes [Rule, Prologue: ‘So that we also merit to be sharers in His kingdom’].