The Kaleidoscope of the Loving Heart of Jesus
The Octave of the Sacred Heart
Even though the month of June is over, we continue to recall the feast of the Sacred Heart. In 1928 Pope Pius XI enriched this feast with an Octave, and today would have been the Octave day. In the Eastern Catholic Churches, they sometimes call the last day (which is often the octave day) of the feast the “leave-taking” of the feast. This is a lovely name, and so we can consider today the leave-taking of the Feast of the Sacred Heart. But may we never leave the Sacred Heart! Since July is dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, it would be appropriate for us to join together the memory of the Sacred Heart with that of the Precious Blood and say, together with Saint Faustina:
O Wound of Mercy, Heart of Jesus, hide me in Your depths as a drop of Your own blood, and do not let me out forever! Lock me in Your depths, and do You Yourself teach me to love You!
The Kaleidoscope
When but a wee girl, Saint Thérèse loved the kaleidoscope. Shaped like a small telescope, as it was made to revolve, she would perceive an endless variety of pretty, coloured figures. And, indeed, what child has been alone with a kaleidoscope and not felt fascination and amazement? One of our monks tells his own tale. “My dear aunt has a basket that seemed to me filled with kaleiscopes. They had tubes that could be moved up and down. You could take out one tube and put in another, or try finding other things (if they would fit). It was fascinating to see the tubes that seemed only to have glitter in them, and then all the shapes in the kaleidoscope. I could play with them for great lengths of time in fascination with how you got from the tube the myriads of shapes!”
Saint Thérèse describes her experience in similar terms.
“This toy,” she said, “excited my admiration, and for a long time I wondered what could produce so charming a phenomenon.” What could be the explanation for something so wondrous? Being clever and curious, she examined it. “One day,” she states, “a careful examination showed that it consisted simply of tiny bits of paper and cloth scattered inside.” So what made these tiny bits of paper and cloth seem so splendid? “Further scrutiny revealed three mirrors inside the tube, and the problem was solved.”
One of the qualities of Saint Thérèse is her ability to make a lesson out of the simplest experiences. So was it with this one.
It became for me the illustration of a great truth. So long as our actions, even the most trivial, remain within love’s kaleidoscope, the Blessed Trinity, figured by the three mirrors, imparts to them a wonderful brightness and beauty. The eye-piece is Jesus Christ, and He, looking from outside through Himself into the kaleidoscope, finds all our works perfect. But, should we leave that ineffable abode of love, He would see nothing but the worthless chaff of worthless deeds.
Love Covers a Multitude of Sins
Saint Thérèse was thinking particularly of the value of her works, but perhaps we can extend the idea of little bit and see not only our works, but our very selves through the kaleidoscope of the love of Jesus.
Saint Peter (and we are still in the Octave of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul) wrote to the Church that love (or charity) covers a multitude of sins. In context, he was urging the Christians to mutual love, but if our love for each other covers a multitude of sins, how much more is this true of the love that Jesus has for us. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…We love, because He first loved us” (1 Jn 4:10, 19). The charity of Jesus covers a multitude of our sins, and when God covers sins, they no longer exist at all, for they are covered indeed, covered by the love of Christ.
As a Father is Moved and Compassionate
Psalm 102(103):13 says of God that “as a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear Him.” God is quick to spare the son whom He loves. When we abide in the Heart of Christ, God looks upon us with that fatherly love. He is quick to forgive, quick to spare those whom He sees swimming in the love of His Only-Begotten Son’s Heart as in an ocean of love.
Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father is Perfect
But if God “finds all our works perfect” when He looks through the eye-piece of Jesus Christ as sees us in the Heart of Jesus, does that mean that we are unchanged by grace? Not at all. But Saint Thérèse knows that our little acts of justice are “as filthy rags, and we all fade as a leaf” (Isaiah 64:6). Thus she said in her Holocaust to Merciful Love: “All our justice is stained in Thy sight.” Seeing that she could not rely on herself, she turned to Jesus, to offer His Love, His merits, and to expect from Him all as a gift, lifted up by the lift of His arms. Yet the goal remained the same. She knew there was no other end than perfect holiness, perfect love. Yet she saw that God was contented with her little works whenever they were in the Heart of Jesus. Whatever inadequacies they had, His love made up for them. God would see them as perfect not because of her perfection, but because the burning furnace of Divine Charity that is the Heart of Jesus rendered them worthy. It was in this same furnace that she hoped to be forged, even in an instant.
The Precious Blood
Three days ago, on July 1, we celebrated the solemnity of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus. This Blood is the living love of Jesus poured out as the price of our redemption. It is this blood that flows through His Heart, forgives our sins, and beautifies all our actions, if but we abide in that Heart, covered in this Most Precious Blood.
The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus
Then yesterday, two days after the feast of the Most Precious Blood, we celebrated the feast of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, which is always the Thursday after Octave of Corpus Christi. In the Eucharist, Jesus has left us His Heart burning with love. It is through the Eucharist that we have access to this Heart. By abiding in the Eucharist, as Christ instituted the Eucharist to abide in us, we make our abode in the Heart of Jesus, the kaleidoscope outside of which all our deeds would seem but worthless chaff. Yet if we keep our hearts in the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, we shall be ever covered with the Blood that is the forgiveness of sins, and His love will cover the multitude of our sins. From this Eucharistic abode, our Heavenly Father will look on the least thing we do with a love like the love that renders the littlest step and littlest word of the littlest child precious to his loving parents.