Unto the image of Christ in our Hearts

Unto the Image of Christ in our Hearts

We should never forget the grace that comes from our faith to the Sacred Heart of Christ.  It isn’t as though it is only a picture of his Heart that we might carry with us; it is the reality of the Twelve Promises Jesus gave to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.  St. Margaret Mary Alacoque said, “Our Lord Jesus Christ desires that we should, for sanctifying ourselves, glorify His all-loving Heart; for it was His Heart that suffered the most in His Sacred Humanity.”  

Through his Mercy we find forgiveness for our sins.  Within the grace that flows constantly upon sinners through the love of a forgiving God we find a gift that lasts throughout eternity.

Each moment any one of us commits a sin the blows upon the bleeding body of Jesus were felt then as he hung there, and now 2,000 years later, are still part of the timeless existence as the Son of Man sustains these attributes of our ignorance that takes him for granted.  Time does not erase what the crucifixion is all about.  Throughout eternity as long as mankind still exists, the sins we commit will continue to tear at the Heart of our Savior.

There is something mysterious regarding the reality of his Sacred Heart that should move our compassion toward his sacrifice that opened this life-giving entity that will be reaching out to us throughout eternity.  As he told the disciples in the upper-room following his Resurrection; see my wounds are still real and I am not a ghost.  We shall see and be able to feel them even after we enter our eternal existence and share his Passion with us so we can always feel the mercy which is human as well as divine.

In the Holy Trinity we now understand why the Second Person became incarnated by assuming humanity so that each one in humanity could never say; “He was God so he doesn’t understand what we go through when tempted by the devil?”  Because he assumed the human nature that each of us is, he too was tempted beyond his divine nature.   He knows exactly what we are tempted with, but did not sin.  Not because of his divine nature but because he wanted to please his Father.  Study his responses to the three temptations the devil confronted him with in the desert wilderness.  Remember the wilderness confronts us with a dry, empty, and lonely existence even as we use our faith to continue finding grace.

Ralph B. Hathaway