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JMJ
The Readings for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Friday in the 9th Week of Ordinary Time (B2)
Ut innotescat principatibus et potestatibus in caelestibus per Ecclesiam, multiformis sapientia Dei,
That through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.
Follow this passage in Ephesians, the 3rd chapter from verses 8 – 12, God’s eternal purpose was in Christ Jesus, and, now, is being worked out in the Church. Through the Church the wisdom of God is being made clear even to the powers of heaven.
The Church is the Kingdom of God in the world, the Body of Christ present and active, and so, today we are reminded that the Heart of Christ is the Heart of the Church.
The blood and water which poured forth from the heart of Christ flow, still, in the Church: from her Font and on the Altar. The Love which radiated from Christ to the world, shines still through the actions, the teachings, the power of the Church. Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer. The world cannot see this Love all the time because the world refuses to understand what true, divine Love is (or that it is not “let me do what ever I want”). Yet also because humans in the Church are sinners this love is hidden, for we too, fail at being Christ in the world.
How can we be Christ in our workplace, on the bus, at the grocer’s or beauty parlor? Only if we are connected to the Heart of Christ, only if we are fed on the flesh of Christ, only if we are the Body of Christ, present and active in the world. Yet how can we do that active role (as is our job as the Laity) if we do not engage spiritually with the disciplines of the Church?
Christians must always repair to the Heart of Christ, in prayer, in meditation, in contemplation of the Holy Eucharist. We are called to stay connected, to stay focused. It’s not a case of “What would Jesus do?” Rather, from within the Body of Christ, fed on the flesh and blood of Christ, acting from the beating heart of Christ, we should ask, “What is Jesus doing?” …That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.
The deeper our contemplation, the more fruit we shall bear in our action. The more we are united to Christ in Prayer, the more we can be Christ in the world. The latter cannot happen without the former: apart from the vine the branches can do nothing.
That through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.
Follow this passage in Ephesians, the 3rd chapter from verses 8 – 12, God’s eternal purpose was in Christ Jesus, and, now, is being worked out in the Church. Through the Church the wisdom of God is being made clear even to the powers of heaven.
The Church is the Kingdom of God in the world, the Body of Christ present and active, and so, today we are reminded that the Heart of Christ is the Heart of the Church.
The blood and water which poured forth from the heart of Christ flow, still, in the Church: from her Font and on the Altar. The Love which radiated from Christ to the world, shines still through the actions, the teachings, the power of the Church. Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer. The world cannot see this Love all the time because the world refuses to understand what true, divine Love is (or that it is not “let me do what ever I want”). Yet also because humans in the Church are sinners this love is hidden, for we too, fail at being Christ in the world.
How can we be Christ in our workplace, on the bus, at the grocer’s or beauty parlor? Only if we are connected to the Heart of Christ, only if we are fed on the flesh of Christ, only if we are the Body of Christ, present and active in the world. Yet how can we do that active role (as is our job as the Laity) if we do not engage spiritually with the disciplines of the Church?
Christians must always repair to the Heart of Christ, in prayer, in meditation, in contemplation of the Holy Eucharist. We are called to stay connected, to stay focused. It’s not a case of “What would Jesus do?” Rather, from within the Body of Christ, fed on the flesh and blood of Christ, acting from the beating heart of Christ, we should ask, “What is Jesus doing?” …That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.
The deeper our contemplation, the more fruit we shall bear in our action. The more we are united to Christ in Prayer, the more we can be Christ in the world. The latter cannot happen without the former: apart from the vine the branches can do nothing.
Doxos 