Dear friend,

Next Friday we will complete the wonderful cycle of solemnities of the Lord. After Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus: it is no coincidence! To God’s infinite love - forever memorialized by the pierced heart of Jesus Christ - we owe the advent of the Holy Spirit and Its effective performance through the sacraments. God sees the man weak, often ungrateful and indifferent, but His merciful love knows no bounds. The Eucharist is the greatest exponent of this flow of love.

Jesus, by patiently consuming – without getting angry – His deliverance from the Cross, shows us so great a love that "overflows" His Heart and spills over our spirits as a good "medicine" to remedy our weaknesses. St. John the Evangelist paid particular attention to this fact (which might have gone unnoticed, as something secondary): "But when they came to Jesus and found that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water" (Jn 19:33-34). However, the regenerating efficiency of the baptismal water is not "free", for it has a price: the Blood which also flowed from the open side of the Lord.

A “broken” heart!. There, on the threshold of this "open" heart, we can lean out and discover what the Holy Trinity is like. God – who is not a "lonely" and "boring" being – does not need man to be Love. He is One and Triune: infinite Paternity, infinite Filiation and infinite Love. He was perfectly self-reliant to be eternally happy (in fact, this is how Aristotle understood Him: an infinite intelligence that is happy just by knowing itself). He did not need us! However, He has wished to "need us" to the point of feeling passionate for each one of us personally. It is a "crazy Love": an ardent love, an "Eros" love, by using an expression by Benedict XVI. The issue is so important that St. John remarks: «the man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe» (Jn 19:35)

"They will look on the one they have pierced," reminds us St. John (19:37). For the relaxation of the disciple, still basking in the dusty roads of this life, it is being offered the heart of Christ that remains "open": always open to welcome and comfort the believer! Let us rest by looking at the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

Fr. Antoni Carol i Hostench

(General Coordinator of evangeli.net)