14 June 2024
The following text is the manuscript of the homily for the Sunday after the Sacred Heart.
Today is the Sunday within the Octave of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The actual feast day of the Sacred Heart was on Friday, but the octave continues the celebration of the day for a whole week. Most Episcopalians do not celebrate this feast yet, but it is very popular among high church Anglicans and Episcopalians, and it has been a mainstay of catholic spirituality for over a thousand years.
This day is also important locally, for among our Catholic brothers and sisters, the Order of the Sacred Heart is a strong presence in Hawai‘i. Father Damian was of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and this church is privileged to have a relic of Father Damien, gifted to us by that order.
You may have seen images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Typically the heart of Jesus is shown on his chest. The heart is often flaming, shining with divine light, sometimes crowned with a crown of thorns and pierced with the lance. Sometimes the wounded hands of Christ are pointing towards the heart. Much of this imagery is for the Passion of Christ, while the flames and the light symbolize our Lord’s fiery and passionate love for humanity.
It is a wonderful thought that our God has a heart burning with love for us. So many of the historic gods of our society have been gods that do not love humanity. Think about the various mythologies you studied in school; history is full of gods that manipulate humans rather than love humans. If you do this for God, God will then do something for you. Much of the worship of the gods of human history has been a practice of manipulation or placation. You must make the god happy by doing this or that so that you can get this or that. It is a religion of bargaining and deal-making.
But this is not the case with Christianity, and it is not the case with Jesus Christ. The Christian God knows that we are too weak to earn our salvation, and furthermore, our God in Jesus Christ does not look to add impossible burdens or difficulties onto our lives. God is not sadistic when it comes to Christianity. God does not enjoy making us do difficult things to earn God’s love. God simply loves us with a burning love that is beyond our comprehension. This is the power of Jesus Christ, and this is the power of his sacred heart, burning with love for all of us.
When God gave us freewill, God took the risk that humans would create all sorts of weaker gods using their freewill. Humanity, with our freewill, gifted by God, has often created all sorts of other religious systems, which ironically make life more difficult for humans. Think about all the little superstitions people have created with their freewill. Think about all the little spirits people believe have power over their lives. All of this has been created by humans with their freewill, which ironically has been gifted by the only God that matters. We humans have not been the best stewards of the gift of freewill.
But the benefits of our freewill far outweigh the negatives, because when we discover the love that the true God, Jesus Christ, has for us, our freewill responds with the most amazing gratitude and acts of thanksgiving. When we witness the burning love of Christ for each of us, our hearts catch on fire as well for our God who loves us so deeply. Our hearts become alive with the Holy Spirit, and with our freewill, we can respond to the one true God that ultimately matters. We enter a life of thanksgiving for the love that Jesus Christ gives us so freely.
With our God, you do not need to bargain, and you do not need to prove yourself. Jesus has done the hard work at the cross and at Easter, because God in Jesus loves us so dearly. When we discover this mystery of our faith, then our lives can become acts of thanksgiving, forever seeking to love the Lord of Life who save us from death and the grave.
The Sacred Heart of our God is overflowing with love for us. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is full of compassion for our lives. The Sacred Heart of our Lord loves us more than we can ever imagine. How wonderful it is for us that we can be set free from so much of the false religions and spiritualities of our world, that never promise to save us, and instead follow Jesus Christ, who alone can save us, but more than that, who loves us unconditionally, and who inspires us to love God with the best of our freewill, and who inspires us to love Jesus Christ from the depths of our hearts.
Father Paul Lillie +
