“They will look upon him whom they have pierced.” Yes, on this Feast of the Sacred Heart, the Gospel draws our eyes to gaze silently at the Crucified’s opened side, from which flow blood and water. If we linger a moment, we find ourselves once again personally drawn to him who addresses us through the prophet Hosea in the First Reading, “My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred.” With eyes of faith we then try to take in this “Heart,” which is really symbolic of the entire mystery of Christ, the totality of his being and person – Jesus Christ himself, who, as St. Paul assures us in the Second Reading, “dwells in our hearts with a love that surpasses knowledge, so as to fill us with all the fullness of God.” If we linger long enough, and do not dismiss the moment as one of mere piety or sentimental devotion, we may find that imagination and words utterly fail us, but not the reality of what is happening as we open ourselves “heart to heart” to the living person of Christ.

Even if no human eyes can see nor earthly words describe our hearts’ intimate encounter with Christ’s heart (God’s heart), we know that true religion, wherever it is found, springs from the heart and returns to the heart. That’s what’s going on when we look upon him whom we have pierced; that’s the special grace we celebrate on the Feast of the Sacred Heart – a relationship, a connecting, that springs from the heart and returns to the heart. As Christians, we believe that the Cross of Christ is the hub of world history and of human history, and the center of this central Cross is the pierced heart of the Lord, for it is here that grace brings God and us heart to heart as nowhere else. It is here that we are moved to surrender our whole selves to Christ, because his pierced and streaming heart symbolizes his utter self-surrender to us as well as to the Father.

From his lanced side what we see is the full and ultimate out-pouring of Christ’s love for us, love in all its simplicity and starkness. This final expression of his heart on earth cannot help but impress on us how totally and unconditionally we are loved in our destitution. When his Heart loves us so, it cannot help but become the center of our own hearts – and every need, every distress, every misery of our hearts is taken from us. Up from this Heart of Christ, and out of this Heart, which is truly God’s own, human words have arisen, intimate words, words of the heart, words of God that have only one meaning, a meaning that gladdens and blesses.

“They will look upon him whom they have pierced.” Do we look with remorse, with regret, with shame? Do we steal a look, and quickly look away? Do we hurriedly change the “channel” to the resurrection, and move on? Do we settle for a more comfortable image of Jesus? The Heart of Jesus depicted in today’s Gospel, the final “expression” of his heart on earth, is God’s heart in the world, the heart in which our being finds its own ultimate center and life. And so we look at “him whom we have pierced” above all with eyes of hope.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the boundless love which this pierced heart symbolizes forms the very center of the mystery of God himself (“God is Love”), and the center of the mystery of our own selves (“created in his image”). As we look upon him whom we have pierced, we begin to realize that all the love that comes down to us from above must spring from the Heart of the Father and pass to that of the Son, there to become the heart of the world, and so to touch our own hearts. Conversely, all our love for God, every ascent of our hearts, must be carried by the Holy Spirit through the Heart of the Son to its goal in the Heart of the Father. Today’s Gospel is a powerful icon revealing that the plan of Redemption is to make of us all a single heart, the Heart of the Son in the presence of the Father. As we look upon him whom we have pierced, we know that his Heart has everything to do with our hearts, with our experience of God, with our experience of divinization and of being fully human.

However sublime, lofty, all this is, we must never forget that the tree of the Cross is rooted in our earth, which is soaked with blood from this pierced Heart. This feast is not about religious sentimentality or devotion, but about a Heart wounded for the crimes of our hearts – that’s a sobering truth best not glossed over. But more importantly, the mystery of this pierced Heart manifests, in a manner more profound and arresting than any other image or mystery, the true character of our Redemption. St. Paul placed the central mystery of Redemption squarely in that kenosis (that “pouring out”) by which Christ emptied and dispossessed himself – and of this kenosis there is no more eloquent symbol than Christ’s Heart, pierced, and emptied of every drop of blood, open and vulnerable to us.

“Hope looks up at the Cross.” (That is probably the shortest sentence Karl Rahner ever wrote! At least it is short enough for me to remember.) “Hope looks up at the Cross.” The hope I am referring to here is the one hope that bears and encompasses everything, whose meaning and power is God, and which knows as it contemplates the Cross of Jesus that it is called and justified and loved with an inconceivable mercy and loving-kindness. There are many hopes in our life that wither and fade away—the hope for health, for victory over disease, for success in life, for love and security, for peace in the world, and a thousand other good things. Actually, even if for a time and in part we experience the fulfillment of those hopes, in the end they are all deceived, for we are inescapably on our way towards death. On our way there, one after another our hopes are taken from us. But do we hope that unique hope given by God himself, the hope which supports and encompasses everything, which does not vanish but remains in all the vicissitudes of our other hopes? It is to this hope that the pierced Heart of Christ invites us, draws us, and unfailingly raises us. Let us allow ourselves on this beautiful Feast of the Sacred Heart to be borne up by Him whom we have pierced. The Good News is that on the Cross, Jesus’ heart is fully revealed and opened to us, so that we may find our true and blessed home in it….for He indeed has loved us to the end.

Homily for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

by a Monk of St. Joseph’s Abbey