You Are Sacred to the Lord, Your God

Today we celebrate the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a feast about love poured out without reserve. Jesus’ heart was pierced upon the cross. Blood and water flowed from His Sacred Heart, a heart so filled with love for humankind, for you and me,  that Jesus willingly accepted His passion and death to save us from eternal death.  In the first reading of today’s liturgy, Dt 7: 6-11, and from the cross, God says to us personally:

• You are…sacred to the Lord, your God
•   …[God] has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own
• …the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations. It was because the Lord loved you and because of his fidelity to the oath he has sworn to your…[ancestors] that he brought you out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed you from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

On the cross, God brought you and me out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed us from the hand of Satan, from his lies and his determination to snare us in such a way that we alienate ourselves from God for all eternity.  No way would God allow that to happen. God  would go to any extent to save us from Satan's lies and from eternal damnation, sending His Son to show us God’s love and determination to keep us as His own!

Have I set my heart on God as God has set His heart on me? Do I realize that I am sacred to the Lord, my God?  Do I grasp the fact that God has chosen me to be peculiarly His own?  How grateful am I that God has sent His only begotten Son, who was obedient to the Father unto death, to save me from  my disobedience to the Father’s will?