Friday, June 23, 2017

The Feast of God's Love Revealed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In today's first reading,  Deuteronomy 7: 6-11, Moses reminds the Israelites, and us, that we are "a people sacred to the Lord," our God!  God "has chosen" us,  to be "a people peculiarly his own."  God "set his heart" on Israel, not because it was the greatest of nations but because it was "really the smallest of all nations,"  hardly noticeable!  So too with you and me.  God sets his heart on each one of us, not because of our greatness, but because of our smallness,  not because we are awesome or great, but because, in slang, we are nothing to shake a stick at! It is because God loves us and because of God's "fidelity" to the oath sworn to our ancestors, to those who have passed the faith on to us!  In his faithfulness, Moses reminds the Israelites, God has "brought you out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed you from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt."  Faithful to the promises God made to our first parents, God has ransomed us from slavery to the Father of Lies, Satan, by dying upon the cross, nailing sin to the cross and taking Satan's power away from him. We are redeemed in Christ Jesus. Forever, God loves us even unto death on the cross, when from His heart blood and water flowed and continues to flow in baptism and in Eucharist and from all of the other sacraments that purify us and strengthen us in God's love.

May you and  know God's love today as we follow God unreservedly, seeking His presence in the events of our day and listening to His voice in those we encounter today and within the depths of our ow hearts!

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