Feast of the Sacred Heart

1 John 4 : 7 - 16

I am reminded by my Catholic friends that today is the "Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus". Coming from a different Christian tradition, this sounds strange and I have never thought of finding out what this celebration is about. Actually, although we Protestants have rightly thrown out the many excesses of religious tradition, we may have also missed some of the gems. Anyway, I referred to a Catholic devotional and found that this feast is a call to "meditate in a special way on the mystery of God's love for us".

I have no problems with this call. After all, God's love is the foundation of our whole relationship with him. I know this from personal experience and also from journeying with others. If we listen beneath the masks we put on, we will come to realize that many of us come to faith with shaky foundations with regards to God's love, whether due to the wounds of our youth or due to other unfortunate circumstances that have left us not fully trusting God's love. Sure, we believe in our minds and could even give a good defence of our faith.......but how assured and rested are we in God's love?

God is gracious though and even before we ask, many of us have had deep personal reminders of his love. These are precious, to be treasured in our hearts.....I see them as gifts that we slowly unpack and savor, allowing the fragrance to be absorbed into all our senses. Our lives are so filled, we are always reading, picking up helpful insights from here and there....that sometimes these peak experiences are not given the attention they require to flow into all the empty corners of our inner lives. I notice myself sometimes (unhelpfully) moving from one experience to the next. This may happen even when I companion others. I have to remind myself that these gifts of love are not just insights of the mind that one can store by the dozen. These are very sacred experiences that call for a heartfelt response, that call for a knowing that goes beyond the factual. I am asking God to help me unpack some of my own personal experiences - part of my journey to becoming the Beloved.