Eugenia Alsina Cerdá, candidata (España)
Today, the feast of the Sacred Heart, we are celebrating the immeasurable love of God's Heart, poured out in our lives and the whole living universe around us, and embodied above all in the life and person of Jesus.
I don't have anything new to say about God's love, but having thought at length about the readings of today, I will share my rambling reflections... and I am in very good company I think, because looking at the letter to the Ephesians, Paul, or whoever wrote that letter, also seems to be sharing ramblings!
"that Christ may live in your hearts through faith
and then planted in love and built on love,
you will, with all the saints
have strength to grasp the length and the breadth,
the height and the depth:
until knowing the love of Christ
you are filled with the utter fullness of God.”
What does that mean? What does it mean to grasp the length, breadth, height and depth? It is language that seems to go round in circles!
And the length, breadth, height and depth of what? He doesn't exactly say the love of Christ or of God, he leaves it hanging, but he does say that by this process of grasping we will get to know the love of Christ and be filled with the utter fullness of God.
He calls it a mystery kept hidden but now revealed and made accessible through Christ. So I looked at today's readings looking for clues about what the length and breadth, height and depth of this mystery might be. The reading from Hosea expresses God's love for God's people in terms-of utter tenderness, like the love-of a parent for a child I taught Ephraim to walk, lied them with kindness, I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek, but then also God's pain and dilemma, how can I part with you, how can I give you up, my heart recoils, beautiful images that are so human and meaningful to us...and Isaiah expresses our response:
He is the God of my salvation, I trust I have no fear, he is my strength, my song, my life, [you shall draw water from the wells of salvation,] cry out for joy and gladness, it is like a song, a dance of joy in response to God's love.
But we also find a deeper mystery at the heart of these two readings: in Hosea...I am God, not man I am the Holy One in your midst, I have no wish to destroy.
And in Isaiah: cry out for joy and gladness, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. The dialogue of love in these two readings is inextricably intertwined with holiness and otherness. And the mystery is that the Holy One is the one who loves and is the one who is in our midst.
When we come to the Gospel reading, the mystery deepens even further, in the piercing of Jesus heart, we are suddenly brought down to earth from the joyous and sublime language of the Old Testament. We are presented with an image of pain, powerlessness, violence and rejection, and John is careful to show us that Jesus is really dead, his side is pierced, and therefore also, if he was truly dead then he is alive, truly raised.
In Jesus, God and humanity meet in a new way, we see to what extremes God's love will really go. We see a God who really shared our human existence. We understand that the love we are invited to share through Jesus has a wisdom which, as Paul says, is not our wisdom. The crucified Jesus is the ultimate revelation of the love that Hosea is talking about, the revelation of the Holy One among us in a new way, in humanity, with all it's suffering, joys and struggles.While we rejoice in the tenderness of God's love we cannot escape into it. We cannot turn away from the object of God's love, all humanity and the earth we live in, because if we do that, we will miss the Holy One among us. So grasping the length, breadth, height and depth is something about tenderness, about embracing love, joy, suffering and otherness and humanity.
It is about a life given away like Jesus life, one that is lived to the full, poured out in service, and one that recognises that in the other we meet the holy one among us. And in doing this, we come to know the love of Christ and are filled with the utter fullness of God. Now after all this, I come to what might be the point of these readings. It is what we find in Isaiah, Ephesians and in the Gospel: Give thanks to Yahweh, call his name aloud, proclaim his deeds, declare his name sublime, let his deeds be made known to the whole world.
I who am less than the least, have been entrusted with this special grace, not only of proclaiming Christ but also explaining the mystery. And, this is the evidence of one who saw it, trustworthy evidence, and he knows that he speaks the truth, and he gives it so that you may believe as well. So it is not only for our own sakes that he gives us the power for our hidden selves to grow strong, for Christ to live in our hearts and for us to live lives planted in and built on love,
Because:
I who am the least of all the saints have been entrusted with this special grace.. not only of proclaiming the infinite treasure of Christ, but also of explaining how the mystery is to be dispensed.
And we do this most eloquently through our lives lived in love, our choices, our commitments, our preferences. As we walk this earth and, live our humanity reaching out to others and letting their lives touch us, we both meet and reveal the Holy One among us.
And why would we do this?
Simply because he is our strength, our song; because the Holy One is in our midst and because we have been entrusted with this special grace and, above all, because we are compelled by the compassion of the Heart of God.
Barbara Sweeney rscj
Province of England - Wales
Homily given at the Feast of the Sacred Heart at Hammersmith High School, 2006.
|
