Cecilia van Zon rscj
Province d’Egypte
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In speaking about “The Pierced Heart of Christ: Spirituality for Today’s World, I would like to develop three points. Someone said that Jesus wrote a book and it had only three chapters: The Call to Discipleship, The Call to Take His Place in the World, and the Call to enter into Glory through Suffering. These chapters are really three points useful to describe spirituality for today’s world. First, we are called to be disciples of the Heart of Christ; second, we are called to take His place in the world today; and third, we are to enter into the Pascal Mystery and find His pierced Heart in the suffering of humanity.
The focus of Sacred Heart spirituality is the open Heart of Christ, the wound of his Heart. Our spirituality has an inward and an outward movement. “The pierced Heart of Jesus opens our being to the depths of God and to the anguish of humankind.” (Const. #8)
We are consecrated to glorifying the Heart of Jesus with a special call to discover and reveal His love. (#4) We are called to enter the open Heart of Christ and dwell there. “Remain in my love.” (Jn 15) This is the inward movement where we learn to know His Heart with all its interior dispositions. We are called by the name we bear to be His disciples, to descend into the depths of His Heart. “The solitude of His Heart is a crushing reality.” We are to people that solitude and draw others to His love.
“Our life, community, and apostolic service, all spring from our union and conformity with the Heart of Jesus.”(#8) We are called to experience the love of His Heart, to unite ourselves to His thoughts, desires, affections and interior dispositions. Jesus calls each of us to a deep, personal encounter with Him. (#18) Through the Eucharist we enter into the mystery of the open side of Jesus and are drawn into the gift of Jesus to His Father for the life of the world. To know His Heart is to love Him and to allow the Spirit to transform us so that we may radiate His love to others. (#5) Our call to contemplation, a compelling love written in our hearts by the Spirit, makes us seek and cherish prolonged times of prayer. (#24) Our union and conformity with the Heart of Jesus widens our capacity to love and to let ourselves be loved. It is from Him that we learn to look upon the world as the work of the Creator’s love, to love without being possessive, to be concerned for others and to be bearers of His life. (#62)
This inward movement depicted above, leads us to an outward movement. We are called to be His disciples in the world—to take His place. We are to be His hands and feet and heart on earth. We are called to be God’s Heart in the world today. We are sent to communicate the love of the Heart of Jesus. (#10)
How do we do this? We have only to look at Jesus and the example He gave us. He welcomed all. He made Himself accessible to all. He treated others with love and compassion. No one was excluded from His love. He told us that there is no greater love than laying down one’s life for another. He did this for us. He came that we might have life. As His disciples, we must give life to others. We are sent to communicate the love of the Heart of Jesus. But, “wherever we are sent, whatever our work may be, our lives will be inspired by the love of the Heart of Jesus and in the desire of making Him known, expressed in a concern for the growth of others, a thirst for working towards justice and peace in the world in response to the cry of the poor, and a passion to proclaim the Gospel. (#13)
Our service of education means creating community among ourselves and with others. (#14) Groups of collaborators and associates are springing up all over the world. They look to us to discover the love of Jesus, their vocation in the midst of a troubled world, the significance of their lives as they work to transform the world in which we live. All of us are called to be the hands, feet, and Heart of Jesus as we work for peace and justice. We know that Jesus showed a preference for the poor, the outcast, the weak, and those in need of healing. We also know that His compassion reached out to touch these people and He continues to want to touch them through us.
Finally, we enter into His Pierced Heart through the whole mystery of suffering. The Gospel shows us Jesus as the suffering servant. He entered into glory through suffering. We are also called to enter into glory through suffering.
His Heart is beating today in the heart of humanity. Jesus embraced suffering, not for the sake of suffering but to show us the strength of his love. Suffering is to be alleviated when possible. Jesus cured the sick, the blind, the deaf, those suffering from paralysis and many other ills, yet he tells his disciples that he is to suffer even unto death but that he will rise again and they will see him, the glorified Jesus. To enter into glory we must take up our cross daily and follow Jesus in the mystery of suffering.
We do not need to go looking for suffering. It is all around us. For some of us who are beginning to experience some of the suffering that comes often with old age, we can find a new joy in accepting the daily aches and pains of our infirmities. (I was driving my Dad somewhere when he was over ninety and he winced as he swung his right knee into the car. I said something about old age causing the pain and he said sharply: “It has nothing to do with old age; my other knee is the same age and it doesn’t hurt.” So maybe I should not blame too much on old age.) However, we can accept our limitations with patience and reach out to others who are also suffering and use our suffering to help others reach glory. It is part of our life in the Communion of Saints.
We have only to pick up the morning newspaper to be aware of suffering in all parts of our world. Do we become immune to the daily tragedies that are reported all over the globe? Or do we become depressed, want to turn away from the suffering? I think we do a bit of both. I read about a natural disaster in a far off country and then turn to the Sports page and quickly forget that thousands are suffering from an earthquake, famine, plague, or volcanic eruption. I read about the wars that are killing men, women, and children, and I continue to eat my breakfast without really letting the terrible suffering of the destruction of war touch my heart. Perhaps I am angry at the feeling of helplessness I have when I hear about the continual fighting that I close my heart to deeper emotions. I know I am ashamed of my own country going to war, trying to control, to say nothing of the shame from the scandals in not only the military, politics, and big business, but also the Church. War and the resulting cruelty is part of the reality of our world, but we cannot get used to this destruction; we cannot turn away from the suffering of the world and still claim to be a disciple of the Heart of Jesus.
When two of his disciples left Jerusalem because they were depressed, disillusioned with the events that has taken place in the past days, the suffering and death of Jesus, he seeks them out. He comes to them, walks with them, questions them, listens to them, and scolds them. He realizes that they are foolish and slow of heart, but he then interprets the Scriptures for them so they can see that the Messiah should suffer these things before entering into glory. How I would have loved to have heard that conversation that left their hearts burning within them, although they did not recognize him until he broke bread with them during the simple Sunday supper they had invited him to share with them.
By listening to Jesus, the two disciples found their hearts burning within them and found the energy to “set out at once for Jerusalem.” The same will happen to us.
We are called to be with Christ in his suffering and then enter into his glory. We cannot be indifferent. His pierced Heart is manifested in all the suffering that surrounds us. He reaches out today to the weakest and most vulnerable, the mentally and physically handicapped, the poor, the psychologically fragile, the addict, the prisoner, the refugee, the unwanted and unlived, those suffering from any form of rejection. He calls us through our spirituality today to be disciples of His Heart, to bring his love and compassion to others and, through the wound in His Heart, to be with Him in the healing of the world. We will be God’s Heart on earth and then enter into that Heart for all eternity.
If we are called to be God’s Heart on earth today, we are called to see His pierced Heart in the suffering of all humanity. God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to free us. We are caught up in the ongoing mystery of the salvation of the world in the daily, concrete circumstances of our lives. This is where we live out our spirituality. Women of compassion, united in love, we seek the reign of His love, peace, and justice for all.
