June 23: Feast of the Sacred Heart

Puerto Rico, Lolín Menéndez rscj

It was the Day of Preparation,
and to avoid the bodies’ remaining on the cross
during the Sabbath -
since that Sabbath was a day of special solemnity –
the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken
and the bodies taken away.
Consequently the soldiers came and broke the legs
of the first man who had been crucified with him
and then of the other.

When they came to Jesus,
they saw that he was already dead,
so instead of breaking his legs
one of the soldiers pieced his side with a lance;
and immediately there came out
blood and water.

This is the evidence of one who saw it –
true evidence –
and he gives it so that you may believe as well.
Because all this happened to fulfill the words of scripture
        Not one bone will be broken.
and again, in another place scripture says:
        they will look on him whom they have pierced.

John 19: 31-37

The pierced Heart of Jesus
opens our being to the depths of God
and to the anguish of humankind.

Constitutions of the Society of the Sacred Heart, 1982. par. 9