Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Installation of State Deputies
St. Mary Church, New Haven
June 9, 2023
Introduction
If you follow the Church’s liturgical calendar, then you know that we are celebrating a Mass in honor of the Sacred Heart exactly one week before the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We are anticipating this solemn feast because we are joined together: the Supreme Officers and Board, State Chaplains, State Deputies newly elected and returning, as well as wives, family members, and senior staff at the home office. How important it is that together, with the eyes of faith, we gaze into the heart of Jesus and allow his heart to speak to our hearts.
As you know, St. John Henry Newman’s motto was “cor ad cor loquitur” – “heart speaks to heart” – the Sacred Heart of Jesus speaks to our hearts and in his grace, we speak to his. In the Fraternal Year ahead, we are asked to focus on the Cor initiative. monthly meetings sponsored by the Order to help bring men to the heart of Christ – meetings that are open not only to our members but to all men in our parishes. If ever there were a feast day and a devotion which provides a foundation for this, it has to be the Sacred Heart of Jesus – and when you celebrate this feast again next Friday, you won’t go wrong!
What is it that we are aiming to do in these monthly Cor meetings? In a word, we want to continue Blessed Michael McGivney’s vision – to keep men in our parishes from falling away from the faith by helping them to encounter Christ at a deeper level, and by surrounding them with the support they need to love their faith and live it. While this initiative can and will take many forms, three things will be constant: prayer, faith formation, and fraternity – and all three pull in the same direction: to draw men into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, to open their hearts to the Gospel, to strengthen them in the bonds of brotherhood, and to prepare them to be those disciples who spread the Gospel in the home, in the workplace, among their acquaintances and friends. Yes, over the course of this weekend, you will hear much more about Cor, but in this liturgy of installation, we have a graced opportunity to go to the very “heart” and origin of the Cor initiative, namely, the heart of Christ himself as portrayed in today’s Scripture readings.
Peering into the Heart of Christ
The Gospel reading from Matthew offers a privileged window into the heart of Christ. For as we listened to it, we became privileged witnesses to the divine dialogue of love between the Father and the Son, a dialogue of love that is at the heart of God’s own life. In this moment of great intimacy with his Father, Jesus opens his heart to him: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” How different is this prayer from the contentious atmosphere that surrounded Jesus. Alone with this Father, there is joy, peace, and thanksgiving flowing from the deep harmony of the Father and the Son. Why else did the Father send his Son and why else did the Son come to earth except that you and I would share by grace in this eternal relationship of love? Christ ardently desires that the Father will see and love in us what his heavenly Father sees and loves in him.
A lofty goal, but not out of reach, for Jesus goes on to give his Father thanks and praise for revealing to little ones, to those with a childlike heart, the mysteries of the Kingdom… mysteries of which the self-righteous and sophisticated remain oblivious. Fr. McGivney well understood that every man in his parish could grow in holiness. In this, he was deeply true to the designs of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – to bring us all into a unity and fraternity of love rooted in the Trinity. This is exactly what the Cor initiative is about: helping men to lay aside the deceptions imposed on them by the culture, and helping them to lay aside their own rebelliousness, Cor seek to enable men to enter into the simplicity and loving obedience of Jesus’ own heart, have the courage deliberately to surrender to the Lord anything and everything that keeps them from opening their hearts to God’s transforming love, and from loving their wives and families, relating virtuously coworkers and friends. When we enter into the heart of Christ, then the work of conversion and growing in virtue becomes a response of love, and we find ourselves sharing the freedom and joy we find in Christ’s own prayer. For in Christ, we have met the Father who has claimed us as his beloved! Can there be a more profound reason for our joy?
Rest from Burdens
As we peer into the heart of Christ, we hear him inviting us to lay aside the heavy burden of sin and self-importance that we impose on ourselves, and to trade it in, so to speak, for the light and easy yoke of his love. Wallowing in our passions causes us anxiety and exhaustion whereas sharing in Jesus’ compassion frees us from the tyranny of self and brings us joy. The only heart that is light and free is the one that is pure, thankful, and receptive to the Christ whose heart speaks powerfully to our hearts, to the Christ who wants to come and live in us.
Fraternity
In founding the Knights of Columbus, Fr. McGivney well understood that the path to Christ’s heart is not a solitary path, trodden alone, but rather the path of fraternity, a path that must be walked together. For the deep and pure charity emanating from the heart of Christ is not a possession to be hoarded but a gift to be shared, for as St. John tells us, “Whoever is without love does not know God,” and again, “…if God so loved us, we must also love one another.”
Remaining in Christ’s love, persevering in Christ’s love, deepening our participation in the love between the Father and the Son and living it… all this requires that we support one another in prayer, formation, and fraternity, that we build among ourselves the bonds of trust, so that we can discuss openly the things that really matter, the spiritual challenges that we face, so that we can get to the root of the matter, or, I should say, the “heart” of the matter … not via self-help techniques or pop psychology, but by firmly rooting ourselves in the heart of Jesus Christ, the Father’s beloved Son, who lives and reigns with him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever! Amen. Vivat Jesus!