“This Jubilee is not a simple memory, it is a grace for each one” The significance of the celebration of these 350th anniversary of the apparitions of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary is a call for us to return to what is essential. And the essential thing in life, in our life, is the living love of Christ. By revealing himself to Saint Margaret Mary, Jesus shows us a burning Heart, burning with love for humanity. This Jubilee is not a simple memory, it is a grace for each one of us. It invites us even more to welcome God’s love, to let Him transform our lives, our communities, the Church, and the world. For Jesus, the source of mercy, compassion, peace, and communion, is a fire that seeks to set the heart of the Church ablaze.
The Heart of Jesus, a light for our time
The love of the Heart of Jesus comforts, consoles, and transforms. It is not a sentimental and banal love. The love of Christ is a powerful love. Saint Margaret Mary responded to the love of Christ with her whole being, in humility, in prayer, in fidelity. She understood that the Heart of Jesus is a refuge for our tormented hearts, for our souls seeking peace in a torn world. On this subject, Pope Francis, on October 24, with the encyclical “Dilexit nos,” dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, also brings us back to the Source. He leaves us a spiritual testament for each of us. His text is a call to reawaken our faith in God’s tenderness, to become artisans of compassion and mercy.
The Heart of Jesus is a light for our time, a fire to revive the Church and every heart. The heart is not divided. When it truly loves, the heart loves totally. It does not calculate. It is not divided into pieces. The Heart of Jesus teaches us total, indivisible love, offered to all, without discrimination, in trust. Our world, torn, fragmented, divided, needs to rediscover a soul, needs to rediscover the unified heart of Jesus; it is He who brings down walls. He connects, consoles, and comforts. The Heart of Jesus was given to us so that we can learn to love, not to divide ourselves. He is the school of spirituality, a school of spirituality for each of us. Worship Jesus, Incarnate Word The Gospel offers us a profoundly human portrait of Jesus. He is capable of rejoicing. He is capable of weeping. He is moved. He is angry. He is indignant. He is loving. He is capable of marveling, and also of feeling anguish. Jesus is not simply a prophet and a great man, He is the Incarnate Word. He bears the very presence of God. And as the Letter to the Hebrews says, He is “the brightness of the glory of God, the very expression of His being” (Hebrews 1:1-3). Jesus Himself says that He is gentle and humble of heart. In His ministry, He acts with compassion: I think of the leper.
We see Jesus acting at the heart of humanity. He sees a leper, He approaches him, who begs Him on his knees: “Lord, if You wish, You can make me clean.” ยป Faced with the leper’s plea, we have Jesus’ response. The response, before being verbal, is physical. Jesus is moved to his core and reaches out his hand, touches him; there is first a physical movement. And then, Jesus says to him, “I will, be made clean.” The driving force behind Jesus’ mission is always love. When we think of the rich young man, there too we see a beautiful attitude on the part of Jesus, who fixed his gaze on him. He loved him and said to him, “You lack only one thing: sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come, follow me.” It is interesting to see how Jesus loves with his gaze. He fixes his gaze not to possess or manipulate the person, but to free them. He respects their freedom. Jesus always loves freely. We know many passages where we see Jesus’ emotional reactions in his dealings with the Pharisees, the scribes, and the doctors of the law. Jesus demonstrates humanity. He sometimes sees hard, indifferent, and uncompromising hearts and minds. I quote this beautiful passage of this man suffering because of his withered hand. In the Gospel of Mark, when put to the test, Jesus looks at the Pharisees, the scribes, the doctors of the law, and the crowd. He looks with indignation and is saddened by the hardness of their hearts. But He goes beyond emotion. He acts in the name of compassion; he tells the man to stretch out his hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was healed. Jesus did not stop at feelings and emotions. He goes beyond them; he does good, and he does good.
A responsibility: unity and communion Jesus told us, and we must Let us keep these important words: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened” (Mt. 11:28-30). The Lord knows our nature, our culture, and our limitations. When we go to Jesus, when we delve into His Heart, He humanizes us. And we Christians are the heirs of this loving heart of Jesus. I always ask myself, when I look at our humanity, our society, France: “What have we done with brotherhood?” We are tense, divided in society, but also in the Church. We have a responsibility, that of unity and communion. We cannot be brothers and sisters if we do not have a unified, reconciled heart. Brotherhood is impossible if we do not work on our inner life, our heart. It is important to awaken our conscience and our intelligence. It is important to accept the challenge of the Gospel, the experience of Saint Margaret Mary for us today.
Christ loved us to the end. His heart heals, his heart lifts, his heart saves. Our society is wounded, and the Church must reawaken its vocation. Before the altar, the spirituality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not a devotion of the past; it is not folklore. The Heart of Jesus is a mission. It reminds us of tenderness, mercy, compassion, and faith incarnate. It invites us to transform the Church so that it may be close, fraternal, and humble. And the heart, you know as well as I do, is the perpetual worksite of humankind. Every day, we must work on the heart, from morning prayer to evening prayer. The Conversion of Our Perspective Tending to the heart is the way to remain human in the face of the temptation in our society to lead a cold, mechanical life. Tending to the heart is choosing freedom. What is inside us? Are we free, liberated, or chained? Is our life serene or tormented? The Gospel challenges us. Saint Luke tells us: “A man brings forth good things from the treasure of his good heart.” Our heart, dear friends, must become a construction site where we work, where we develop goodness. And this construction site is demanding. Today, many young people are looking for founding texts. What should I build my life on? Who should I build my life on? It is up to us to establish inner peace in our hearts and to seek solutions to live in peace with others. The Spirit of the Gospel helps us see what is good in others. And to love with a liberated heart, we must convert our outlook. We must apply to our eyes, as the Book of Revelation says, that eye salve that purifies us, that changes our outlook. If our story with God is not a story of love, that story is imperfect. Without God’s love, without the Heart of Jesus, our life is cold and empty. So, my friends, at the close of this Jubilee, let us allow Christ to evangelize our hearts so that our Christian life may be luminous, so that we may be signs of hope in a world thirsting for spirituality, truth, and love.
Cardinal Francis Bustillo