The second thing I want you to think about is that the invitation to partake of the "Great Supper" of Holy Communion, whether at Easter or at any other time, is a call to make what is known as a worthy Communion; that is, you must be absolved from sin and thus be yourself worthy. That is requisite, and that is enough. There are some scrupulous people who fancy that they themselves have got to do beforehand all that the Communion is intended to do and will do. Who is it that prepares the Supper, they or the Lord? If they will do the little that is asked of them, they can safely leave to the Lord the responsibility of doing his part. A worthy Communion should also be one that is worth something to the one receiving it, and should not be a worthless exterior performance, which has no interior act of communion in the heart to correspond to it. And now this kind of worth of each and every Communion depends upon what the communicant chooses to make it. All is to be had that God can give. The means of getting the good from Communion is one and the same means for getting the good in receiving other sacraments—that is, prayer. Prayer beforehand, prayer daring it, prayer afterwards. The more you want and the more you ask of, the more worth will your Communion be. Suppose our Lord should suddenly quit the sacramental form of the host and ask a communicant at the altar-rail, "What do you wish for?" and he should answer, "I don't know; I never thought of asking for anything," you would reasonably conclude that he was not likely to receive very much. Now, I hope you who often come to the holy table are paying attention to this. If you come often, it is supposed, and justly supposed, that you want a good deal, and that you are deeply in earnest about obtaining what you desire. Much as, I am sure, your Communions are worth to you, I wish you would set about making them worth still more. In a word, you must think more about what you need. Get your requests ready. Have them, as it were, well by heart, so that if the Lord should ask you what you came for, your reply would come out quick and earnest enough. Of all privileges and honors, in this world, receiving Holy Communion is, indeed, something for us Catholics to boast of. How the "outsiders" envy us our faith and the comfort it brings to us!—the infidels of every name and kind, the Protestants and others, who either have no Communion, or at best a sham one. How would you like to have yourself thrust aside and one of them called by the Lord to take your place at his table? Beware, then, how you treat his invitation; come as often and be as well prepared as the Spirit of Divine Love shall inspire you.
Sermon LXXXVI.
The Sacred Heart Of Jesus.
The month of June has, as you know, my brethren, been set apart by general consent for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as that of May has in the same way been devoted to our Blessed Lady; and on next Friday, the day following the octave of Corpus Christi, the church solemnly celebrates the Feast of the Sacred Heart. This feast, formerly observed only in some places, has for about thirty years been kept everywhere.
As the devotion to the Sacred Heart has of late spread so widely in the church, and is so plainly pleasing to God and most salutary to us, it is well that we should understand it clearly, that we may enter into it more fully. In the first place, then, we will ask, What is the nature of the worship which we render to the Sacred Heart of Jesus? And, secondly, Why is it specially selected as the object of our devotion?
What, then, is the nature of our worship of the Sacred Heart? It is, of course, the same as that which we pay to our Lord himself—that is, the worship which is due to him as God the Son, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. His human nature, united to the divine nature in one Person, is truly worthy of divine worship and honor. God, having become man, his human heart is the heart of God, and must be adored as such. Let us, then, remember this: the devotion to the Sacred Heart is one that is given to God himself, just as that is which we have for the Blessed Sacrament in which he resides on our altars.
But why do we select the Heart of our Lord, or rather why has he himself selected it, as a special object of our adoration? I say, why has he himself selected it? for this devotion to the Sacred Heart in modern times is due specially to a revelation made by our Lord to the Blessed Margaret Mary, a nun of the Visitation, two centuries ago.
In answer to this question we may say that our Lord's Heart is the fountain of his Precious Blood, which was shed for our salvation, and was pierced by the lance, like his hands and feet by the nails, on the cross; and it is in this way specially pointed out as the object of our gratitude and love. But even a more urgent reason is that the heart is a natural symbol of love, agreed on by universal consent at all times and in all parts of the world, and therefore that the Heart of Jesus most perfectly represents his love for us. In adoring the Sacred Heart, then, we adore in a particular manner the love of Christ for sinners; and it is for this reason that he has given us this devotion, knowing that it is only by the thought of the love of his Heart for us that our hearts can be won to the love of him.
Yes, my brethren, God wishes our love; it was to obtain it that he became one of us and died for us on the cross; and it is to win it now that he asks us to remember and to adore his Sacred Heart. "Let us therefore," says St. John, "love God, because God first hath loved us." This is the spirit of this devotion: that we should not try to save our souls merely for the fear of hell, but that, seeing how much God has loved us, we should love him in return. And also that, seeing how much he has loved our brethren, the same fire of divine charity may be kindled in our hearts, and thus each one of us may do our share to carry on and to complete the work for which he shed his Precious Blood: the bringing of the world to the knowledge and love of him.