Where hate erupts, love overflows

Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Give us a heart that is one with your own...
A humble heart that knows and loves its nothingness
A gentle heart that holds and calms its own anxiety...

We seem to be living in an age filled with rage and intolerance, erupting all too quickly into violence, and a callous disregard for lives, and people's humanity. But it is here - precisely here - that Love can also be found, in quiet, selfless heroism; in ordinary people extraordinarily saving lives in riots, caring and sheltering, serving, and working for peace. And thus, into each maelstrom of rage, every day, but especially today on this loveliest of feasts, steps the gentle Heart of Jesus, an overflowing antidote of unending tenderness, welcome and love. 

Wherever hate erupts, love overflows. 

In today's Gospel (Matt 11: 25-30) we hear Jesus' invitation; can imagine his arms, as outstretched and wide-open as his Heart. Come to me, he says with longing and love, in unbounded welcome and acceptance. He offers his Heart as a place of shelter and sanctuary; a place of peace, where every burden can be laid down, every fear put to flight. And Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart... And so we are invited to contemplate Jesus; to learn from him, from his attitudes, his ways of relating and his constant gift of self, in order to grow in union and conformity with his Heart. 

To come, in this time of rage, and lay before him our burdens of anger, resentment and any hardness of heart... To learn from his gentleness, and to allow Jesus to gentle us, and to guide our feet, our thoughts and our actions into the way of a humble, disarming peace... So that wherever hate erupts, love can overflow.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Give us a heart that is one with your own...
A gentle, humble, disarming heart wholly given to Love.

Happy feast everyone! And please pray for my sisters and for me, as we renew our vowed commitment, that Jesus' Heart may truly live and love in each one of us!