Honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus

June brings us to celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus marveling at the immensity of our Lord’s love for us.  The Church each June calls us to ponder Jesus’ unwavering love revealed again and again as we read the four gospels.  In each we are told how Jesus met the many who came to him for healing, wisdom, understanding, grace, guidance and direction, in their hunger, their confusion, their uncertainty, their shame, their guilt, their fear and their doubt.  We have to bring into this reflection the moment when Jesus while hanging on the cross had a lance thrust between his ribs, which entered his heart so that blood and water gushed from his side.

We also take into our reflection on Jesus’ heart, these words from our abbot general, Dom Bernardus Peeters, OCSO: “Our co-responsibility for the mission of the Church is really to become the praying heart of Christ’s mystical body.”  How do we describe the contribution of those living contemplative monastic life in the broader Church, as the Church attempts to offer Jesus’ love to a broken world, to a struggling humanity?  Dom Bernardus is inviting us to see, to own, what we are called to live by embracing this vocation of ceaseless prayer.  We are always offering God praise, thanks and we accept that we are to offer prayers of intercession.

May the honor we give to the sacred heart of Jesus in 2026 give us pause to consider what Dom Bernardus is saying and rejoice that God creates this opportunity for us to live such a needed service in the Church.