Sheena George
“You don’t need
Jesus… you want only saints. Right?” asked our parish priest in Mumbai who was dejected by the poor response
to the feast of Sacred Heart of Jesus. His disappointment was not without
reasons: only a handful of people – not even one-tenth of 2000-strong Catholic population in the area --
turned up for the feast last week. The church should have been full. When he
looked at the empty benches, he became more melancholic.
The images of the big feast celebration of
St Theresa (Little Flower) might have flashed through his mind. Thousands
thronged the church on Little Flower’s feast day last year. There was a grand
procession around the nearby town with beautiful floats and scintillating
illumination work. This is just one instance. People come to the church in
large numbers on the feasts days of other saints,
Sadly, when an important day of Jesus Christ
is celebrated, people don’t care. “They might have more “important” work than
attending the services on the feast day of Sacred Heart of Jesus,” the priest
said.
What is this “important’ work? It’s making
money and more money.
The
priest’s indirect message is: People, Jesus is your Lord and Saviour. He is
above everyone and everything. Jesus comes first. Others are below Him. Don’t
put saints above Jesus Christ.
Yes, saints need to be venerated, not
worshipped. You can worship only Lord Jesus Christ. I have seen people going
overboard while celebrating the feast days of St Mary, St George and St Sebastian
in Syro-Malabar Catholic churches in India. Have people forgotten Jesus
Christ? The entire New Testament is a testimony of Jesus as our Lord and
Saviour.
It’s very common to see people going to
churches only for venerating and worshipping saints. They kneel down before the
statues of saints and pray. Please remember that you can venerate and ask
saints to intercede on your behalf, but never worship them. Some of these
people ignore Holy Mass -- in which the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ is
reenacted --and go after the statues of saints.
There’s no wonder that Holy Mass in our
churches during the week days are thinly attended. You can see empty benches in
most of our Catholic churches.
Sacred Heart of Jesus
It was French Catholic nun Margaret Mary Alacoque
who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the 16th century. Sr Mary
Alacoque received several private revelations of the Sacred Heart, the first in
December 1673, and the final one 18 months later.
In his 1928 encyclical Miserentissimus
Redemptor, Pope Pius XI affirmed the Church's position regarding the
credibility of her visions of Jesus Christ by speaking of Jesus as having
"manifested Himself" to Sr Mary and having "promised her that
all those who rendered this honour to His Heart would be endowed with an
abundance of heavenly graces".
The visions revealed to her the form of the
devotion, the chief features being reception of Holy Communion on the first
Friday of each month, Eucharistic adoration during a "Holy hour" on
Thursdays, and the celebration of the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
She stated that in her vision she was
instructed to spend an hour every Thursday night to meditate on Jesus' Agony in
the Garden of Gethsemane. The Holy Hour practice later
became widespread among Catholics.
On December 27, 1673, the feast of St John, Sr
Mary Alacoque reported that Jesus
permitted her to rest her head upon his heart, and then disclosed to her the
wonders of his love, telling her that He desired to make them known to all
mankind and to diffuse the treasures of his goodness, and that he had chosen
her for this work.
Dr Robert Stackpole recently wrote succinctly
about Sacred Heart of Jesus. According to the popes of the last 100 years,
there is no devotion more important to the life of the Church than devotion to
the Heart of Jesus. For example, in 1899 Pope Leo XIII, in what he called
"the greatest act of my pontificate," consecrated the whole world to
the Sacred Heart on the threshold of the new century, and he wrote of the
Sacred Heart as "the symbol and sensible image of the infinite love of
Jesus Christ."
Pope
Pius XI taught that devotion to the Heart of Jesus is "the summary of our
religion," which, if practiced, "will most surely lead us to know
intimately Jesus Christ, and will cause our hearts to love Him more tenderly
and to imitate Him more generously."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), brought
out by Pope John Paul II, contains the following remarkable statement about the
importance of the symbol of the Heart of Jesus (No. 478): “The Sacred Heart of
Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, "is quite rightly
considered the chief sign and symbol of that ... love with which the divine
Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings"
without exception.”
The
12 Promises of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary for those devoted to His Sacred
Heart:
1. I will give them
all the graces necessary for their state of life.
2. I will establish
peace in their families.
3. I will console
them in all their troubles.
4. They shall find
in My Heart an assured refuge during life and especially at the hour of their
death.
5. I will pour abundant blessings on all their
undertakings.
6. Sinners shall find in My Heart the source of
an infinite ocean of mercy.
7. Tepid souls shall become fervent.
8. Fervent souls shall speedily rise to great
perfection.
9. I will bless the homes where an image of My
Heart shall be exposed and honored.
10. I will give to
priests the power of touching the most hardened hearts.
11. Those who
propagate this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be
effaced.
12. The all-powerful
love of My Heart will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the
First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they
shall not die under my displeasure, nor without receiving their Sacraments; My
heart shall be their assured refuge at that last hour.
