The Immaculate Heart of Mary

It’s natural that the feast in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus should be followed by a feast in honor of His Mother’s Immaculate Heart. For without that Immaculate Heart, there would have been no Sacred Heart. The Son of God from all eternity would have existed, it’s true, but He could not have taken flesh and become human without Mary’s acceptance of God’s will into her Heart. It's been said that Mary first received into her Immaculate Heart what she then conceived in her womb--the Word of God, Jesus.

In honoring the Heart of Mary we commit ourselves to having hearts like hers. That means hearts which are free of sin, free of any obstacle to God’s grace, pure and totally committed to the will of the Father. It also means having hearts which ponder the events of Jesus’ life, keeping “all these things” in our hearts as today’s Gospel (Luke 2: 41-51) says Mary kept them in hers.

In the “Spiritual Exercises” whenever there is a particularly important grace that St. Ignatius wants us to pray for, he invites us to use a Triple Colloquy or intimate, heart-to-heart conversation. He explains: “The first colloquy will be with our Blessed Lady, that she may obtain grace for me from her Son and Lord….” Then having asked the intercession of Jesus’ Mother and ours, we go to Jesus Himself and ask for the grace. Thirdly, we go, as it were, with the Mother and the Son, to the Father and ask for the grace. Such conversations—with the Mother whose Heart was completely open to the will of the Father and with the Son who was obedient unto death to the will of the Father—will prepare us to approach God the Father with the same desires of the Sacred and the Immaculate Hearts. I think the lyrics of a U-2 song apply here: "Two Hearts Beat as One." The Hearts of Jesus and Mary beat as one in their total surrender to God's will. Our devotion to the Two Hearts should lead us to have hearts that are also purely devoted to the will of the Father in our lives.

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

One of the earliest images of Jesus in sacred art is that of the Good Shepherd which we see in both today’s first reading from Ezekiel and the Gospel. It is because the Heart of Jesus is filled with love for humanity that He is the Good Shepherd who says He will go to any length to recover wandering and wounded humanity. Any length, including the torture and death of crucifixion. As St. Paul writes in today’s second reading from his Letter to the Romans, “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” There could be no greater proof, no greater sign, of God’s love.

That sign continues now and is made present in every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that is celebrated. Yet, what is humanity’s response? What is my response? In the Third Week of the “Spiritual Exercises,” St. Ignatius wants us to be aware that the love revealed on the cross is for me, so that if I were the only human being who ever existed, Jesus would still have done this for me. St. Ignatius writes: “In the Passion it is proper to ask for sorrow with Christ in sorrow, anguish with Christ in anguish, tears and deep grief because of the great affliction Christ endures for me.”

Only such a personal awareness can lead to a conversion of heart. When Jesus revealed His Heart to St. Margaret Mary in 1675 He lamented: “There it is, that Heart so deeply in love with men, it spared no means of proof—wearing itself out until it was utterly spent! This meets with scant appreciation from most of them; all I get back is ingratitude—witness their irreverence, their sacrileges, their coldness and contempt for me in the Sacrament of Love.”

Jesus asked for today’s feast so that humanity might make up for its ingratitude. Let us thank God today for the proof of His love that He gave us in Jesus who continues to love us with His Sacred and Eucharistic Heart.

Corpus Christi Adoration and Procession

Families in His Presence is a group in the Milwaukee area that fosters Eucharistic adoration for the entire family, including children. The founders of the group approached me a few years ago to help them get established and I sent them to Dick Boldin and the Rosary Evangelization Apostolate who helped them get going. Several times a year they gather families together for Eucharistic adoration in an extended holy hour. Yesterday they gathered at St. Joseph's parish in Wauwatosa and I had the privilege of presiding.

Along with periods of silent adoration, acts of faith and adoration and thanksgiving and love, a decade of the rosary led by a father and his two sons, an outdoor procession with the Blessed Sacrament, and Benediction, I gave a few short talks.


First I showed the children (some of whom were dressed in their First Communion dresses and suits) who came close to the sanctuary where they sat and knelt on mats, a picture of the three Children of Fatima and asked them if they knew who those children were. A few did and from this starting point I talked about Francisco who loved to visit "the Hidden Jesus" in church. Even when he was sick and unable to go to church, he asked others to go visit "the Hidden Jesus" for him. I told the congregation that we were about to bring "the Hidden Jesus" from the tabernacle and place Him in a monstrance where we could see Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament.


After Exposition and a time for prayer, I talked about why we bow before Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament. We only bow before God. We do not prostrate ourselves before anyone else. When we bow we express our faith that Jesus, who is God, is present in the Blessed Sacrament. We bow but the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity also bowed low when He became a little baby and grew to become a child and a man. I quoted something Pope Benedict said at his 2008 Corpus Christi Mass:


We Christians kneel only before God or before the Most Blessed Sacrament because we know and believe that the one true God is present in it, the God who created the world and so loved it that he gave his Only Begotten Son (cf. John 3: 16). We prostrate ourselves before a God who first bent over man like the Good Samaritan to assist him and restore his life, and who knelt before us to wash our dirty feet. Adoring the Body of Christ means believing that there, in that piece of Bread, Christ is really there....


God, out of love for His human creatures, first bent over us, and we show our love as we bend before Him.


Then I told the story of the Eucharistic miracle of Santarem, Portugal, a place that I visited when I went on pilgrimage to Fatima last December. The story of this miracle really caught the attention of the little ones. I told them that sometimes Jesus performs miracles like this to help people believe that He is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, but that we were there in church to show Him that we believed without seeing such a miracle. Jesus told Thomas who believed that He was risen only after he touched Him: "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed" (John 20: 29). Jesus tells us that we are blessed because we believe He is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.


Lastly, before Benediction, we processed with the Blessed Sacrament through the church and outside to a small altar that was set up. I introduced the procession by referring again to Pope Benedict's homily for Corpus Christi 2008 when he said that our procession with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament reminds us that on our journey through life Jesus is always walking with us. He does not want us to get lost on our way to heaven and so He not only gives us a map to follow (the Ten Commandments and teachings of the Church) but He also walks with us to guide us. Bringing our Eucharistic Lord outside also declares in a very public way our belief in the Real Presence. Our procession is a prayer that Christ may reign over our streets, our city, our nation, and the entire world.


During the reception afterwards several people thanked me for helping with this special Corpus Christi celebration. But all I could think and say was that I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate this beautiful feast.

Feast of Corpus Christi

St. Paul's letters are the oldest part of the New Testament and so today's Second Reading (1 Corinthians 11: 23-26) for this feast in honor of the Holy Eucharist is the oldest account of the Last Supper. St. Paul relates, in words that we continue to use at Mass during the Consecration, what Jesus did "on the night he was handed over." He didn't say, "This is a symbol of my body," but "This is my body," and then he told them, "Do this ... in remembrance of me."

I sometimes think about doing a survey after Mass as people leave the church, asking them, "How was Mass today?" And if they say "Good," to ask "Why?" I imagine most people who say that Mass was good would say something about its length (an hour or less), the homily (short and practical and humorous), the music, or the sense of community they felt. I imagine Jesus standing outside of church taking this little survey and asking, "But what about me? Did you remember me? I told you to do this in remembrance of me."

Today's feast began in the Thirteenth Century to foster the faith of people in the presence of Jesus at Mass and in the Blessed Sacrament. It's a presence that continues to be ignored or forgotten. No Catholic who recognizes this presence would leave the Church in search of better preaching, better music, and a greater sense of community. Jesus is "the real deal" and He's there at Mass and in the Blessed Sacrament "body and blood, soul and divinity." Why settle for less? And why not grab every opportunity you can to be united to Him in Holy Communion?

Mobile Archdiocesan Retreat

I just returned from giving a retreat to the priests, two archbishops (one of whom is retired), and two of the four transitional deacons (who will be ordained in a week) of the Mobile, Alabama Archdiocese. It's clear that the spiritual life is an emphasis for a diocese when all its priests and bishops gather for a few days of annual spiritual renewal. The retreat took place at the beautiful Manresa on the Mississippi Jesuit Retreat House in Convent, Louisiana, about an hour west of New Orleans.

The theme of the retreat was: "Having a Priestly Heart like the Heart of Jesus." I gave six talks and preached at the three Masses we celebrated. My talks were: 1) Go Deeper in the Spiritual Life; 2) The Sacred Heart: the True Love Story; 3) The Heart of Jesus in the Liturgy of the Eucharist; 4) The Heart of Jesus in the Liturgy of the Word; 5) Exercising the Virtues of the Heart of Jesus; and 6) Living the Eucharist with the Apostleship of Prayer.

Since before I became the U.S. Director of the Apostleship of Prayer, the Archdiocese of Mobile has been receiving our monthly leaflets and including them in their mailings to the priests. Several priests told me how much they appreciated the leaflets and use them both for their personal prayer as well as in the Sunday Prayers of the Faithful.

It was a blessed time: a good way to support some of my brother priests and to begin the month of June, the month of the Sacred Heart.

Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

Though I've not actually seen it, I imagine that this annual feast in honor the Most Holy Trinity brings many parish priests to tears. What can you say about this greatest mystery of the Christian faith? How can you talk about the very nature of God, a Mystery of Three and One? What does this mystery have to do with the daily lives of the congregation?

Yet, the Catechism of the Catholic Church #234 states: "The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life." Notice, this mystery is not only central to our Christian faith--what we believe--but also to our life--how we are to live.

The mystery of the Trinity brought St. Ignatius Loyola to tears, but not because he felt helpless in the face of preaching. In his autobiography #28, speaking in the third person, he described it this way:

One day while saying the Office of Our Lady on the steps of the same monastery [of the Dominicans near Manresa, Spain], his understanding began to be elevated so that he saw the Most Holy Trinity in the form of three musical keys. This brought on so many tears and so much sobbing that he could not control himself. That morning, while going in a procession that set out from there, he could not hold back his tears until dinnertime; nor after eating could he stop talking about the Most Holy Trinity, using many comparisons in great variety and with much joy and consolation. As a result, the effect has remained with him throughout his life of experiencing great devotion while praying to the Most Holy Trinity.

What St. Ignatius shows us is that ultimately we are to approach God more with the heart than with the head. Our intellect will never be able to understand the mystery of the Trinity. We cannot dissect God like a piece of scientific data. We must, in the words of Catherine de Hueck Doherty, "fold up the wings of the intellect and descend into the heart." We must approach God with humility and love, allowing God to reveal Himself to us.

This is what Jesus told His disciples to do. Matthew Chapter 18 begins with the apostles arguing over which of them was the greatest. Jesus called a child over and said: "Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." This echoes words of Jesus that appeared earlier, in Chapter 11, when Jesus prayed: "I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike."

These two passages are a call to conversion. We must "turn" away from our usual way of thinking in which we tend to say "I won't believe, I won't trust, unless I can understand," and become humbly receptive to what God reveals of Himself through the Scriptures and the Church. We are called to approach God not with suspicion and a "prove-it-to-me" attitude, but with love, the love of a child who is assured of the love of the parent and responds with trust, allowing him or herself to be led and even carried.

The Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is an invitation to enter into the Love who is God, to be filled with a love that can bring you to tears, and to return that love with an offering of your entire self.

Mary Help of Christians

Today there are several feasts in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One is Our Lady of the Way and is celebrated in my community, the Jesuits. When St. Ignatius Loyola arrived in Rome he venerated Mary under this title and asked for and received her special protection. In the Church of the Gesu in Rome there is a lovely side chapel where an old and recently restored image of Madonna Della Strada is venerated.

It is also the feast of Mary Help of Christians. After the resounding and miraculous defeat of the Turkish navy at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, Pope St. Pius V added an invocation with this title to the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then, in 1814, after six years of exile in France under Napolean, Pope Pius VII was allowed to return to Rome and arrived on this day. He attributed his safety during his exile and his return to the intercession of Mary Help of Christians and instituted a feast in her honor for this day.

The National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians is one of my favorite pilgrimage spots. It's only about 40 minutes from where I live and as a child my parents took me there from time to time. I remember two things about those visits: the scary ascent of the bell tower and the crutches that were left outside of the small side chapel/shrine by people who had been cured.

In 2007 Pope Benedict wrote a letter to the Church in China and in it he promised the prayers for the entire Church on this particular day which is also the feast of Our Lady of Seshan. The prayer that Pope Benedict composed for this annual day of prayer for the Church in China can be found at the Apostleship of Prayer's daily calendar page under "Reflect."