MAKE MY HEART LIKE UNTO THINE
June bugs, it’s been a while. I’m sorry. This entire year has been swallowed up by movies and life on airplanes. But here I am and so is this month of June. I can’t love this month enough because it’s summer, but it’s also a month when things are in full bloom and life is a little bit more carefree. Summer dresses, ocean breezes, French manicures, wedding season and vacation days are en vogue.
I was driving through the Hollywood Hills with my radio blaring and this old Goo Goo Dolls song came on and I cranked the volume to full tilt.
You wait. Wanting this world to let you in. And you stand there. A frozen light. In dark and empty streets. And you smile. Hiding behind a God-given face. And I know you’re so much more. Everything they ignore is all that I need to see. And you’re the only one I ever believed in. The answer that could never be found. The moment you decided to let love in. And now I’m banging on the door of an angel. The end of fear is where we begin. The moment we decided to let love in.
I’m now belting the song out and sort of speeding. YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE I EVER BELIEVED IN, THE ANSWER THAT COULD NEVER BE FOUND. THE MOMENT YOU DECIDED TO LET LOVE IN.
This whole ride was feeling like a prayer, or a concert in my car – and a MASSIVE flashback all at the same time. Suddenly, I was having this black and white film strip playing in my mind like an old movie reel, reminding me of my first day when I arrived to Los Angeles, completely dumb-struck that I actually moved all the way across the country from Boston – and WHAT was I thinking? I was riding the same curvy route as that first day on Mulholland Drive thinking that it cannot possibly be that many years that have passed. Was I different? How did this happen? Was the flame in my heart brighter, bigger? The invitation and prompting was His Love that was moving me out of myself to some sort of expanse that He was preparing me for. The moment you decided to let love in….
Do you ever feel a pulling toward something that you can’t even really say you drew yourself toward? The Sacred Heart of Jesus is like that. His flames are bursting so far out of His own Sacred Heart, that when we are close to them, availing ourselves to His Heart, we are caught up in His Fire and His Will and there is catapult.
He is the answer that could never be found. And all the answers are hiding within Jesus’ Sacred Heart. There is so much noise in the world and at times in our own tiny hearts, and yet all Truth and peace reside within His heart. There are so many things that can close our heart or block out the Divine and holy because we have given our hearts away to things unholy. Our human hearts have also been so banged up in the world and by our past, disappointments, sufferings, set backs, and by the things that the enemy wants to say to us which are lies. When we believe those lies our hearts can close and we can miss the goodness of His Love, His Truth and the gifts He wants to deliver from the storehouse within His Heart. We can become indifferent to Christ and deny ourselves the holy communion with the Creator that fills us and makes us capable of receiving His love and then loving Him and others in return. We can miss our destiny or a heart “call” if we are paralyzed by human fear (of failure, rejection).
What if the Fire of His love changed all that?
If Jesus was God, then He had the most perfect heart capable of loving even the worst sinner and each and every one of us on our worst days. Can you imagine God’s heart? An expanse of love from the One who sacrificed to the point of death that we would be free. A Divine Heart with an expanse of love to make up the lack on our own human condition. A Divine Heart with endless flames of love that fuel and transform our hearts. An expanse of love to bring Divine Love to the places that have been wounded, scourged, betrayed, left empty, abandoned, isolated or forgotten. An expanse of love to call us forward to places and people intended for our eternal happiness.
From the time I was a little I had this simple image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in my little girl’s bedroom that blended with my white whicker furniture and white wallpaper dotted with pink hearts. I don’t think it was a gift, but my mom’s image that ended up with me in my little make-shift shrine on my girlie dresser with dolls, lip gloss and whatever other treasures I had stored up. This is one of the fondest and oldest devotions that I can remember being instilled in me by my mother. And I felt I always had access to His very own heart just looking at Him. One of the promises of the devotion to the Sacred Heart says, “I will bless every place where an image of my heart shall be exposed and honored.”
In 1673 Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun from the order of the Visitation of our Lady, began to report visions of Jesus. He appeared to her frequently. Jesus told her of his great love and explained that He had chosen her to make His love and goodness known to all. Jesus requested frequent reception of the Eucharist (especially on First Friday of the month) and to observe a Holy Hour of devotion to him. Jesus also asked that the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus be celebrated each year on the Friday following Corpus Christi, in reparation for the ingratitude of men for the sacrifice which Christ had made for them. Pope Pius IX formally approved this devotion in 1873 and in 1988 Pope Leo XIII urgently recommended that all bishops throughout the world observe the feast in their dioceses.
I didn’t take anything much with me to my furnished back house in LA when I moved 4 years ago, except for clothes and my childhood beat up image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The image is now above my bed and each morning and evening He’s the first and last gaze of the day. He’s the only one I ever believed in, the answer that could never be found.
PROMISES OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS
1. I will give them all the graces necessary for their state in life.
2. I will establish peace in their families.
3. I will comfort them in their trials.
4. I will be their secure refuge during life, and, above all, in death.
5. I will shed abundant blessings on all their undertakings
6. Sinners will find in My Heart an infinite ocean of mercy.
7. Lukewarm souls will become fervent.
8. Fervent souls will rapidly grow in holiness and perfection.
9. I will bless every place where an image of My Heart shall be exposed and honored.
10. I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
11. The names of those who promote this devotion will be written in My Heart, never to be blotted out.
12. I promise thee, in the excessive mercy of My Heart, that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months, the grace of final penitence; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving their Sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.
Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
O most holy heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing, I adore you, I love you, and with lively sorrow for my sins I offer you this poor heart of mine. Make me humble, patient, pure and wholly obedient to your will. Grant, Good Jesus, that I may live in you and for you. Protect me in the midst of danger. Comfort me in my afflictions. Give me health of body, assistance in my temporal needs, your blessing on all that I do, and the great grace of a holy death. Amen+
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you. Let the fire of your Divine Heart burn deep within us, transforming us by your Love. Let your love burn within us, burning out all that is not of you and lead us on because of your Love to where you would lead.
You can thank promise #11 for this June blog dedicated to His Most Sacred Heart. Know that I am praying you will let love in….
Lexi
LexiCali 