Fifty-three years ago, Americans watched in amazement as the horse, Secretariat, thundered down the stretch at the Belmont Stakes. Not only did he, with that race, win the Triple Crown but he did it by over 30 lengths with a time that has never been broken and established himself as one of the greatest horses ever to run. For years, people wondered what made Secretariat, or Big Red, as he was affectionately known, so extraordinary.
It was only after his death that veterinarians discovered that his heart was three times the size of the average thoroughbred’s heart. And this has cause people to postulate that the superior efficiency, stamina and power of Secretary’s heart enabled him to run at a different level than any other animal before or since.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
We sometimes describe certain people as having a big heart. We, of course, are not referring to the physical size of their hearts but rather to how they “run” or perhaps, better said, “live” differently from others. Their lives are especially marked by generosity, kindness, courage and compassion.
St. Damian of Molokai, St. Theresa of Calcutta, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini are some of the saints that come to mind in this way. Today, on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we celebrate the greatest heart the world has ever known. The Heart of Jesus is large enough to embrace every person, every sinner, every nation, every wound, every hope. It is a Heart that never grows tired of forgiving, never ceases seeking the lost, never stops loving. It is the heart that Moses spoke of in today’s first reading that brought Israel out of slavery and who keeps his covenant to the thousandth generation.
It is the meek and humble heart that Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel where we will find rest. The picture of Jesus’ Sacred Heart captures this well. The image of the Sacred Heart is of a heart that is aflame. A heart wounded. A heart crowned with thorns. The flame tells us that God’s love is passionate and alive. The wound that his love is vulnerable. The thorns that His love is willing to suffer. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the heart of a God who takes on our human flesh and dies for us so that we might have life. It is the love of Jesus Christ who wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, who searches out the woman who for twelve long years has been suffering from hemorrhages, or who consoles the parent of a little girl who has just died and then brings her back to life. It is the love of Jesus who calls each of us by name and continues to sustain and feed us. And it is to Christ and his Sacred Heart that we, along with Catholics from throughout the United States, consecrate ourselves and our country.
Consecrating ourselves to the Sacred Heart
Let us take a moment to reflect on what this means for ourselves and our country.
Pope Francis helps us understand what consecrating ourselves to the Sacred Heart means for us. In his fourth encyclical, Dilexit Nos—He Loved Us—Pope Francis looked to spiritual experiences of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the saint who was so instrumental in helping us grow in our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Pope Francis reminds us that in the life of St. Margaret Mary we see someone who was profoundly aware of the love God had for her and “a profoundly personal and challenging invitation to entrust our lives to the Lord” (DN, 164). St. Margaret Mary described it in these words: “He asked for my heart, which I asked him to take, which he did and then placed myself in his own adorable heart, from which he made me see mine like a little atom consumed in the fiery furnace of his own” (DN, 123). Pope Francis tells us that we, like St. Margaret Mary, are also invited to place our hearts in the heart of Christ.
We are invited to do this in the ordinary way of being a parent who cares for a child, a volunteer giving their time to help someone in need, an employee who works with integrity. We do this by living a life filled with the joy of the Gospel and being a source of inspiration to others, by reaching out to people who are on the margins or noticing the good in others when everyone else takes them for granted.
One of our most beloved saints, St. Thérèse of Lisieux is an outstanding example of this is she not? As she prayed over the 12th and 13th chapters of St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and Paul’s image of the Church as a body with many parts, she prayed to know what part of the body she had been created to be. She writes that “charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that if the Church has a body, composed of different, multiple members, the most necessary and most noble of all could not be missing. It was a calling to not to do great things, but simple things with great love. Hers was a life lived in response to the love of God as seen in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Consecrating the United States to the Sacred Heart
And what about this moment in which we consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart? As we remember and give thanks for the blessings that we as a nation have experienced over the past 250 years, we take this opportunity to entrust our present and future to the loving care of Jesus Christ as symbolized in His Sacred Heart.
We live at time in which there are many competing voices that cry out for our attention. There are times when political, economic, social and even religious beliefs and opinions cause division and strife. And while it is natural to feel that “it has never been this bad,” the student of history can point to times in our 250 years that our forebears went through very difficult times. Perhaps one of the greatest illusions that we face, however, is to begin to believe that with the right leader, the right economy, the right social system everything will be perfect.
In consecrating our country to the Sacred Heart today we are acknowledging that as important as good leadership and strong institutions are, what we need most are hearts transformed by the love of Christ. It is in that heart, wounded at times by the way that as a nation we have suffered and caused suffering that we consecrate our country. It is a Heart that is far greater than any fears or divisions.
Running the Race
As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and consecrate ourselves and our country to His Sacred Heart, let us remember the love of “God our Father who has revealed his love in the Heart of Christ and consecrated us by the anointing of the Holy Spirit” (John Paul II, Letters 6/11/1999). And let us remember that the race we run is not around a 1½ mile oval, but rather a far greater race.
It is the race of life and our call to allow Christ to be the center of our lives. May we, please God, keep our eyes on the finish line for the merited prize that awaits us the end. And it is not the blanket of white carnations that is awarded to the winner of the Belmont stakes, but rather eternal life itself. May the Sacred Heart of Christ strengthen us and send us forth.
Bishop William E. Koenig is tenth bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington.
