11th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024

June is the month of the Sacred Heart--it is absolutely no shock that the Enemy wants to claim it so ravenously. Rather than acknowledging the assertions of the demonic and attending to the demonstrations of depravity, let us instead acknowledge the Heart which so loves men and attend to the eternal sacrifice on which the world spits its contempt. We were all of us “born this way,” and so the Master calls us to be reborn. Allow me to offer a prayer of devotion to the Sacred Heart, and each week this month will have a meditation on a line of the prayer.

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O Sacred Heart, burning with love, consume me with Thy flame. Test all my deeds and burn up whatever is unworthy of Thee. My Jesus, leave nothing but what is precious to Thee.

O Sacred Heart, encircled by thorns, bind me fast to Thee. Make me slave to Thy Passion, but with Thy thorns rather than chains-that, mercifully, to leave Thee might prick deeper than to remain.

O Sacred Heart, pierced with a lance, pierce me through with Thee. Rend my own heart as Thine--that all grace Thou givest may, by this broken vessel, pour freely into all the world.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in Thee. (x3)

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O Sacred Heart, pierced with a lance. The mysterious journey which Christ began accepting His crown of death concluded as He was “lifted up,” just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, “so that everyone who believes in Him,” all of us, bitten by the ancient serpent with the death of original sin, “may have eternal life.” (Num 21:9; John 3:14) As Christ breathed His last, He uttered the words rendered by St. Jerome: consummatum est.

St. Augustine refers to the cross as the marriage bed by which is begotten the church. St. Paul tells us that this same church is wed to Christ (Eph 5:31-32), reinforcing this imagery. The act of this piercing pours out on the earth the two most precious elements of life—the water of baptism and the blood of the Eucharist. To heed His call, to take up your cross and follow (Matt 16:24), is not simply to accept the bondage of the thorns, but to be pressed hand to hand with those pierced hands. The lance which pierced His side, fetching the sweetest fruit of life from the True Vine, must also pierce us the same. To be remade into His image is to be one with all His sufferings, even His death.



What use has a vessel tightly closed up? The blood which was poured for you must be given an avenue to enter, the walls of the coffin of your heart must be pierced so that life may flow in! But entrance only is not enough—lest, like the wicked servant (Matt 18), we should not recompense the debts owed us as our Master has recompensed our own. Receiving this life, you are no longer your own, for you have been bought with a price. (1 Cor 6:19-20) So let us then pray, pierce me through with Thee. Rend my own heart as Thine—that all grace Thou givest may, by this broken vessel, pour freely into all the world.