Homily for Friday Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Year C, 24th June, 2022. The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus ( World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life)

 Homily for Friday Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time  Year C, 24th June, 2022. The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus ( World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life)

Reading: Ezk.34:11-16; Ps. 23; Rom. 5:5-11; Luke 15:3-7

Rev.  Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia

TRUE LOVE ABIDES IN THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS THE WOUNDED SHEPHERD

Today, the Church celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. An event that occurs every Friday after the Sunday in which we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. In this solemnity, the Church invites us to contemplate and celebrate the love of God pouring forth from the Most Loving Heart of Jesus the Good Shepherd, whose heart was pierced for the salvation of humanity. 

A great act of love which God revealed through his influences on mystic saints such as St. Gertrude the Great which was made more obvious through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the revelation she had around 17th century. In this revelation the Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and showed her his heart and the anguish and sorrow which he had for the sins and disobedience of humanity, despite the incomprehensible act of love, compassion and mercy that he has lavished upon us. 

Then the Lord said to her: “Behold the Heart that has loved so many men, and yet, instead of gratitude, all I received were ingratitude…” and asking in particular that the Friday after the week in which the Solemnity of Corpus Christi is celebrated should be dedicated to him as the Feast of reparation to the Most Sacred Heart. The Lord also promised St. Margaret Mary that all those who devoted themselves to His Most Sacred Heart with faith will be protected and receive the graces of God.

So, the long development of this revelations led to the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we have it today. Though it was Pope Pius IX that extended and placed this great Feast and Solemnity in its current form and honour.  Moreover, this great feast also mark the occasion of the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life, keeping in mind that the priesthood is the product of Christ sacrificial heart of love for humanity. 

Hence, we remember all of us priests who have been called to model ourselves after the life of Christ’s love by giving ourselves to the ministerial priesthood, that we may truly model ourselves and our hearts after that of the Most Sacred Heart of Christ the Good Shepherd. Let us be filled with love for all humanity while recognizing that the priestly life is a very difficult undertaking especially in our world today. Let us be supported by all, knowing that priests, though humans just like everyone, have their flaws and imperfections, but we are at the same time held up to a much higher expectation to care and guide the people of God. 

Meanwhile, in the midst of all our difficulties, challenges, daily temptations and pressures of life, we are called to abide in the loving heart of Christ for he who abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him.(1 John 4:7-16). Little wonder, St Paul in our second reading says: The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. For we were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die even for a good man, though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die, but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

Therefore, in this solemn feast our devotion is rooted in the mystery of God’s love; for it is precisely through the Sacred Heart of Jesus that the Love of God for humanity is sublimely manifested in all its effect and power especially for souls thirsting for God’s mercy, for in it we find the inexhaustible source from which we draw the water of life that refresh and revives the thirsty souls of sinful humanity and make us new and alive again. 

Hence we are called today to abide in this love of Christ which flows from the pierced heart of Jesus the Good Shepherd, who when entrusted with a hundred sheep, losing one, would leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the missing one till he found it as we heard it in our Gospel passage today. And in our first reading today we heard the Lord saying: I am going to look after my flock myself and keep all of it in view. I myself will pasture my sheep, I myself will show them where to rest–it is the Lord who speaks. I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong. I shall watch over the fat and healthy. For I shall be a true shepherd to them.

Dear friends, true love is found in the sacred Heart of Jesus the Good Shepherd. So, every Christian is called to embrace the love of God which he poured out from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so as to become a wellspring which gives life of love to others. For we ought to be offering life-giving water to a parched and thirsty world. We are called to embrace that love which propelled Jesus to lay down his life for his friends and also forgives his enemies, for that is what this solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus represents. We are called to contemplate the mystery of love in the heart of a God who full of compassion, bestows his love upon humanity through his Son. 

Though humanity has rejected his love, but God does not lose heart in the face of ingratitude or rejection by the people he loved and chosen; rather, with infinite mercy he sends his only-begotten Son into the world to take upon himself the fate of a shattered love, so that by defeating the power of evil and death he could restore humanity once again from our slavery of sin and death back into a life of grace and open up his Sacred Heart of love once again for all who wishes to embrace it.

LET US PRAY: Heavenly Father, grant that we, who glory in the loving Heart of your beloved Son and recall the wonders of his love for us, may be made worthy to receive an overflowing measure of grace from that fount of heavenly gift of love which he offers to humanity. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do pray for me today and for the sanctity of all the Priests.