SPEAKER_00: Today's one of the most beautiful feasts in the entire church because today we celebrate not simply a devotion, not simply an image, not simply a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Today we celebrate the heart of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And when the church speaks about the sacred heart, she's not speaking about a physical organ by itself.
SPEAKER_00: The heart of Jesus represents the very center of who He is: His love, His mercy, His compassion, His burning desire for our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The Sacred Heart tells us something that many people desperately, desperately need to hear today.
SPEAKER_00: God does not merely tolerate you, God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: If we turn to the first reading today, Moses reminds Israel that God did not choose them because they were powerful, important, or impressive.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he says just the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: You were the smallest of all nations.
SPEAKER_00: Why then did God choose them?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Moses gives a simple answer.
SPEAKER_00: It was because the Lord loved you.
SPEAKER_00: Not because they earned it, not because they deserved it, not because they were better than anyone, simply because he loved them.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the hardest truths for many people to accept.
SPEAKER_00: We often think God loves us because we're good.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the gospel says something far more beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: God loves us first, and his love is what makes us good.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what St.
SPEAKER_00: John tells us in the second reading.
SPEAKER_00: In this is love.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity begins not with our love for God.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity begins with God's love for us.
SPEAKER_00: And the cross is proof of that love.
SPEAKER_00: The sacred heart is proof of that love.
SPEAKER_00: The Eucharist is proof of that love.
SPEAKER_00: Every confession is proof of that love.
SPEAKER_00: Again and again, God pursues us long before we ever think about pursuing him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we turn to the gospel, Jesus says these beautiful words.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he does not say, Come to me all you who have everything figured out.
SPEAKER_00: He does not say, Come to me when you're all cleaned up.
SPEAKER_00: He does not say, Come to me when you're worthy.
SPEAKER_00: No, he simply says, Come to me.
SPEAKER_00: And the sacred heart is that open invitation of Christ to every weary soul, to the sinner, to the struggling marriage, to the anxious parent, to the grieving widow, to the confused young adult, to the person carrying shame, to the person carrying regret, to the person carrying burdens nobody else sees, come to me.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus reveals his heart in one of the most extraordinary lines in the entire gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.
SPEAKER_00: The only place in all four gospels where Jesus explicitly describes his own heart.
SPEAKER_00: These are the words he chooses.
SPEAKER_00: Not powerful, not majestic, not victorious, though he is all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am meek and humble of heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart we celebrate today.
SPEAKER_00: A heart that welcomes sinners, a heart that forgives enemies, a heart that seeks the lost, a heart that was pierced on Calvary so that the floodgates of mercy could be opened for the world.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why today's feast is especially significant.
SPEAKER_00: And it's significant for us this year because today the bishops of the United States are inviting our nation to be consecrated to the sacred heart of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What does consecration mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it means placing ourselves under the lordship of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It means saying as individuals, families, parishes, and as a nation, Jesus, we belong to you.
SPEAKER_00: Not to politics, not to ideology, not to wealth, not to power, not to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We belong to you.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps our country needs a sacred heart now more than ever, because the answer to hatred is the sacred heart of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The answer to division is the heart of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The answer to despair, the answer to loneliness, the answer to sin is the heart of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So today, let us do what Jesus asks.
SPEAKER_00: Bring him our burdens, bring him our wounds, bring him our fears, bring him our families, bring him our nation.
SPEAKER_00: Let us place everything into that heart which has never stopped loving us.
SPEAKER_00: The sacred heart of Jesus is not merely a devotion, it is the revelation of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: And Saint John gives us the simplest definition of all God is love.
SPEAKER_00: And that love has a heart, the heart of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.