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COR JESU 2006
June is the month dedicated to the
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
“In Thee is our trust, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, opened by the centurion’s spear! Thou art the inexhaustible source of life whence flows, as of old from Moses’s, the water  of Baptism and the Blood of the Eucharist from which was born the Church, Thy Spouse and our Mother.”
O Sacred Heart! what shall I render Thee
For all the gifts Thou hast bestowed on me?
O Heart of God! Thou seem’st but to implore
That I should love Thee daily more and more.
Then I will love Thee, then I will love Thee,
Then I will love Thee daily more and more.
O Heart of Jesus! Come and live in me,
That with Thy love my heart consumed may be;
O Sacred Heart of Jesus! I implore
That I may love Thee daily more and more.
Then I will love Thee…etc.
O Sacred Heart! Be this our life’s one aim
To labour for the glory of Thy Name;
O dearest Heart! This grace we Thee implore
That all the world may know and love Thee more.
Then I will love Thee…etc.
Dear Sacred Heart! In life’s last awful hour
Oh, let us feel Thy love’s almighty power;
O then oe’r all, this grace we do implore
That we may love and trust Thee more and more.
Then I will love Thee…etc.
“O most loving Jesus, when I ponder over Thy most Sacred Heart, all tenderness and sweetness for sinners, my heart rejoices, and I am filled with hope of Thy kind welcome. But, alas! My sins! How many and how great are they! With Peter and with Magdalene, I bewail and abhor them, because they are an offence to Thee, my Sovereign Good. O grant me pardon for them all. I pray Thy Sacred Heart that I may rather die than offend Thee again, and that I may live only for Thee.”
[One Our Father, Glory be to the Father 5 times in honour of the Sacred Heart, then —
Sweet Heart of Jesus, I implore
That I may ever love Thee more and more.
from The Catholic Prayer Book for Soldiers, 1891]
The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ
“He fed them with the fat of wheat; and filled them with honey out of the rock.” These words from Psalm 80 are the opening words of the Mass of Corpus Christi; wheat and honey recall the entry of the Hebrews into the Promised Land after the privations of the desert. For us they symbolise the Holy Eucharist, the food of our supernatural life.
And on this feast, which in France is called the Feast of God, it was the custom over many years for processions to be held throughout the Catholic world; and the whole Church with one voice cries out: “Body and Blood of my God, I adore Thee present in the Holy Eucharist, the symbol and the bond of unity between Christ and His faithful followers who are nourished on it.” In all the processions in honour of the Most Holy Sacrament the faithful raised their joyful voices in praise of the Eucharistic Lamb:
Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory,
Of His Flesh the mystery sing;
Of His Blood all price exceeding,
Shed by our Immortal King,
Destined for the world’s redemption,
From a noble womb to spring.
Of a pure and spotless Virgin,
Born for us on earth below;
He as man with man conversing,
Stayed the seeds of truth to sow.
Then He closed in solemn order
Wondrously His life of woe.
And we learn from The Gift of Faith by Archbishop JC McQuaid of happy memory:
“That it might be possible for each and every man, in all succeeding ages, to know with certainty all that God has revealed, Our divine Lord, Jesus Christ has established the Church which can be known by all to be His own. That Church we know is the Catholic Church. To her He has entrusted all His doctrine, with the injunction to teach all men to observe all things whatsoever He has commanded.
“Within the Church He has established one source of teaching, to which He has promised His constant and efficacious guidance until the end of time. To Peter and to his successors He has guaranteed the power infallibly to preserve, set forth and guard, the whole deposit of the Faith confided to the Church. To Peter are given the keys which open the Kingdom of heaven: the keys of Faith in doctrine and of Faith in morals. For as the Kingdom of heaven can be revealed to us only in the doctrine of the Faith, so the Kingdom of heaven can be entered only through sanctity of life which is based on the teaching of Jesus Christ.
“The centre and summit of that Faith is in the Holy Eucharist. And the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us: “The Holy Eucharist is the very Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus which He instituted to perpetuate the Sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until His return in glory. Thus He entrusted to His Church this memorial of His death and resurrection. It is a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal Banquet in which Christ is consumed, the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.”
A question for each of us to ask in regard to ourselves: “Do I appreciate in its fullness the inestimable gift of the Most Blessed Sacrament — of Holy Communion? Do we prepare ourselves as we ought before approaching this Sacred Banquet?”
What does St. Thomas Aquinas say to us: “How inestimable a dignity the divine bounty has bestowed upon us Christians from the treasury of its infinite goodness! Their neither is nor ever has been a people to whom the gods drew so near as our Lord and God draws near to us. Desiring that we be made partakers of His divinity, the only begotten Son of God has taken to Himself our nature so that having become man, He would be enabled to make men Godlike. Whatever He assumed of our nature became instrumental in the work of our salvation. For on the altar of the Cross He immolated to the Father His own Body as a victim for our reconciliation; and shed His Blood both for our ransom and our regeneration. And so we were liberated from our wretched bondage, washed clean of all our sins. Moreover, in order that a remembrance of such great benefactions may always be with us, He left the faithful His Body to be taken as food and His Blood as drink, under the appearances of bread and wine. O Banquet most precious! O Banquet most admirable! O saving Banquet over flowing with every spiritual delicacy.”
Corpus Christi in Rome
The mind of the Church has not changed in regard to this glorious feast in honour of the Sacred Mystery of the Eucharist. This was borne out once again by the festive ceremonies in Rome. His Holiness, Benedict XVI celebrated the solemn Mass. In the course of a previous homily in 2005, he said: “We bring Christ, present under the sign of bread, onto the streets of our city. We entrust these streets, these homes, our daily life, to His goodness. May our streets be streets of Jesus! May our houses be homes for Him and with Him! May our everyday life be penetrated by His presence. Let us place under His eyes the sufferings of the sick, the solitude of young people and the elderly, temptations, fears – our entire life.” The conclusion of his homily this year reads: “On the feast of Corpus Christi we especially look at the sign of Bread. It reminds us of the pilgrimage of Israel during the forty years in the desert. The Host is our manna whereby the Lord nourishes us – it is truly the bread of heaven, through which He gives Himself. In the procession we follow this sign and in this way follow Christ Himself. And we ask of Him: Guide us on the paths of our history! Show the Church and her Pastors again and again the right path! Look upon suffering humanity, cautiously seeking a way through so much doubt; look upon the physical and mental hunger that torments it! Give man and women bread for body and soul! Give them work! Give them light! Give them Thyself! Purify and sanctify all of us! Make us understand that only through participation in Thy Passion, through ‘yes’ to the Cross, to self denial, to the purifications that Thou dost impose upon us, our lives can mature and arrive at fulfilment . Gather us together from all corners of the earth. Unite Thy Church, unite wounded humanity! Give us Thy salvation! Amen.”
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