If I Only Had a Heart

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In the movie version of the classic book, The Wizard of Oz, one of the main characters is the Tin Man.  Dorothy and the Scarecrow meet him on their way to see the Wizard of Oz.  The Tin Man seems perfectly normal (for a man made out of metal), but he reveals to Dorothy that the tinsmith neglected to give him a heart.  Dorothy invites the Tin Man to come with her so that the Wizard can give him a heart, in addition to giving the Scarecrow a brain, and return Dorothy home.
    Spoiler alert: as the Wizard is giving the Tin Man his heart, he says, “Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”  And for those who have had their heart broken, there seems to be some logic in his quip.  Anyone who has gone through a break-up finds the cliché phrase, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” very unsatisfying.  At the time of the heartbreak, it seems like it would have been much better to not get into a situation which could cause such pain, pain which cannot be healed by any medicine.  Indeed, there can be a sometime-attraction to the character of Spock from “Star Trek,” who, though he has emotions, does not seem to be affected by them, but exhibits a remarkable kind of stoicism. 
    And yet today’s celebration, transferred from this past Friday, is precisely the celebration of not only a broken heart, but also a pierced heart!  A twice-pierced heart, in fact, pierced once by the lack of love from the beloved, and pierced twice by the lance of the soldier, making blood and water flow out.  But that broken, pierced, Sacred Heart is the riches of God, and the expression of the breadth, length, height and depth of God’s love for us, the hope and consolation of all the saints.
    We often associate a broken heart with one that has been betrayed.  Just think of what Michael Corleone in “The Godfather II” says to Fredo, his brother, when Michael finds out Fredo has betrayed him: “You broke my heart, Fredo.”  And certainly we have betrayed God.  Every time we sin we betray Jesus; we become a Judas.  We are supposed to be the friend of God, and yet we do what we know will hurt our Divine Friend.  And so the Lord’s Sacred Heart breaks, is pierced.  Indeed, with every sin that we commit, we put our hand on the very lance that was thrust into the body of Jesus.  We not only look upon Him whom we have pierced, we are the ones who pierce. 
    But the Sacred Heart is also pierced because, in the end, the love of God cannot help but overflow and burst out, not to call for vengeance, but to shower upon us mercy.  Pope St. Gregory the Great writes in his “Moral Reflections on Job,” “The blood of Jesus calls out more eloquently than Abel’s, for the blood of Abel asked for the death of Cain, the fratricide, while the blood of the Lord has asked for, and obtained, life for his persecutors.”  Even though we deserve the just punishment for our sins, which, as the Apostle writes, is death, God calls down upon us not death, but life, when His Blood and water flow upon us through the Sacraments of Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist.  Christ would certainly prefer that we not betray Him, and yet, as many times as we do, He allows His Sacred Heart to be pierced to forgive us that betrayal and restore us to holiness.
    What a love that is so generous!  What a love that breaks open because of the expanse of love that cannot be contained!  What a love that recreates the beloved from the wound the beloved caused! 
    It is, in the end, better to have a heart that can break, than to have no heart at all.  It may indeed be unpractical that hearts break, but it is better that they do, because only hearts that love can be broken, including the Sacred Heart of our Incarnate Lord.  One cannot lose in love, even when a beloved breaks our heart, because God is love, and in God is our victory.  Love is not a loss, but a creative force.  We do not have to set ourselves up to be betrayed, or to be an emotional punching bag, and sometimes we can only love from afar.  But love, as with God who is Love, is a good in itself. 
    It can be hard to love when a heart has been broken.  It may seem easier to close ourselves off to love when our love has been betrayed.  But the Sacred Heart of Jesus invites us to love even when it hurts, even when our hearts are broken, even when our hearts are pierced.  May our hearts always be open to receive and share the transformative love of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Mount Moriah

Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

Around 2,000 years before Christ, Abraham placed wood upon his the shoulders of the son of the promise, his beloved son, Isaac, and started up the mountain.  Isaac quickly realized that, while they had the wood, and they had the knife to kill the sacrifice, they had no lamb to place upon the altar.  Isaac, “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” did not know what was happening, and so asked his father where the offering was.  “‘My son,’ Abraham answered, ‘God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.’  Then the two walked on together.”  When they reach the top of the mountain, Abraham, an old man at this point, binds his son to the wood.  Isaac must have willingly let himself be bound, because Abraham was more than 100 years old.  And then Abraham took out his knife, ready to sacrifice the son of the promise: the promise that God would make of Abraham through Isaac father of many nations.  But, as we know, an angel of the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand, and did not allow him to sacrifice his own beloved son, but provided a ram in place of Isaac.  Abraham was rewarded for his faith in God, even to the point of letting his son die, and truly became the Father of Many Nations.  Isaac, who was as good as dead, was given new life as he was unbound from the wood.

Fast-forward about 1,000 years, and a temple is built, according to tradition, over the spot where Abraham had been willing to sacrifice Isaac.  It was there, at the place of an example of faith in God such that it put Abraham in right relationship with God, or justified him as St. Paul says, that the sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant would be offered, to remind God of the faithfulness of the Father of the Israelites.  Just outside of that place, almost 1,000 years later, another Son, a beloved Son, would be fastened to wood once more, and offered up by His Father as a sacrifice.

Isaac had asked where the animal was to sacrifice, perhaps his voice starting to crack as he began to realize what could lie ahead of him.  Jesus cried out, “Eli, eli, lema sabachtani?  My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” as the full weight of sin and the punishment that it deserves came crashing upon Him.

But where was the voice of the angel?  Where was the heavenly messenger telling the Father to stay His hand and not touch a hair on the boy’s head, and to replace the sacrifice of a Son with the sacrifice of a ram?  As the Roman soldier raised his arm, ready to hammer the nail into the exhausted flesh of Jesus, which had been scourged to a bloody mess and weakened on the Via Dolorosa, the sorrowful way, no angel stopped that hand, and the only sound was the pounding of the hammer.

Abraham proved his love for God by being willing to sacrifice his own beloved son.  God proved his love for Abraham and his posterity, not just by generation but by faith, not only by being willing to sacrifice His Only Beloved Son, but also allowing it to happen to save us from our sins.  All of the sins that came before that dark Friday, and all of the sins that would follow after it, were washed away as the crimson blood flowed from the mangled body of Jesus. 

What are our sacrifices since last Easter?  What are we willing to sacrifice in the year to come?  In the past year I have buried a father of a family who left behind a wife and 5 kids, as well as my own uncle; I have had friends discover they had cancer; today I bring my frustrations, my joys, my sins, all of who I am.  Many of you have lost loved ones, have found out family or friends are sick and suffering; some of you have lost jobs, or have children who have wandered away from the Church; you have your own frustrations, your joys, your sins, and all that makes you who you are.  Today, bring them here to our own Mount Moriah, and offer sacrifice to God; not the sacrifice of your progeny, but sacrifice of your life united to Jesus on the cross.  Offer to God not only the evil you want to get rid of, but even the things you want to hold on to with your whole heart.  Bring them to the wood which is prepared for this altar. 

Jesus says to us, from just outside Mount Moriah, “‘I thirst.’”  He thirsts for you, He thirsts for me.  Not just part of you or part of me, but all of you and all of me.  Have the faith of Abraham.  Be willing to offer your all to God.  “Take courage and be stouthearted, all you who hope in the Lord.”