What is in My Heart (Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Year A)

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The heart is the seat of all emotions, actions and inactions. Everything begins in the heart: thoughts are conceived in the heart; and then churned out as actions or inactions. A little analogy can be of help. If you add some ink to the source of any water, the entire water will obviously be coloured and what comes out at the other end for collection is coloured water not pure water.

The heart is, if you like, the origin or the source of our thoughts and imaginations. But it must reflect on or think about something, not just on itself. If what we inject into the heart is unwholesome, our thoughts will be polluted and consequently our actions will be reprehensible. If it is something good, then our thoughts will be good and our actions commendable and admirable. 

We are celebrating a heart that is filled with love, not hatred; a heart that is filled with compassion, not animosity; a heart filled with optimism, not pessimism; a heart laced with sacrificial love, not with selfish ambitions; a heart filled with holiness, not with immorality.

It does no longer surprise me to learn and know that Jesus went about doing good; feeding the hungry; healing the sick; giving hope to the hopeless; admonishing the ignorant; and ultimately sacrificing himself entirely on the cross. It is because his Heart is filled with love, selflessness, compassion, mercy, selflessness, and so on.

The first and second readings (Deuteronomy 7:6-11 and 1 John 4:7-16) remind us that GOD IS LOVE: His deeds are great acts of love, His entire thoughts are thoughts of love; everything about Him is love because His Heart is filled with love. 

We live in a world of utter wickedness, hatred, selfishness, indifference and so on. But this same world is inhabited by no other person but you, them and me. If all of us strive to begin some sort of heart repair, cleansing, reformation, flushing and refilling, then we will end up turning this wicked world into a community of love, joy and peace. 

As we celebrate the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus today, let us always go to Him to learn from Him and to be reformed by Him because He is MEEK and LOWLY of HEART (cf. Matthew 11:25-30).

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