Reflections from the Heart – September 12, 2021

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” When I contemplate the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I find myself wonderfully lost in the divine and beautiful things of heaven. I lose all sense and concept of time, space, presence. I find myself gently flowing into the ocean of God‘s infinite love and his tender mercy. It’s so wonderful to lose all sense of having to be concerned with tracking time or worrying about what comes next or what may or could happen tomorrow or having to measure out success or progress. I can simply be me and enjoy God. I can enjoy the grace of his awe-inspiring presence, his gentle kindness, his beautiful loveliness, his amazing, loving concern for me. I can simply enjoy being still, being loved, being me. What a great and awesome feeling to be free. To be lost from the world and to be found in God. To be found in the great ocean of God’s holy presence where I am a mere breath of moisture; I am little less than a drop of water in the vast body of God. And yet, God knows me. He sees me in a particular way. He recognizes me in a unique and individual and private way. God is amazing. He can identify me, poor little created cloud of vapor that I am, from all other moisture, from all the dewfall, from every drop of water in the universe. In the ocean of God’s love, I am easily and clearly seen by him. God’s ocean is beyond measure. No one can ever measure the depth or width of God’s love. No one can imagine the height or the vastness of his great mercy. And yet, God invites us to bathe and swim in the ocean of his glory. When you look at the Sacred Heart of Jesus, what do you see? Can you feel the warmth of his love, taste the goodness of his ever-flowing grace, smell the sweetness of his holy innocence? Can you imagine being loved so much, so perfectly, so profoundly, so completely? We are invited to pray to Jesus’ heart and ask him for the particular grace that our own hearts may become meek and humble like his. We are invited to ask for the grace to have an interior disposition of gentle patience especially in the midst of hardships and moments of suffering and to prayerfully and joyfully radiate an exterior posture of lowliness, humbleness, submissiveness like the Heart of Jesus.