This first posting is timed to occur on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and that is certainly not a chance occurrence. The Sacred Heart of Our Lord is not simply a devotion to the bodily heart of Christ, though that is worthy of veneration due to the hypostatic union, but it is a devotion to the heart as the sign of the Divine love for us, a love that seeks to elevate man to the supernatural order and bring about a union with God and man. Such a symbol as the Sacred Heart is potent, for we know that the humanity of Christ, being united so intimately to the Second Person of the Trinity, become a window onto God. The Sacred Humanity is the expression in human terms of the Divine Person that is the Logos. Every action becomes a revelation of God. The Heart of Christ, being a symbol of His Charity, and indeed of what is most intimate to Him, becomes then the means of knowing Who God is. "He who sees me," says Our Lord to St. Philip, "sees the Father."
We must ask then about the end of this charity of the Sacred Heart, for it is not necessarily what we think. Moderns think of love as a very subjective thing, and unfortunately as either an excuse to do virtually anything, or at least as being opposed to any kind of sternness. Now this it simply false. Love desires the good of the one loved, and that good is an objective thing. "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee," writes Saint Augustine in the Confessions. Man is made for God; and so true love for ones neighbour necessitates that one desire ones neighbour to attain his end, and to fight against those things that turn man away from it. This is true of the charity of the Sacred Heart. God is man's end. Thus the Sacred Heart loves man in such a way as to draw him to God, and sometimes intervenes in such a way as to remind man of that end, though that might imply some sternness on His part. Sin separates man from God; and so it is sin that must be overcome by the charity of the Sacred Heart. He was without sin so as to suffer for man the sinner, to overcome sin by His Divine Sacrifice. It is sin that the Sacred Heart cannot condone in man, for it is to consign man to eternal separation.
Why is this important for this commencement of a new blog? It is because the Sacred Heart is the means to our end, the measure of all reality as man makes his pilgrim's way to the eternal city. What is important? What is to be cast aside? Christ is the measure, even as He is the king by right of nature and conquest over all the actions of man. He is Creator for "all things were made by Him," and He is Redeemer, for He has purchased all by the shedding of His Precious Blood. We must remember that it was by Divine Love that creation was brought to be, that is by the Divine and Human Love of the Incarnate God that the Redemption came to pass. and it is through the charity of the Heart of Jesus that grace is given to man now, in this hour, to reach is everlasting end, the union with God in the beatific vision. All things then must be judged in the light of this Heart, and all things tend towards it. There is no other measure.
To the Kingly Heart of the Divine Redeemer this blog is now dedicated. May He, through the intercession of His Immaculate Mother, bring about the submission of all human activity to the reign of the Triune God. Kyrie Eleison.
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