June Prayer to the Sacred Heart (9): A prayer to the Holy Spirit

Let us return to Ian’s comment about feeling rather overwhelmed by the Sacred Heart. I share his sense of inadequacy in the face of the mystery of God’s love for his creation as expressed in the Sacred Heart. Indeed, Teilhard also admits that the very ‘thought of it is almost more than the mind can comprehend.’ Almost, is an important qualifier here. It is overwhelming, but it is not quite beyond our reason and our faith. My experience over the past six months or so has been that the closer I get to the Sacred Heart – the stronger the pull or the ‘attraction’ of the Sacred Heart, - the more do you get pulled into the mystery of the ‘heart’ in the Bible. The word in used throughout the Old and New Testament – indeed it is reckoned to be mentioned some 743 times! And the meaning of the term is quite complicated: it means so many things. I believe that the revelation of the Sacred Heart is a most powerful image which provides us with a doorway into the meaning of heart in Holy Scripture. When we contemplate the idea of our heart in relation to God’s heart and in relation to the heart of Jesus we stand, like Moses, on holy ground. We stand and contemplate not a burning bush, but a burning heart. A heart that burns but is not consumed. We contemplate the mystery of the God who is love and whose word has been made flesh - a human heart. We contemplate the very heart of creation that is aflame for the love of us. And, from the perspective of Teilhard, we stand in adoration of Christ Omega who is uniting all things. This is not something we can grasp with our mere human minds and hearts. And thus it is why Pentecost – when the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles as fire – precedes the feast of the Sacred Heart. It is why the feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated after the coming of the Holy Spirit. We need the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts to be able to unite with the heart of Jesus. And we also need the intersession of Mary – the Eternal Feminine - within whom the heart of Jesus was formed - to point the way to a fuller understanding of this great mystery.

And thus today’s prayer is for everyone – especially iconographers – who are being ‘attracted’ by the Sacred Heart.


Come , Holy Spirit.
Come by means of the powerful intersession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, thy well-beloved spouse.

Come Holy Spirit.
Come with the blessing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
so that we may all may fulfil God the Father’s plan for our lives.
Amen

(PS. I came across this beautiful prayer in The Catholic Herald today – June 10th 2011. )