Another first Friday. And, as it was the first Friday of June I think it is a very special day. The reading from The Acts of the Apostles today prompted me to reflect on a key aspect of Teilhard’s approach to the Sacred Heart: that it is wholly anchored in St Paul. If the devotion to the Sacred Heart that he shared with his mother and sister was one aspect of his thinking about the role of the Sacred Heart in the future of Christianity, another was unquestionably his great love of St. Paul’s letters. The Sacred Heart as the Omega point is entirely grounded in St. Paul. And so, the prayer that comes to mind today is – like his sister’s prayer – one which also meant so much to his devotion to the Sacred Heart. It is, of course, Paul’s prayer in Ephesians (3: 14-19)
I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with the power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Teilhard believed that the Christianity of the future has to become more and more 'rooted and grounded' in the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Through our devotion to the Sacred Heart we pray that Christ will dwell in our hearts and that we may, as a result, be filled with the fullness of God. This prayer of St. Paul is at the heart of Teilhard’s devotion to the Sacred Heart. It should be at the heart of our devotion as well.
I pray that, through devotion to the Sacred Heart, we may all be strengthened by the Holy Spirt so as to become ever more rooted and grounded in love. And in this way, may humanity come to be filled by the fullness of God. May Christ come and dwell in our hearts.
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