Homily for Friday, 12 June 2015– Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9;  Responsorial Canticle: Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6; Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19; John 19:31-37

What does it mean for us to love God? Fr. Larry Gillick, a Jesuit priest at Creighton University, has what I find to be a helpful answer to this question. Fr. Gillick says that “to love God is to let God love us.”

This leads me to more questions, which we might take to our examination of conscience; our prayer and meditation, maybe daily. My questions are these: When have we let God love us? And when have we not let God love us and so have been in need of God’s love and mercy more than ever?

Our answer to when we have let God love us is easier than we might think. Look around at all of us who are here in God’s presence; in Christ’s presence in this Eucharistic celebration. Our presence, here to meet God’s presence, is the foremost way in which we as Christians show that we are allowing God to love us. And so we show by gathering for this Eucharist that we love God. We also show that we are willing to let God love us; that we love God by our celebration of any of the Church’s sacraments. We show this by our works of kindness and justice; of service toward one another, especially those most in need: The poor; the sick; those who have lost a loved one; those whose loved ones experience need or hardship. We show our willingness to let God love us, and so we show we love God, when we allow ourselves to be served by another’s kindness and generosity when we are in need.

God’s love for us is certain. We can be confident in and never despair of God’s love for us, no matter our need; no matter how well or how often we pray; no matter our sin. Our readings today on this feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the feast itself, ask the fundamental question: How much are we willing to let God love us?

The Book of the Prophet Hosea, from which our first reading is drawn, is set during an especially troublesome time in ancient Israel’s history. The kings of Israel, in the line of King David, as well as the people had become corrupt, turning to false gods and committing all forms of social injustice toward the weakest and most vulnerable. The end of the monarchy and exile into foreign nations threaten if Israel continues to be unfaithful to God and unjust to its own people. But God is willing, out of love, to forgive; not to remain angry if Israel returns to faithfulness to God. Hosea’s question to the Israelites is this: Are you willing to let God love you?

This same question is at the center of our second reading, from Ephesians. God has been present; has loved us into being from the moment of creation. God sustains creation; us out of love. God has given us himself in the person of Jesus Christ: The utmost act of love possible. And our Gospel reading speaks of the events immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus pours forth love, shown as blood and water, from his heart, pierced by the soldiers’ lance while Jesus hangs on the cross.

Our devotion; our feast today of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus draws us to answer this same question and, do we not believe, answers this question with a resounding “Yes”: Do we love God, and do we show our love for God by letting God love us?