The Friday after the Church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated. These two feasts are intimately related.
The date of the first appearance of Jesus and the revelation of His Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary was on December 27, 1673. December 27 is the Feast of St. John the Beloved who, at the Last Supper, had rested his head upon the beating heart of Jesus.
The date of December 27 was no accident, but an act of Providence. In 1673, the Church was in the throes of a form of Jansenism with its harsh and rigid moralism and its cold and forbidding emphasis on punishments and hellfire. People had begun to fear God and dread His harsh judgments. The world had grown cold spiritually, with too many forgetting the loving, compassionate, and forgiving example of Jesus who had once proclaimed: “Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder My yoke and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, My yoke is easy and My burden light (Matthew 11:28-29).”
The appearance of Jesus to a young Visitation sister on the feast of the young disciple whom Jesus loved was the moment that Providence had chosen to remind a world grown cold of the tender warmth and inviting love of His gentle and humble heart.
By revealing His pierced heart to St. Margaret Mary, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that He desires to win us to Himself through the persuasive power of love alone, never through force or fear. St. Francis de Sales had captured that inviting spirit a few decades earlier when he penned these beautiful lines: “Belong totally to God. Think of Him and He will think of you. He has drawn you to Himself so that you may be His; He will take care of you. Do not be afraid, for if little chicks feel perfectly safe when they are under their mother’s wings, how secure should the children of God feel under His paternal protection! So be at peace, since you are one of these children; and let your weary, listless heart rest against the sacred, loving breast of this Savior who, by His providence is a father to His children, and by His gentle, tender love is a mother to them (Wendy Wright in Sacred Heart: Gateway to God, p.14).”
In His last appearance to St. Margaret Mary, Jesus asked for a feast in honor of His Sacred Heart to be celebrated every year on the Friday after the feast of Corpus Christi. Why so specific a date? The Feast of Corpus Christi reminds us that Jesus wants to be in the very midst of His people and to become an intimate part of the nooks and crannies of their daily lives with one another. Throughout the year, He waits for them in all the tabernacles of the world, but on the Feast of Corpus Christi, He is carried in solemn procession among their streets and homes. Jesus wants to be with the people He loves and for whom He suffered and died. His heart burns with love for each of them, even by name. It was a Friday, Good Friday, that His Sacred Heart was revealed to the world for the first time, and from His Pierced Heart flowed the saving waters of Baptism and the precious blood of the Eucharist, giving birth to the Church that continues His saving and loving mission to the human family throughout history.
The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is, in the end, the feast of Jesus as Emmanuel: God with His people as Savior, Lord, and loving Friend!
Fr. Lou Fiorelli, OSFS
Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church
Vienna, VA
