Luke 15: 1-32 (The story of the Prodigal Son)
Two sons wanted to party.
One threw restrictions to the wind–and wound up starving in a pigsty.
The other “toed the line”–and resented every minute.
They needed their father
to demonstrate how to party–
out of love, in order,
with music, dancing and feasting.
Our Father throws a party every day,
out of love, in order,
with music, dancing (choreographed movement), and feasting.
We call it the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Which son
will I be?
…a husband is head of the wife,
just as Christ is the Head of the Church,
being Himself Savior of the body
~Ephesians 5:23-24
if the man is the head,
the woman is the heart,
and as he occupies the chief place in ruling,
so she may and ought to claim for herself
the chief place in love.
~Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, paragraph 27
From this it follows that the Church, Jesus’ Bride,
is (mystically) His Heart.
That puts a whole new perspective
on devotion to the Sacred Heart!
Man put a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head.
He received it on His Heart-
that’s where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque saw it
when Jesus revealed his Sacred Heart to her, burning with love.
The Church is crowned with thorns
(hedged about with thorns–
protected from invasion as a “garden enclosed”, cf. Song of Songs 4:12),
burning with love,
pierced with a sword.
Mary, her heart pierced with a sword at her Son’s crucifixion,
is its exemplar.
To enter into Jesus’ Sacred Heart,
to be enfolded in His love and mercy,
is to enter into His Church,
to be enfolded within Her.
This fits with the revelation of Divine Mercy as well,
the Blood and Water, Baptism and the Eucharist
(and, by extension, all the Sacraments),
flowing from Jesus’ Heart,
the Church.
Note that Jesus’ Heart is crowned–
the Church is crowned.
The Head does not reserve all glory to Himself.
He has made a gift of His Crown to His Beloved,
not as His superior,
but as His ambassador.
She bears His authority in perfect communion with Him.
As He does only what He sees His Father doing (John 5:19),
so She does only what She sees Him doing.
The two become one.
This is what it means
to be married.
I’m at the point in
Light Shining Through A Veil,
On Saint Clare’s Letters to Saint Agnes of Prague,
by Edith A Van den Goorbergh, O.S.C., and Theodore H. Zweerman
where St. Clare unveils her own experience of contemplation
for St. Agnes.
I got a taste of it!
Wow.
Contemplation is a different plane,
a different dimension.
It’s not so much a part of life as a quality of life.
It pervades.
It’s nourished in silence and solitude
and the intentional turning to God in prayer,
but it’s by no means limited to that.
It’s a state of soul, a way of being,
broken open to the vulnerability
of eternal Realities.
Wide-open wonder!
It is SO desirable!
Fragile.
Tender.
Pulsing with life.
Like an exposed heart on an operating table,
a newly-hatched birdling in a nest,
an open wound.
God is tenderly protective of it
(which is why His contemplatives are enclosed!).
This is how the Blessed Virgin lived.
Jesus too.
This is the life of the Church,
the oyster in which irritating grains of sand
are turned into lustrous pearls of great price (see Matthew 13:45-46)–
where sins are redeemed,
heresies turned into illuminating doctrines.
We enter through those pearls,
those gates
(see Revelation 21:21)
for life!
This isn’t my writing–and I’ve lost track of where I found it–but it’s worth sharing! A post here references the same story as being from Talks on the Creed by Fr. Arthur Tonne, OFM (© 1946)
A priest in a parlor car was joined by three well-dressed gentlemen. One of them asked the padre: “Do you think a man could get to Heaven without joining the Church?”
“I think he could,” the priest replied.
They laughed, patted him on the back and called him broadminded.
“Now let me ask you a question,” said the priest, “and I want you to answer me just as quickly as I answered you. Why do you want to go to Heaven that way?”
They stared at one another, speechless.
“Why don’t you ask me another question,” suggested the man in the Roman collar. “Why don’t you ask me if a man could get to England without going on a boat?”
This time they found words, and blurted out: “Well, what is the answer to that one?”
“I see no reason a man could not get to England without going on a ship,” the priest admitted, “provided he was a good swimmer, tied some food between his shoulders to eat on the way, had strength to buffet all the waves, and, provided a shark did not get him or a floating log knock him out. And supposed you did get to England without a ship, do you think you would get there faster or in much better condition than the man who did take a boat?”
Tidbits Under the Table 