READING 1
John 15: 8-15
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
READING 2
From the encyclical Dilexit Nos x 158-161 by Pope Francis
The natural desire to console Christ, which begins with our sorrow in contemplating what he endured for us, grows with the honest acknowledgment of our bad habits, compulsions, attachments, weak faith, vain goals and, together with our actual sins, the failure of our hearts to respond to the Lord’s love and his plan for our lives. This experience proves purifying, for love needs the purification of tears that, in the end, leave us more desirous of God and less obsessed with ourselves.
In this way, we see that the deeper our desire to console the Lord, the deeper will be our sincere sense of “compunction.” Compunction is “not a feeling of guilt that makes us discouraged or obsessed with our unworthiness, but a beneficial ‘piercing’ that purifies and heals the heart. Once we acknowledge our sin, our hearts can be opened to the working of the Holy Spirit, the source of living water that wells up within us and brings tears to our eyes… This does not mean weeping in self-pity, as we are so often tempted to do… To shed tears of compunction means seriously to repent of grieving God by our sins; recognizing that we always remain in God’s debt… Just as drops of water can wear down a stone, so tears can slowly soften hardened hearts. Here we see the miracle of sorrow, that ‘salutary sorrow’ which brings great peace… Compunction, then, is not our work but a grace and, as such, it must be sought in prayer.”1 It means, “asking for sorrow in company with Christ in his sorrow, for anguish with Christ in his anguish, for tears and a deep sense of pain at the great pains that Christ endured for my sake.”2
I ask, then, that no one make light of the fervent devotion of the holy faithful people of God, which in its popular piety seeks to console Christ. I also encourage everyone to consider whether there might be greater reasonableness, truth and wisdom in certain demonstrations of love that seek to console the Lord than in the cold, distant, calculated and nominal acts of love that are at times practised by those who claim to possess a more reflective, sophisticated and mature faith.
Consoled ourselves in order to console others. In contemplating the heart of Christ and his self-surrender even to death, we ourselves find great consolation. The grief that we feel in our hearts gives way to complete trust and, in the end, what endures is gratitude, tenderness, peace; what endures is Christ’s love reigning in our lives. Compunction, then, “is not a source of anxiety but of healing for the soul, since it acts as a balm on the wounds of sin, preparing us to receive the caress of the Lord.”3 Our sufferings are joined to the suffering of Christ on the cross. If we believe that grace can bridge every distance, this means that Christ by his sufferings united himself to the sufferings of his disciples in every time and place. In this way, whenever we endure suffering, we can also experience the interior consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with us. In seeking to console him, we will find ourselves consoled.
REFLECTION
Running contrary to human logic, the great consolation for the Heart of Jesus is that we receive His love. Let yourself be loved! When we are hurting, due to our sin or the sin of others, there is tender mercy that wells up in the Heart of Jesus. If we do not let Him love us, that pent up mercy causes Him a certain kind of agony. When we let Him love us, especially in those places in our hearts where there is a deep need for love, we console His Heart. To recognize our need for love is a kind of repentance or compunction, it is a turning of our hearts to Him, an opening of our hearts to Him. In our pain, we tend to understandably limit our trust and rely on our own defenses. The act of trust that lets down those defenses and opens up tender and painful places to Him is a great gift. Is there an area of your life where you are relying on self-protection? Is there an area of your heart that you could open up to the Lord today?
Newman’s Prayer to the Sacred Heart (longer or shorter form)
One of the prayers from the Roman Missal
The Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
- Pope Francis, Homily at the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2024. ↩︎
- Saint Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises 203. ↩︎
- Pope Francis, Homily at the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2024. ↩︎
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