READING 1
Song of Songs 1:2-4
O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out; therefore the maidens love you. Draw me after you, let us make haste. The king has brought me into his chambers. We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.
READING 2
From The Memorial of the Abundance of Divine Sweetness by St. Gertrude of Helfta
Not long after, toward the middle of Lent, I lay once more very sick in bed. One morning all were about their various occupations, and I was left lying there alone. The Lord, who abandons no one who is deprived of human comfort, was at my side, fulfilling the prophetic words of the Psalmist: “I am with him in tribulation” (Ps. 90:15). He showed me, issuing from his left side as though from the innermost depths of his blessed heart, a stream of flowing water as pure as crystal and as solid (cf. Rev. 22:1). It proceeded to cover his adorable breast like a jewel. I saw that it was transparent, colored in hues of gold and rose, alternating in various ways.
With this, the Lord gave me to understand these words: “The sickness from which you are now suffering has so sanctified your soul that whenever for my sake you condescend to others in thought, word, or deed, you will never be far from me, as is shown you in this stream. And just as the gold and rose colors gleam through the purity of the crystal and are enhanced by it, so will your intentions be pleasing, seen through the cooperation of the gold of my divinity and the perfecting power of the patience of the rose of my humanity.”
[…] O gift of gifts! (Phil. 2:9). To be satiated so fully in that storeroom of divine spices! To be inebriated with the overflowing wine of charity in that wine cellar of pleasures (Song 1:3, 2:4, 5:1, et al.), to be so overcome, rather, as not to be able to stir a step from these confines outside which this precious liquid (it is to be surmised) would lose its fragrant warmth and potency! Furthermore, when charity induces one to go out, to carry with one, as it were, the scent of wine on one’s breath, so as to be able to share with others the rich sweetness of divine wealth.
I am entirely confident, Lord God, that you can do everything, and that you can bestow this gift on all your elect. I do not doubt for a moment that you wanted to give it to me in your loving kindness. How, in your inscrutable wisdom, you were able to bestow it on my unworthy self, I am unable to discover.
Gertrude of Helfta, The Herald of Divine Love, ed. Margaret Winkworth and Bernard McGinn, trans. Margaret Winkworth, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), 107-109.
REFLECTION
St. Gertrude shares from her personal experience the way that the suffering of sickness led her to deeper union with the pierced Heart of Jesus. She describes her experience of intimacy with Him in her suffering as being like an inebriation from drinking in the rich stream of divine and human love flowing from His Heart. She further described this intimacy as a way of entering into the wine cellar of contemplation, similar to what is described in the Song of Songs. Inebriation of love describes the way that she is brought out of herself, out of control, totally given over to God’s will. Furthermore, she describes how that does not lock one into oneself, but remains with one who is called out to loving service of the lost and the least “with the scent of wine on one’s breath” meaning that one’s acts of service are infused with the sweetness of contemplation and the scent of divine love. Furthermore, she saw that this progression of grace is meant for everyone, not just for her.
In other words, she describes a path from sickness and suffering to intimacy, union, and contemplation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, even as He calls us into service for the last and the least. This invites us to ponder, “How do you handle sickness and suffering? Are you able to enter into communion with the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Have you experienced the sweetness of intimacy in your suffering as you draw love from the pierced Heart of Christ? Have you set out for loving service with the scent of divine love still on your breath? None of these things are skills to achieve or benchmarks to accomplish, but we can ask for the Lord to provide these special graces for us.
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
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