June: Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

I am very blessed to have been born in the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Today, June 2, is my 57th birthday and the 6th birthday of my nephew Michael Colin Kirby. I am in New Hampshire with my brother and his family at the moment and will be returning to Tulsa tomorrow. When Michael Colin, a child of the sea and surf, was asked what he would like for his birthday supper, he replied, "Lobster and steamers!"

I will try during the month of June to continue the meditations on the Litany of the Sacred Heart that I began two years ago. They can be found in the Sacred Heart archives of Vultus Christi.

One of my favourite prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is this one, written by Cardinal Newman. It is as theologically precise as it is tenderly human. I am especially moved by Newman's allusion to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus: "Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist and thou beatest for us still."

My God, my Saviour, I adore Thy Sacred Heart,
for that heart is the seat and source
of all Thy tenderest human affections for us sinners.
It is the instrument and organ of Thy love.
It did beat for us. It yearned over us.
It ached for us, and for our salvation.
It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us.
It is the channel through which has come to us all Thy overflowing human affection,
all Thy Divine Charity towards us.
All Thy incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes,
in one inseparably mingled stream, through that Sacred Heart.
O most Sacred symbol and Sacrament of Love, divine and human, in its fulness,
Thou didst save me by Thy divine strength, and Thy human affection,
and then at length by that wonder-working blood, wherewith Thou didst overflow.
O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus,
Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still.
Now as then Thou savest,
Desiderio desideravi--"With desire I have desired."
I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe,
with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will.
O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee,
to eat and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me,
O make my heart beat with Thy Heart.
Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual,
all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness.
So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day
nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it,
but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace.

The Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman