ramblings
for June: a 2017 meditation on the Sacred Heart
Friends, I am excited to share with you today a reflection that I wrote back in 2017 about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. These were the earliest stirrings in my own heart of devotion to His Heart, the first time I felt an invitation to enter into His Heart more deeply, at a time in my life when so much was just about to change. As we enter into the month of June, the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart, I invite you to discover (or rediscover!) this beautiful devotion.
There’s a lot about this piece that makes me grin: the endless interspersed references to songs I couldn’t stop singing at the time, the sections that feel so obviously like they were pulled directly from my journal, the hindsight of knowing how the Lord provided for all those things I felt anxious about… And yet, while I smile at younger Sara with more than a little condescension, I also see the ways in which I am re-learning these lessons as we face another season of change this summer. And so I bring you this reflection, seven and a half years old though it may be, in the hope that it will speak to you in your current season, whatever that may be.
I don’t remember the first time that I really noticed the statue of the Sacred Heart that I sit in front of at almost every mass I attend these days. I don’t remember when it was that I first thought that maybe, just maybe, it isn’t a coincidence that I sit and stare at Him after almost every communion I receive. I don’t remember the first time I felt called to discover a devotion to His Sacred Heart. These days, I can hardly enter the church without thinking about it.
With one hand, He’s blessing us. With the other, He’s pointing to his heart. I can almost hear Him speaking to me; I can read the words in His eyes: “Sara, draw near to my heart. Lose yourself in it. Hide yourself in my wounds and experience the depth of love and pain and peace within my heart.” He beckons me closer, begs me to imitate Him.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, make my heart like unto thine.
Flashback to five days ago. It feels like it’s been an age. I’m sitting on the couch with my boyfriend, his arm around my shoulders and my head resting on his chest. I’m coming down with a cold, so I’m sniffly and tired and not all there. A movie is playing, but I’ve seen it before, and I’m infinitely more enthralled by the sound of his heart beating. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. I’m struck by the steadiness of the rhythm. I don’t know why it’s so comforting, but it is.
“Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It’s been about two months since my last confession.” We talk for a while, about life and love and sin. He explains that what comes out of our heart says a lot about us. If the fruits of our heart are jealousy and impatience and pride, we’re doing something wrong. If we’re imitating Christ, we’ll lose ourselves in him so much that we become him… “Hear His Heart beating for you. Let this Heart shape yours so virtue springs forth and shows the world whose you are.”
For my penance, he tells me to pray with John 19:31-37. The centurion who pierces the side of Christ. He asks me to just sit in the adoration chapel for a while, to just sit with the passage. Be at the foot of the cross as that centurion runs his lance through Jesus’ side, straight to His Heart. “Look into his side and see His Heart beating for you… and if you don’t believe it, look in the monstrance. His heart is in the monstrance.”
Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Trust. I learned so much about trust last spring, but I’m realizing I still have so much room to grow. I’m still clinging so desperately to so many things, hoping they’ll give me stability and certainty about the future. The future fills me with fear and excitement and dread and joy.
Our Lady to Sister Josefa Menendez: Have no fear, Josefa; leave yourself in the hands of Jesus and constantly repeat this prayer: “Oh Father, merciful and good, look upon Thy child, and make her so entirely Thine own that she may lose herself in thy Heart. May her one desire, oh Father, be to accomplish Thy holy will.” This prayer will please Him, for He wants nothing so much as surrender, and by this you comfort His Heart. Do not fear, abandon yourself. I will help you.
You keep opening the door, but not letting me in.
A moment of imaginative prayer. As soon as Jesus walks in, I become aware of how messy and cluttered the house is. I want to clean it up, to apologize for the state it’s in. He brings in two plastic grocery bags and asks if we can make dinner. The dishes are all piled up, and at first I want to delegate — I’ll do the dishes and You prep for dinner. But He doesn’t let me do that. He washes the dishes and lets me dry them and put them away. When we sit down to eat, I feel a little anxious because the house is a mess and I don’t have much to offer. “Martha, Martha. You are anxious and worried about many things. Only one thing is needful.”
I want to just sit in His presence, to savor this time. He reaches over to pour me something to drink, and before he’s finished, I know he’s going to fill it over the top. He does, and I sigh a little, amused and grateful and exasperated. The food is simple, but there’s a lot. We just sit and talk and tell stories throughout the meal. At one point, I get a little frustrated with having to wipe up everything that’s spilled from my cup, but I want to be grateful, not annoyed.
The house is still a mess when we finish. Jesus gets up to leave, but I ask Him to stay. He places his hands on my head and blesses me, tells me He’ll be back.
On January 1 of this year, standing barefoot in the sand and the ice cold water, I decided that this year was going to be different. I wrote a long list of things I wanted to do, things I wanted to let go of, things I wanted to learn. I want to give this year to Mary in a special way. I’m going to let go of my expectations. Small efforts are still worth a lot. Abandonment. Trust. Fear of letting God down. I’m done rejecting things that could help me grow closer to God. I’m done being scared of the past, done being scared of losing things. I’m done being lazy. I want to be healed. I don’t want to let fear rule me. Fall down and actually get back up. I won’t reject the way he moves because it’s “too much of a coincidence.” I’ve drawn the symbol on the back of the miraculous medal on my wrist almost every day so far. A small but active reminder of what I am about.
Does it ever feel to you like it’s all in your head? Are there ever days when your prayer feels more like a conversation with yourself than with God? It’s not that I doubt that He exists or that He’s there, but I doubt that my prayers reach Him. My relationship with Him sometimes feels no more substantial than my relationships with the characters I write into my stories. My conversations with him feel no more real than conversations I have with my friends in my head. And so I doubt, and the doubt becomes an uneasiness I can’t quite shake, a feeling that things are not right. But I don’t know how to change it. I don’t know if I need to. I don’t know if I want to.
In some ways, I’m very aware of Him these days. I see Him in the blueness of the sky, and the contrast of the clouds against it. I see Him in the light from the stained glass dancing on the front of the chapel. I see Him in that single moment, kneeling on the ground, between “the Body of Christ” and “amen,” the culmination of so many threads in my life. I see Him in long hugs and good conversations and always-rushed Thursday morning breakfasts.
In some ways, He feels just as distant and mysterious and unreachable as ever.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and ever one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” The thought of being pruned brings joy, even though it will hurt.
October 6, 2016: He is slowly tearing away everything in my identity that is not Him. And it hurts like heck but it’s drawing me closer to Him. I’m reluctant and I struggle and I hold tightly to all the things I feel like are integral to me and who I am. But He’s shaping me into the woman He made me to be. The fear of losing myself is so real; the fear of being forgettable, not special, not unique. But if I find myself in Him, have I really lost? Help me cling to you, Lord…
God is weaving the answer long before the question is asked or the problem arises. The cross is the climax of Mary’s fiat, but that fiat came from the cross. Receiving from God is hard. We can grow our own “yes” by imitating Mary: run to her, let her bring me to Christ. Ponder things in your heart like she did. Let Mama mother you like she did Jesus.
Picture for a moment what those nine months were like. The very word of God enclosed in the womb of his mother. He’s nestled quietly, secretly, intimately just beneath her heart. Those two hearts, for nine months, beating together. Constantly in communion with one another, constantly speaking: I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you. Sit there for a few moments in Mary’s womb, quiet, protected, and loved.
And so we wait… Not a passive waiting, an apathetic waiting, a ignorant waiting. We wait in such a way that allows us to be moved by Him. We wait in a way that is open to whatever He will say, that’s desperately clinging onto His every word. We wait at His sacred feet. We sit at the foot of the cross. We hide ourselves in His heart. He is moving, but His ways are not my ways, and sometimes that takes a lot of remembering. The church is the hospital for us who know we aren’t good. Healing takes time, and I know I often can’t piece together the puzzle until it’s finished. We don’t have to accomplish everything in one sitting. And so we wait…
No need to be concerned about doubt.
Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin.
One cannot exist without the other.
Otherwise you would have certainty of either a negative or a positive.