The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Everybody thinks all the great church holidays are at Easter and Christmas. But we have such lovely ones during Ordinary Time, too. After ending Easter with such a bang on Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, we slipped back into the green vestments and discarded the extra flowers around the altar. First came Trinity Sunday. Then we had the feast of Corpus Christi, complete with Eucharistic processions and special times of Adoration in some parishes, including mine.

Now we have the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. How awesome to contemplate that God, Creator of all things, Infinite, Uncreated, Sustainer of everything in the world, came to earth to love us with a human heart.

It's also First Friday, so many people will have a special chance for extra worship or Adoration at their churches today.

Here's today's second reading, from 1 John 4:

Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also must love one another.
No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us,
and his love is brought to perfection in us.

This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us,
that he has given us of his Spirit.
Moreover, we have seen and testify
that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world.
Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,
God remains in him and he in God.
We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.

God is love, and whoever remains in love
remains in God and God in him.

Could the Lord BE any more obvious? He loves you and He loves me in a way that we can actually understand, if not completely. Spend the day with that sure knowledge.