In the present day, June 7, 2024, we have a good time the feast of the Sacred Coronary heart of Jesus, one of many basic axes of SSCC spirituality and on this context we share this textual content to accompany this ecclesiastical solemnity.
The Gospel of the Day of the Sacred Coronary heart of Jesus says (John 19, 31-37), when Jesus was useless and crucified, “one of many troopers fell by his facet with a spear, and instantly blood and water flowed out.” The interpretation of the Fathers of the Church noticed that there was an emblem of the Eucharist and baptism, whose energy flows from the useless and risen Christ.
In the present day, when one thinks of blood, the wars that destroy Ukraine and the Gaza Strip instantly come to thoughts, with hundreds of useless and displaced. And when one thinks about water, on the one hand, the huge floods within the south of Brazil and different elements of the world the place local weather change causes repeated heavy rains, overflowing rivers and flooding populations, in addition to large losses, deaths and hundreds of victims, and then again, the droughts that destroy one area or one other of the planet with rising frequency. That’s, blood and water that don’t give rise to one thing constructive, a supply of life and pleasure for us, just like the sacraments of the Church, however moderately on the darkish facet of man, who can take a look at barbarism with out stopping, and nature, to the purpose.
What’s going to the pierced Coronary heart of Jesus inform us at the moment, with that signal of blood and water flowing from his wound?
Maybe it should remind us that that blood – that life – was shed for all, not for some or for a lot of: for all. For the Ukrainian grandmother who died hugging her grandchildren and for the younger Russian soldier who left his life on the sector of blood; to the Palestinian mom screaming over the physique of her useless son and to the younger girl who went to a music occasion and was murdered by Hamas fighters. And he’ll shout at us – his blood -: Let it not be in useless! Could the insistence on peace be extra persistent than the obsession with warfare!
Maybe it should additionally remind us that water is, on the similar time, the start of all life and, in ironic distinction, the horrible agent of demise; which, directed to meals water or poured over a new child at his baptism, is a necessary factor and offers life, however compelled to maneuver by means of dwelling locations as a result of there isn’t any world to soak up it, it may well destroy every thing in its path, inflicting panic. , destruction and demise. And it’ll remind us, earlier than we wish, that water might be – and already is – an object of human greed when it turns into scarce to fulfill the world’s inhabitants and causes new conflicts.
Blood and water: pure lifetime of God and, when man loses the horizon of affection, pure demise. Could the Hearts of Jesus and Mary make us tremble once more in these celebrations, in order that the blood solely exhibits the Eucharist, the sacrament of nice love for one’s neighbor, and the water solely exhibits baptism, the sacrament of full life, at the moment and tomorrow; In order that the Gospel doesn’t fall into the vacuum of human id, nor into the vacuum of hopelessness.
William Roses sscc/June