June 16--St. Lutgardis, Religious

St. Lugardis by Goya

“Catholic Christians traditionally recognize June as the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During this time, we call to mind Christ’s love for us, which is visible in a special way in the image of His pierced heart, and we pray that our own hearts might be conformed to His, calling us to love and respect all His people” (USCCB). St. Lutgardis is considered one of the saints who had a devotion to the Sacred Heart long before it was recognized in the Church as hers was the first recorded mystical revelation about the Sacred Heart.

St. Lutgardis was born in Tongeren, Belgium, in 1182 and died in 1246. She was sent to the convent at the age of twelve because her father lost her dowry in a bad business deal and thus could not afford to have her married according to the customs of the time. It was only later, when she had a vision of Jesus with his wounds, that she actually became a Benedictine nun. Still later, she joined the Cistercians, which followed a stricter observance of the Rule of St. Benedict. One vision was specifically about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus asked her what gift she would like to receive instead of the one she previously asked for. “‘Lord,’ said Lutgarde, ‘I would exchange it for your Heart.’ Christ then reached into Lutgarde and, removing her heart, replaced it with his own, at the same time hiding her heart within his breast.”

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a profound reminder of God’s love for us through Jesus’ sacrifice: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). St. Lutgardis, pray for us!

August 19–St. John Eudes, Priest and Founder

Anonymous, St. John Eudes, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Priests are the backbone of parish life. A good pastor can help his parish grow in love for God and each other, building parish life. But how does one become a good priest? That was the problem that today’s saint, St. John Eudes, faced when he decided to found the Congregation of Jesus and Mary. He founded and staffed three seminaries. St. John Eudes (1601-1680) was ordained in 1625 in France and eight years later became a parish missionary, going from parish to parish to preach renewal, giving 110 missions.

Pope Benedict XVI, in a general audience during the Year of the Priest in 2009, said, “Prompted by a lucid awareness of the grave need for spiritual assistance in which souls lay because of the inadequacy of the majority of the clergy, the Saint, who was a parish priest, founded a congregation specifically dedicated to the formation of priests. He founded his first seminary in the university town of Caen, a particularly appreciated experience which he very soon extended to other dioceses. The path of holiness, which he took himself and proposed to his followers, was founded on steadfast trust in the love that God had revealed to humanity in the priestly Heart of Christ and in the maternal Heart of Mary. In those times of cruelty, of the loss of interiority, he turned to the heart to speak to the heart, a saying of the Psalms very well interpreted by St Augustine. He wanted to recall people, men and women and especially future priests, to the heart by showing them the priestly Heart of Christ and the motherly Heart of Mary. Every priest must be a witness and an apostle of this love for Christ's Heart and Mary's Heart.” We need good priests! St. John Eudes, pray for us!

Friday Following the Second Sunday After Pentecost—Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

*

“The veneration of the Sacred Heart is a summary of all our religion and, moreover, a guide to a more perfect life. It more easily leads our minds to know Christ the Lord intimately and more effectively turns our hearts to love him more ardently and to imitate Him more perfectly” (Pope Pius XI, 1928). So that is all you need to know.

But wait, there’s more! The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus came from devotion to the humanity of Jesus, but it developed from the devotion to the Passion of Jesus and the Sacred Wounds. Many saints fostered this devotion, including St. Bonaventure, St. John Eudes, and the mystics St. Lutgarde, St. Mechtilde and St. Gertrude the Great. But the saint who promoted it in its modern form is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She had a vision of Jesus showing his heart in flames—“a sign of his burning love for the souls He had ransomed with his sacrifice on the Cross.” With the help of the Jesuit, St. Claude de la Colombière, she fostered the devotion to the point where it was liturgically celebrated in 1670, established as a feast for the whole Church in 1856, and raised to the highest rank of solemnity in 1928. Since 2002, it is also a special Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests.

That’s the theology and history, but what about its place in our hearts? Jesus’ Sacred Heart is a sign of his complete love for us. Further, the entire month of June is the Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This guides us away from the secular celebration of “Pride” month, pride being the worst of the seven deadly sins! Love is about humility, service, and sacrifice, all of which are shown through Jesus’ Sacred Heart.

*https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/18704992416