scripture

In a Heartwardly Direction…

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Blogger’s Note: This is the latest in a collection of daily posts outlining my journey to the Sacred Heart over the past year or more. See an overview and links to past posts here.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this spring I brought the various tugs on my heart—Divine Mercy, Salesian spirituality, and Sacred Heart—to my spiritual director to consider whether and which of them to pursue. He asked me what I knew about the Sacred Heart revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque—what was the meaning, or what was Jesus trying to share.

At that point, I knew only what I had picked up in the second of the Divine Mercy video series my men’s group is watching: The Church was battling the Jansenist heresy, which said that salvation was only for the elite few, that you had to earn God’s love, and that most people weren’t good enough to receive the Eucharist or salvation—but the message of Jesus’ Sacred Heart message was that God’s love is an endless, burning love for all of mankind regardless of sin or station. He loves us deeply and He deeply desires our love in return.

He told me that was right, then explained that the message of Divine Mercy was a deepening of the Sacred Heart message—that Jesus wants to save all of humanity, and that no one on earth gets to say who is worthy of God’s love and mercy: “It is above our pay-grade.” Continue reading →

Other Nudges

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Blogger’s Note: This is the latest in a collection of daily posts outlining my journey to the Sacred Heart over the past year or more. See an overview and links to past posts here.

I have a short post tonight, about two last little nudges leading me to a newfound devotion to the Sacred Heart this spring. First, in December, about the time I was lobbying Santa and my bride for a Sacred Heart image to hang near my bed, a new mosaic showed up in our church.

Sacred Heart Mosaic Color Continue reading →

Journey to the Heart: A Timeline

/ J. Thorp / 5 Comments

One of the obstacles to sharing this roundabout path to the Sacred Heart with you is that in many cases it is only visible in retrospect. The sequence is hazy at this point, even to me. So I’m going to start with a timeline, which will hopefully serve as an outline for the sequence of posts to come. Though I may not write them chronologically, we ought to be able to plug them into the timeline in the end.

Part of the reason for doing this exercise at all is that every so often someone hears me say something like, “God has me here for a reason,”  “God told me such-and such,” or “God is leading me toward X,” and asks me what that means. God doesn’t speak to me audibly, but He opens some doors—in my heart, in others, and in the world—and closes others. This timeline and sequence will hopefully show what I mean.

We begin nearly two years ago… Continue reading →

Urgent Conversion

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Sometimes when Jodi and I rise early in the morning to reflect on the daily Scripture readings and pray together, I fail to check the calendar for special feasts. Instead I go straight for the daily missal and read the regular readings for the day, only to open our emailed gospel reflection to learn that it’s the Feast of Such-and-such, with a special gospel reading.

That is what happened on Thursday morning, with the happy result that it caused me to focus on the call to urgency and action in our conversion.

Continue reading →

‘You Wicked Servant’

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Yesterday’s gospel reading was Matthew 18:21-35, in which Peter asks Jesus how often he must forgive his brother. “As many as seven times?” he says naively, thinking that would be plenty.

Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants…”

Thus begins the parable of the wicked servant, in which the Lord lays out in stark terms our duty to forgive.

You probably remember the story: The king calls to account a servant who owes him a huge amount of money. Since the servant has no way of repaying it, the king plans to sell him, his family, and all his belongings.  But the servant begs for mercy, promising to repay the debt in time. And the king relents—not only does he decide not to sell the servant and all he has, but he forgives the loan altogether in response to the servant’s humble plea.

The first servant then seeks out another servant who owes him money and seizes and chokes him, demanding immediate repayment. The wrath of his master is immediate and severe: The first servant is handed over to the torturers until he repays his entire debt to the king.

Consider for a moment the fact that we’ve already been told the servant had no way of paying back the money. How, then, will he ever escape the torturers?

Continue reading →