The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday, June 19, 2020

Matthew 11:25–30

At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

The solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was established for the world in 1856 by Pope Pius IX after it had earlier been established for the region of France.  Devotion to the wonderful love and mercy of Jesus Christ for us began to coalesce around devotion to his Heart in the Middle Ages.  At that time, it was believed that the heart was the seat of the mind, that is, the intellect and the will.  The devotion to the Lord’s “Heart”, then, is not to the physical organ but rather to this merciful love, which the Lord exposed in all his works and deeds for us, and which was dramatically exposed on the Cross, where his side was pierced by a lance.  We recall his words at the Last Supper: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15, 13).  In the 17th century, the Visitation nun St. Margaret Mary received visions of the Lord in which he told her of the love of his Sacred Heart and encouraged devotion to it.  About a hundred years after the established of the Feast, Pope Pius XII wrote a magnificent tribute to it in his encyclical, Haureatis Aquas, named from Isaiah 12, 3: “You will draw water joyfully from the springs of the Savior” (according to the Vulgate, from the Septuagint).    

In the reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel, we hear the Lord pray to his Father, “You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones.”  “These things” are the teachings of the Gospel.  The “wise and the learned”: St. Thomas Aquinas memorably comments that the Lord did not choose for his Apostles Plato and Aristotle, but rather Peter and Andrew.  “To little ones”: the Greek has the word νηπίοις, that is, neh-pí-ois, which has the primary meaning of “infants”.  When applied to adults, it means something like “simpletons”, or “the weak-minded”, or merely, “the uneducated”.  It is not a word a person would like to be described with.  Jesus uses this word in order to emphasize the absolutely free nature of the gift the Father has given these Apostles, and to us as well.  We recall St. Paul’s words, “For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But the foolish things of the world had God chosen, that he may confound the wise” (1 Corinthians 26-27).

“You who are weary and burdened”: Jesus is speaking these words to his Apostles after they have returned from preaching in the towns and preparing the way for his own visit to them.  The Lord is here consoling his faithful ones who strive for his honor and glory, and for the salvation of souls.  “Take my yoke upon you . . . and you will find rest for yourselves.”  These words seem to present a contradiction.  A “yoke” implied pulling a plow.  How would this allow for rest?  Jesus here shows the contrast between his Law and all other laws.  The law of Jesus is love, and the “rest” is on his breast (cf. the Beloved Disciple reclining on the breast of Jesus in John 13, 23).  Further, this rest which the faithful will find is eternal, in heaven.  “For I am meek and humble of heart.”  The Greek πραύ̈ς, “prous”, is found again in Matthew 11, 29, which paraphrases Zechariah 9, 9: “Your King comes to you, gentle, and mounted on an ass,” and is applied to the Lord triumphantly entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  And, ταπεινὸς, “tap-eh-nós”, “meek” or “humble” of heart, approachable and compassionate, One upon whose breast a weary disciple may indeed recline.