A reflection by Sr Lynne fcJ from FCJ Centre St Hugh’s, in Liverpool, first appeared in the FCJ Sisters Blog
Yesterday was the Feast of St Margaret Mary Alacoque – Margaret Mary, in an early spiritual experience, felt Jesus was inviting her to take the place of St John at the Last Supper. Let’s just think of that as an image. St John is the ‘Beloved Disciple’ and in the Gospel account of the last supper we hear that he is ‘lying back on Jesus’ chest’.
Margaret Mary felt that she was being called into that sort of place of love and closeness with the Lord – that each person is called to that place – called to rest our head on the heart of Jesus. At the time when we have our most stressful, worrying questions (like St john at the Last Supper) we are invited to lean into Jesus and to feel and hear his love.
The image of the Sacred Heart still speaks powerfully today – the Heart of Jesus is a wounded heart, it is full of compassion and love for the weakest, most fragile in our Society. It is here, with the weakest that we are invited to place ourselves and witness to the loving heart of God.
We all experience times of difficulty, weakness, and uncertainty, and we are invited to lean into the love of God at these times.
In a recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis reminds that we are all connected as brothers and sisters – where even one person suffers, we all suffer. If we are to be signs of Christ’s loving heart “the smallest, the weakest, the poorest should touch our hearts: indeed, they have a ‘right’ to appeal to our heart and soul. They are our brothers and sisters, and as such we must love and care for them”
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Photo of heart by Roman Kraft on Unsplash
