Looking from the Heart of Jesus

The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus gifts us with the opportunity of allowing ourselves to be touched, challenged and led by Jesus, since his Heart speaks to us of Him and His preferences.  By entering into His Heart and knowing it more intimately, we are enabled to deepen His way of looking at us and at our world, of committing Himself to our reality and from there inviting us to do the same.

Looking ….

To look is to focus our attention on something, in order to discover it, to make it our own, and, why not, to imitate it.  Our eyes are the windows by means of which we go out into the world: our gaze is our point of contact with life, the very life that bubbles up inside and outside of us, that inhabits all of creation.

To look at the world from the Heart of Christ is, therefore, an invitation to desire that our gaze be broadened, that it may allow itself to be imbued with His way of loving, of looking, of approaching humanity: that His preferences become ours.

And how does the Heart of Jesus look?

The Heart of Jesus looks with compassion and tenderness, and thus contemplates and welcomes all of human life.  Nothing is left out of His look: nothing of what is human is foreign to Him.  All of our deepest sorrows and greatest joys are received there.  This means that Jesus is moved by the pain of many people and also that He rejoices in, and makes His own, the happiness of many others.

The heart of Jesus has a wide, inclusive and welcoming look: we all fit in there, with no exclusions because of race, language, creed, sexual orientation, gender.  It is a look that welcomes us with all of our history, full of weaknesses and strengths, a history that has been wounded many times.

The Heart of Jesus has a merciful look, which welcomes our vulnerability, and is not scandalised.  He reconciles us with ourselves and with others, helping us to re-establish links and inviting us to be women and men who heal wounds.

The look of the Heart of Jesus is consumed by one single passion: the Kingdom and its fullness for all people. From there Jesus moves with one single intention, that of healing, liberating, incorporating, giving life and giving it to the full.  In this way He summons and sends us to announce the good news to all people.

The look of the Heart of Jesus does not fail to recognise reality, does not ignore injustice, pain or ambiguity: on the contrary, in recognising all of these, it impels us to have a broader vision, a vision based on faith, in order to overcome all these signs of death and to promote hope.

May this Feast of the Sacred Heart help us to enter more deeply into this way of being that Jesus has, and which helps us to refresh our way of looking at the world, and to contemplate the men and women who dwell there: let us make ours this look of Jesus in order to go beyond appearances so that we may be surprised by all that there is that is noble and praiseworthy in the hearts of people.  Only this look will enable us to recognise the greatness of the love of God that is present in the world and will lead us to live in a new and renewed way.

                        
M. Eugenia Valdés O.  rscj
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