My dear parishioners,
Peace! The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions the Heart of Jesus variously. “Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since His Passover. The phrase ‘heart of Christ’ can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known His heart, closed before the Passion, as the Scripture was obscure” (CCC, 112; cf. Luke 24:25-27, 44-46; Psalm 22:14). how in view of the incarnation He loves with a human heart, and “the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation ‘is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that … love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings’ without exception” (cf. CCC, 470, 478; John 19:34; Pius XII Encyclical Haurietis aquas). One form of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Here we consider the twenty-seventh of the thirty-three invocations: Heart of Jesus, our life and our resurrection.
The imagery of the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is rich. How is the Sacred Heart of Jesus our life, our resurrection? Sacred Scripture clearly teaches us that the Lord Jesus is the “resurrection and the life” (John 11:25) and “the way the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Even before these verses of Sacred Scripture were consigned to writing by the inspired evangelist Saint John, they were true. The Hebrew words lif, hayyim, nepheesh, ruh, hayah and the Greek words zoe, psuche, bios, and pneuma are all translated variously as “life.” The Lord Jesus, who rose early on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:9), was already the origin of life, together with the Father and the Spirit.
That there are different sorts of life has been known for millennia. Even the pagan Aristotle (+322 BC) knew of the various forms of life: vegetative (plants), sensitive (animals), and rational (human) (De Anima II, 3). None of this requires grace, faith, or revelation. That we have been given grace, faith, and revelation helps us to appreciate all the more the various forms of life and the life-giver who is God. By grace, faith and revelation we know that we come from God and are to return to Him. To know of the resurrection, however, requires grace and faith and revelation. That the Lord rose at Easter is part of divine revelation and is a central mystery of our faith which we are able to acknowledge through God’s grace. That we will also rise on the last day is likewise a matter of both faith and revelation. Saint Thomas Aquinas, OP (+1274), picking up where Aristotle left off, addresses the specific powers of the soul in Summa Theologiae I Q. 78. While physically people die, the spiritual rational soul continues in existence even after bodily death, awaiting the resurrection, as revealed by the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr