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 seventh of the thirty-three invocations: Heart of Jesus, House of God and Gate of Heaven.
The seventh invocation of the Litany raises two images, the house of God and the gate of Heaven.
To call the Sacred Heart of Jesus the house of God is not unlike calling the Sacred Heart the Sacred Temple of God and Tabernacle of the Most High, yet it is different. The earlier invocations are more linked to worship and adoration as sacred worship occurs most properly in the temple and the Lord is adored in His tabernacle. To identify the Sacred Heart as God’s house is to acknowledge the dwelling place of the Lord. In this invocation we recognize God dwells in the Sacred Heart because this particular Heart is the very Heart of God, wherein God dwells. When we rest in the Sacred Heart of Jesus we dwell with the Lord in His house. The Hebrew word bayith translates variously as hall, residence, temple, treasury, but most often as house/houses. The Greek word oikos while primarily translates as house/home, also includes descendants, families, family.
To call the Sacred Heart of Jesus the gate of Heaven is to recall the patriarch Jacob and his vision of the ladder upon which the angels of God ascended and descended (cf. Genesis 28:10-22) to which the Lord Jesus alluded (cf. John 1:51). The Lord Jesus in His discourse on “the Good Shepherd” calls Himself “the gate for the sheep” which keeps out thieves and robbers who refuse to listen to Him (cf. John 10:7-9). Saint Thomas Aquinas, OP (+1274), when considering the gate of Heaven cites Hebrews 10:19 reminding us that ‘we have confidence in entering into the heavenly places through the blood of Christ” (cf. Summa Theologiae III Q. 49, A. 5). The Latin hymn Ave Regina Caelorum praises Our Lady as the gate, in that the Lord Jesus came to us through her, His Sacred Heart beating beneath her Immaculate Heart for those first blest nine months.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr