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 sixth of the thirty-three invocations: Heart of Jesus, Tabernacle of the Most High.
To call the Sacred Heart of Jesus the Tabernacle of the Most High is to acknowledge that together with the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ who is a true man is also truly God.
In the Catholic Church we safeguard the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar in the tabernacle. The Holy Eucharist is the sacrament of the Lord’s presence among us, body, blood, soul and divinity. When we visit our Lord, bodily present in Eucharist, hidden in the tabernacle, we visit His Sacred Heart no less. A pious form of speaking, used by Saint Therese of Lisieux (+1897), Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska (+1938), and Saint John XXIII (+1963) refers to the Lord’s Eucharistic presence as “the Prisoner of the Tabernacle” whom we can visit to console and be consoled.
In the Old Testament the word “tabernacle” refers to the “tent of meeting” (mishkan in Hebrew) and the “dwelling” (skene in Greek). To see the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this light, as “tent of meeting,” is to say that we meet God in the Sacred Heart, we dwell with God when we dwell with the Sacred Heart. The Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles is both a general harvest festival and the anniversary of the beginnings of the wanderings in the wilderness (cf. Exodus 23:16; Leviticus 23:33; Deuteronomy 16:13-15). Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Harvest (cf. Matthew 9:38; 20:1; Luke 10:2) and we want to be gathered in to His heavenly granaries through His Sacred Heart on the Day of Judgment. To stay close to His Sacred Heart is to love what He loves. Should we lose our bearings along the way, the Sacred Heart of Jesus calls out to us, calling us to draw near (cf. Matthew 11:28). Even as we wander through this valley of tears, we are never lost or alone as long as we stay with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr