Twenty-ninth Day. the Heart of Jesus the Source of Sanctity
This adorable Heart offers to us at once the motive, the example, and the grace of holiness. What could be more of an incentive to keep ourselves from sin, than the remembrance of Our Lord’s Sacred Heart, which was saddened by sin to such an excess as to cause His sacred body to sweat drops of blood? What more calculated to inspire us with zeal for our sanctification than the study of this Heart, which calls us to it with so much love, and by so many sacrifices? St. Bernardin of Sienna speaks of this divine Heart as a furnace of the most ardent love, capable of setting the whole world on fire. We find in the Heart of Jesus the grace of holiness, for as Blessed Margaret Mary says, “Nothing is better calculated to raise the soul in a very short time to the loftiest degree of holiness than devotion to this dear Heart.” She also says that those who labor for the salvation of souls will find in this devotion the gift of touching the hardest heart. It is because this divine Heart is the throne whereon mercy is seated, that invocations made to it are never in vain. It is the strong tower against which all temptations are powerless. It is the source of all benedictions. Oh, we should love with all our strength the amiable Heart of Jesus, no matter what it may cost us! We should sanctify ourselves at any cost, and to do this we should love and burn incessantly in the furnace of the pure love of God, which will purify and sanctify us at one and the same time. Let us, then, abandon ourselves into the hands of God, and we shall soon see that He will employ every means to make us perfect. He who loves perfectly makes no resistance. My Jesus, take unto Thee my heart; I give myself wholly to Thee. May I ever be scrupulously faithful and unflinchingly constant in loving Thee, this day and every day of my whole life.
Prayer.
O beloved One of my soul, would that I had always loved Thee! Alas, there was a time when I not only did not love Thee, but despised Thy grace and Thy love. I am consoled by the sorrow which I feel for it, and I hope for pardon through Thy promise to forgive him that repents of his sins. To Thee, O my Saviour, do I turn all my affections; help me, through the merits of Thy Passion, to love Thee with my whole strength. Amen.