“THE VERY CORE OF CHRISTIANITY IS EXPRESSED IN THE HEART OF JESUS”
BY POPE BENEDICT XVI
“The Lord has drawn us to his heart – Suscepit nos Dominus in sinum et cor suum.” God’s heart, as the expression of his will, is spoken of twenty-six times in the Old Testament. Before God’s heart men and women stand judged… Even so, he never abandons Israel to the power of its enemies, because “my heart” – the Creator of the universe observes – “recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender”.
The heart of God burns with compassion! …[With] the Sacred Heart of Jesus the Church presents us this mystery for our contemplation: the mystery of the heart of a God who feels compassion and who bestows all his love upon humanity. A mysterious love, which in the texts of the New Testament is revealed to us as God’s boundless and passionate love for mankind.
God does not lose heart in the face of ingratitude or rejection by the people he has chosen; rather, with infinite mercy he sends his only-begotten Son into the world to take upon himself the fate of a shattered love, so that by defeating the power of evil and death he could restore to human beings enslaved by sin their dignity as sons and daughters. But this took place at great cost – the only-begotten Son of the Father was sacrificed on the cross… Together let us pause to contemplate the pierced heart of the Crucified One… The very core of Christianity is expressed in the heart of Jesus; in Christ the revolutionary “newness” of the Gospel is completely revealed and given to us: the Lord that saves us and even now makes us live in the eternity of God. As the Evangelist John writes: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16). God’s heart calls to our hearts, inviting us to come out of ourselves, to forsake our human certainties, to trust in him and, by following his example, to make ourselves a gift of unbounded love.
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