The message from our feast today - the feast of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque - is that the heart of Jesus is the source of rest, comfort, healing, strength and hope!
Margaret Mary became a member of the Visitation Order in 17th century France and had a great devotion to both the Blessed Sacrament and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In a way she was a precursor to St. Faustina of our own day. Jesus appeared to her several times and indicated that she was his choice to be the one to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart - to tell everyone of the promise of safe passage to heaven for any who make nine First Friday Devotions (including attendance at Mass and Prayer to the Sacred Heart); to establish the Feast of the Sacred Heart; and how special graces would come to those who spend an hour with Jesus in front of the Blessed Sacrament - the Holy Hour.
Our first reading today tells us what is truly important in all of this: knowledge of the person of Christ who dwells in our hearts through faith! Without this knowledge all the devotion in the world is useless. With the knowledge we can comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the mysteries of God and the love of God which surpasses all knowledge - and we can thus be filled with the fullness of God.
In the gospel passage Jesus tells us that such knowledge is for the pure and simple of heart - those who are like children. Jesus says that he is in charge of who gets to know these things - and he is very clear in telling us that he will not allow access to the mysteries or to his Father to those who are self-sufficient, self-absorbed, self-centered - but only to those who, in his opinion, are dependent on God, concerned with reaching out to others, interested only in making others happy - in other words, those who are like children!
When we do go to the Lord with our labor and our burdens and we give them to him - in humility, with trust - then he immediately shares the load with us and the burden becomes easy and light. It is not removed - but it is made bearable - even in a joyful sort of way!
The Lord is truly our shepherd, as we sang in the responsorial refrain. Those who exist fully in his loving embrace want for nothing, nothing at all - for they have everything, everything they need for the day!
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