Servants of Charity

Dear Confreres, 

During this time of Covid 19, we are all heavily laden, and in great need of rest for our souls. The specter of sickness and death wears us down, as does the devastating effects of pandemic restrictions. These restraints grow evermore burdensome in response to the spread of the virus. Many people are desperately sick and hospitalized, and those who serve them grow weary with the responsibilities. Others have had their livelihoods destroyed. The toll of human misery grows greater as the virus continues to spread. We are meant to live in community with one another, and this unnatural and seemingly unending isolation and social distancing can be unbearable. At this time spiritual strength is needed most, but access to the sacraments and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is curtailed. These restrictions cannot endure forever. During this grief, we also see extraordinary examples of love and sacrifice, and selfless service to those who are afflicted.
In the face of our trials, we need to listen even more intently to Our Lord: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heat, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mt 11, 28-29)
There never was a golden age and we, like each generation of Christians, must serve where God has placed us.
Although battered by the wind and the waves, often afraid, we must be ready to encounter Jesus walking on the stormy waters, saying to us: "Be not afraid." (Jn 6,20) Especially in these tempestuous times we have a mission, received in Baptism and Confirmation, to move outward with compassionate love, in the imitation of Christ, to share His healing love.
To be able to do that, however, we need first to go deeper in our own life of faith, through prayer, through meditation on sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels, and through the sacraments. As the prophet Isaiah says: "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." (Is 12,3) I firmly believe that to give us the guidance and strength required to fulfill our mission as disciples of Jesus more effectively, in a world so much in need of His love, we also need to rediscover a treasure, central to our life in Christ that is hidden in plain sight in our Catholic spiritual heritage. It seems ever clearer to me, especially in these days, we would all do well to focus intently on the significance of the sign of the sacrificial and compassionate love of Christ: the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
We should make devotion to the Sacred Heart a vital part of our life of faith as our holy founder St. Louis Guanella did.
We are not angels. We are flesh and blood, rational creatures. We think, imagine, and communicate, in this incarnate world, through material signs which point beyond themselves. We require visible signs and symbols that speak to us in our humanity. That is what the image of the Sacred Heart does. It is a visual sign, an image that helps us to experience the meaning of the love of Jesus, made manifest especially on Good Friday.
Even in our secular society, the heart is the common symbol for love, as we see every Valentine's Day. But for a Christian the love signified by the Sacred Heart is not a passing emotion, but the steady, reliable, faithful, life-giving love which we experience in Jesus as we encounter Him in the Gospels, in the Sacraments, and in our life of faith. We are called to imitate that faithful love.
The heart is a natural sign of true love: it is hidden, it is steady, and it is reliable. As it beats, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, it keeps us alive. That is true love, not the sentiment that deceives, nor the passing infatuation that blows away like a cloud. That is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, steady and true, and that is what we must take to heart. Our life of Christian discipleship must be guided by the profound vision of love represented by the Sacred Heart.
The Sacred Heart image depicts the heart as wounded, and this reminds us of a scriptural foundation of the devotion, the reference in (Jn 19,34) to the lance piercing the side of Christ on the cross. This verse prompted the Christian practice of meditation upon the wounds of Christ, especially the wound to the heart, from which, the Gospel states, flowed blood and water.
We encounter Christ through His wounds. Doubting Thomas (Jn 20,24-29) said that he would not believe unless he put his hands into the wounds of Christ. In the Apocalypse, we see the image of the Risen Lord as the Lamb before the throne of God in glory, and yet slain (Rev 5,6). All of this reminds us that the love of Jesus for us was not some theoretical love. He suffered with us and for us, with brutality and injustice greater than anything you or I will ever experience. That love is not superficial, but involves the readiness to enter into suffering, to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Such is the love expected of a disciple of Christ. It also reminds us that whenever people are mocked, marginalized or rejected in any way, the disciple of Jesus must be with them to care for them with the compassion of Christ. Christians in fact have been doing that, for two thousand years, and do so to this day, around the world and, unrecognized, in our own communities.
It is sometimes thought that devotion to the Sacred Heart can be rather individualistic - nothing but a personal relationship between me and Jesus. But that is the opposite of the spirituality of the Sacred Heart. We see, in Jesus, a love for his heavenly Father that moves outward in this world to the love of neighbor. Jesus draws on the Old Testament to remind us of the two great commandments of love: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with your entire mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt 22,37-39) On the cross itself, the compassionate love of the heart of Jesus reaches out to console the criminal crucified with Him. (Lk 23,39-43) It is not a love that is restricted to some safe place of religious piety: the love of the heart of Jesus encompassed the most marginalized in society, symbolized by the lepers He healed. It is a practical love represented by the shrewd practicality of the Good Samaritan, who knew what to do to really help the man lying wounded at the side of the road. (Lk 10,33-35)
The Sacred Heart reaches outward in practical love. But is this not charity, instead of justice? It certainly is a call to practical love in the service of others, but flowing from that is awareness of the need to work to change the social structures that lead to suffering. Christian social justice needs a foundation in the spiritual wisdom of the Sacred Heart devotion, for a shadow side of the passion for justice can be an abstract and generalized concern for justice for humanity, forgetting the individual. The Sacred Heart devotion is a corrective to that: we are called to serve the cause of justice for all by recognizing the dignity of each individual, each person loved as Jesus loves, fully, warmly, and one at a time.
Heart speaks to heart (Cor Ad cor Loquitur) is a famous phrase from the letter of St. Francis de Sales.
St. Guanella recognized the heart beat and heard the language of the Divine heart with his human heart. In line with this devotion to the Sacred Heart, St. Guanella 's spirituality was also very Christo-centric on the person of Christ in His Sacred Heart. It was in the Heart of Jesus that St. Guanella saw the "burning furnace of charity" which enlivened and inspired every action in service to the poor and marginalized of society. Out of his love for the Sacred Heart, he named his religious order for men “The Sons of the Sacred Heart,” but later he changed it in 1904 not to be confused with other men's religious congregations.
It is clear that the Sacred Heart was the inspiration for all of his charitable activities. His biographer, Fr. Leonardo Mazzucchi in "The Life, the Spirit and the Works of Father Louis Guanella" wrote: "He had a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus at a time when very few people practiced it." St. Guanella wrote an inspiring prayer book entitled “In the Month of Fervor: thirty maxims developed on the Sacred Heart of Jesus for Christian souls.” It should be no surprise that the first church he built was dedicated to the Sacred Heart.
Fr. Louis D'Antuono said the following about Fr. Guanella: "This church and the statue of the Sacred Heart in it ... With that he wished to show that they (i.e. the orphans, aged, differently abled persons and the needy women in the house) must not seek comfort except in this divine and compassionate Heart. Those poor residents are sick and afflicted, more in heart than in body. Since the heart resents the strokes of bad fortune, it is the heart that gives them the greatest torment. So, there was a need of a heart to cure them and give them the lost peace. Very well then, Fr. Guanella, knowing that, sought this heart and found it in the Heart of Jesus." So, the Church was consecrated to the Divine Heart. The love of the Heart of Jesus led him to especially love those who were most abandoned such as the poor, the elderly and the differently abled. His spirituality, prayer and devotion to the Sacred Heart were led to service.
The Sacred Heart statues with outstretched hands challenge us to care for those most in need. Intellect and action without relational love are fruitless and can be destructive, but in devotion to the Sacred Heart intellect, affectivity, and will are harmoniously joined: head, heart, and hands. The Sacred Heart symbolizes the personal love of Jesus for each of us, and we respond with an intense personal love for Jesus, and a commitment to show to others by our actions the love Jesus shows to us. The famous story of such a statue of the Sacred Heart, with hands blown off during battles in World War I France, speaks of this. When, after the war, the parishioners wanted to get a sculptor to repair the hands, a wiser person said: "No, leave it as it is, but put a sign on the statue saying, ‘You are His hands’." And so we are expected to extend the practical love of Jesus to others, to be His Head, Heart and Hands.
As we are mourning the sudden loss of our beloved Fr. John Bosco, let us feel grateful to him for all his hard work in the foundations of our Guanellian presence in India. Let us pray for the repose of his soul that he will intercede for us and obtain the necessary graces.
In the name of the whole province, I express our condolences and prayers to our beloved confreres Rev. Fr. Kuriakose, Rev. Fr. Jose Rambabu, Rev. Fr.C. Jesudoss on the sudden demise of their beloved ones. Let us accompany them with our prayers and solidarity. We continue to sustain other confreres and their beloved ones who are under treatment with our prayers and closeness.
I congratulate our confreres who renewed their religious consecration and brothers who have begun their novitiate. I am so grateful to Mrs. Kelly who had been designing the Provincial Newsletter ‘News and Views’ for the past many years and now it will be done in India by the confreres in charge of Communication Desk. I thank Fr. Antony Samy for his tireless work in the Communication ministry and whole heartedly welcome Fr. Francis Xavier and Deacon Arun Kumar to this delicate ministry.
I take this moment to thank all confreres who have fulfilled your specific roles in various missions for your hard work and dedication in showing witness of religious life and the spread of charity. I welcome and extend my regards to all those who are about to take up new ministries in the new scholastic year. I request the Superiors and the confreres to make possible this feasible transfer of roles and administration of the communities and missions.
May the Mother Mary intercede for us and protect us from all dangers.
 

Fr. Ronald J, SdC

Provincial Superior