Today is the Feast of St. Gertrude, a 13th century Benedictine nun – a disciple of St. Mechtilde in a line of German mystics whose influence on the church is probably greater than you may first think. If you’ve not heard of St. Gertrude, it’s not all that surprising.  We are much more familiar with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, but these two saints are in a similar stream.  It was, in fact, St. Gertrude who first really promoted and publicized devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Therefore, St. Gertrude is one of our friends here at Sacred Heart Church, because the Lord gave her insight into His love for us, and the costliness of His love. She is perhaps best known for her observation that reclining on the Lord’s chest at the Last Supper, the Apostle John must have been able to hear the Lord’s heart beating.

Mystically, St. Gertrude inquired of the Apostle as to why did he not tell us about the Lord’s Sacred Heart. And in this mystical experience, the Apostle John explained to her that he did not reveal the Lord’s Sacred Heart, because this mystery, this knowledge was too precious, and it would be revealed at the right time when the church needed the consolation of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

This Heart of His, this devotion is not about romantic love. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a heart which is wounded, broken indeed. “The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart you will not despise.”  (Psalm 51:17)  All of the Psalms speak of the Lord. They are Messianic in origin and Messianic in character. Therefore, the Psalms speak with the Lord’s particular accent.

When we meditate on His Sacred Heart, we often think of plaster statues, the Lord frozen in time. His Sacred Heart appears to us as monolithic – stony, solid, unbroken.   How many of us have considered the living, pulsating, beating of His Heart?  St. Gertrude’s mystical experiences and promptings transform our rather static devotion into one which is alive and active. Our Lord’s Sacred Heart is all warmth. It is a furnace of charity, burning with love for us – a love that could not be contained, but a love that would be released at the prompting of the weapon of a great sinner of pagan Rome. Pagan Roman opens the side of Christ. Pagan Rome pierces the Sacred Heart. And that heart, still beating, pours out blood and water in love for you and me, the wellspring of the sacraments.

The Lord’s love is all consuming. In his divinity, the Lord’s love overwhelms that human love that he has for us. What is our response to this all-consuming love He has for us?  How do we respond to that reverberation of His Sacred Heart?  How fervent or how poor is our own response to so great a love? Often, we do not pulsate with love for Christ. Perhaps we might have a limp nudge, but nothing more. We have so much to learn from the mystics who see things as they really are, who see how crucial, how important it is to recognize that the costliness of Christ’s love is met as well with his desire for us to be holy like him. He knows full well that the only way that we might abide with him into eternity is if we are made holy. Sinners we are, sinners as we are, we cannot abide in his presence. His desire then so fervent, so zealous, is for us to be transformed from within with the outpouring from his life blood into our own bodies by means of the sacraments.  Be transformed, and allow Him to love you and love Him in return, with a broken and contrite heart, a burning furnace of charity.