Happy feast day!
Fr. Tom Cassidy, provincial superior of the U.S. Province of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, writes the following in anticipation of Feast of the Sacred Heart on Friday, June 15:
On Friday, June 15, the Church will celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart. This feast follows on the heels of last Sunday’s celebration of Corpus Christi. Both feasts hold a special place in the minds and hearts of SCJs. Fr. Dehon, our founder, had a great devotion to the Eucharist and he transmitted that love in the charism he gave to us and to the Church. As I have remarked on several occasions, as rector I often told the students at Sacred Heart School of Theology that because of our role in the school we should demand of them a great and abiding love of the Eucharist. I trust each one of us strives to witness that Eucharistic love not only by what we say, but more importantly, by what we do.
Each year on the Feast of the Sacred Heart our Province Development Office invites benefactors in the area to a special Mass at Sacred Heart Monastery/School of Theology. This year Fr. Dominic Peluse completes his first year as spiritual director at the office and will preside and preach. The day is a small way for us to say thank-you to our local benefactors, and by extension, to the thousands around the country who support us by their time, talent and treasure.
We must never take our benefactors for granted. They literally make all that we do possible. I have always been proud of our province’s ability to accept a work or ministry not based on how much financial support we will derive from it, but rather, on the need we are meeting in keeping with the spirit of our SCJ charism. That is made possible because of the generosity of so many. We should never forget that the vast majority of our benefactors are average folks who struggle to make ends meet.
Of course it isn’t all a one-way street. Daily in many of our houses our benefactors are remembered in prayer. The materials we send to our donors speak not only of our needs but of God’s love for them. I was reminded of that by what Mark D. Kerby, O. Cist., wrote when he said:
“When we speak of a theology of the Sacred Heart, we mean this first of all: not our discourse about love, but the love of God revealed first to us, the poem of love that issues forth from the Heart of God. This is exactly what St John, whom the Eastern tradition calls, ‘The Theologian,’ says in his First Letter: ‘In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins’” (I Jn 4:10).
Indeed it’s not the word “love” that is operative here but God’s love for us. What a beautiful way to explain the Sacred Heart as “the poem of love that issues forth from the Heart of God.” We SCJs truly have a beautiful charism that can be shared with men and women everywhere.
I will be spending the Feast of the Sacred Heart with our retired SCJs at our Pinellas Park Community. I trust that wherever you may be celebrating our patronal feast that you will take the opportunity to thank the Sacred Heart for the many blessings we have received.
Let me close with this thought from Kelly Kontney; it comes from her essay that appeared on our website. Kelly won the eighth grade essay at St. Martin of Tours in 2010 on Fr. Dehon:
“I think Father Dehon’s effect on my life has become clear to me in the last couple of months. He has given me a place where I can feel safe and loved. If it was not for the Priests of the Sacred Heart, I do not know how my personality would have turned out. I like the person I have become and I would not change the past if I had the chance. I learned my Catholic values and social teachings here at St. Martin of Tours. If I was at a public school, that would not have happened. My teachers put what I learned from my parents, about my faith, in place. This has helped me become a better person inside and out.”
Happy Feast Day!
Fr. Tom Cassidy, SCJ
Further reading:
An interview with the General Council regarding its letter for Feast of the Sacred Heart is available on the general website. Click here to read it or paste the following in your web browser:
Click here to read the General Council’s feast-day letter to SCJs for 2012 or paste the following in you browser:
Click here to read the council’s feast-day letter to the Dehonian Family for 2012.
Click here to download a prayer service for Feast of the Sacred Heart.
