"What is that, mother?" a little boy asked, as he looked upon the sea for the first time."What is that, mother?" a little boy asked, as he looked upon the sea for the first time.
"The sea, my boy."
"And who stirred it up?"
"God."
The great waves broke upon the beach and tossed their snow-white foam over the child's feet, and then, as if taking a long breath, drew themselves back over the beach with a roaring sound. The wide, wide expanse, the never-ending motion awed the child. He watched the rhythmical coming and going, and stretched out his hands and felt the spray on his palms. So wide, so deep, so restless, who could compass it, who could control it? God, only God.
The sea is an allegory of the human heart, with its depths and its strength, its restlessness and its impetuosity, its passion, its calm. It is an abyss and our hearts are abysses, and they call for another to satisfy them. "Abyss calleth upon abyss." And where are they to find one that will answer to theirs, fill them, control them, tame and subject them? There is only one greater, one wider, one stronger than their own, one with a more ardent, steadier love - the Heart of the Man-God, the Heart of Jesus Christ.
Who shall speak of the Heart of Jesus? We are surprised at the depth of men's hearts. A sorrow, a sudden call reveals a passionate love, a grand self-devotion never dreamed of by their dearest friends. The heroic deeds of past and present days show what is in man. What, then, must there be in Jesus, the God-man! "No man hath seen God at any time; but the only-begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father hath declared Him." "In Jesus dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead corporally." (Colossians 2:9) Is there not food for meditation here? Man is a mystery in himself, but when the human is hypostatically united to the divine who can fathom it! We should be startled away, and should stand off did we not know that the heart is the symbol of love and that love makes all things equal, interprets all mysteries. A wonderful thing every way is love; even debased it is strong; when pure it is almighty, infinite in its power. See it working among children, amongst the poor, amongst the hardened. It tames, overcomes, attracts, sweetens, attaches, distills the good, puts the bad to shame. It trebles the power of work and sharpens the faculties. A great good every way is love. If human love works so, what will the divine? And our Lord's love is not only human, but also' divine, infinite therefore. It is the abyss we are longing for, for which our hearts were made.
On earth only the Saints who seek our Lord's Heart know what rest and true happiness mean. All our hearts seek and find, and lose in the finding. But the Saints seek and find and rejoice. Their love brings no loss to them in this world or the next. The Heart of Jesus is their pledge for earthly and Heavenly happiness. When sickening fear and doubt come over the soul as to our future in the next life, we look to the Heart of Jesus, He will not cast aside the contrite and the humble. When that strange dread, that everlasting joy will pall, we look to the Heart of Jesus, and smile to think we could distrust Its depths. "I know Him whom I have trusted, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day" (2 Timothy 1:12). "That which I have committed" is my soul, my all.
How is it, then, that so few have found out the treasure of our Lord's love? It is there for all; why have so few availed themselves of it? The Heart of Jesus has Its secrets: It only attracts certain people - the humble, the childlike, the contrite, the loving. These soon become initiated in the ways of the Sacred Heart. For Its ways are difficult only to the proud, the worldly, the hard. Little children are often good learners; the poor, the very best of scholars. At this science they shame the clever, the geniuses of the world. They learn without words, without explanation, by intuition as it were.
Are we going to learn the secrets of the Sacred Heart, or are we going to join the clever* of this world, and use our brains on matter and leave the spirit for God's dull ones? Or shall we make ourselves children, poor in spirit, and humbly ask to be taught our Lord's secrets? We will come as little ones to Him and ask Him to teach us the way to His Heart. Once there, all things will go well. It is so easy to learn from those we love - we grow like them by the mere living and loving. Let us this month get close to this burning Heart, and we shall grow in the humility He loves so much, and in the charity that will make us all things to all men.
- taken from Light from the Altar, edited by Father James J McGovern, 1906