Where there is union of heart with God there must be happiness, because the essential element of happiness is present there, no matter what may be the circumstances in which that life is cast.
We intend in this meditation to reflect on some of the sources of happiness, wherein we ourselves may share with the human Heart of God. In the beginning, when He had finished the work of creation, Holy Scripture tells us that "God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good." (Genesis 1:31) These words are suggestive of the Divine complacency in the beautiful work accomplished, and we recognize a reproduction of this sublime joy of the Creator in the appreciation with which the Heart of Jesus contemplated the works of Nature.
The perception of the beautiful is a Divine lineament which sin has never been able utterly to efface from the human soul, but which is more strikingly developed in proportion to that purity of heart which imparts discernment as to the source from whence all created beauty emanates: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God." Now what heart was ever comparable in purity and singleness to the human Heart of the Man-God.
Hence it is that Jesus, walking amidst the fair scenes of Nazareth, could appreciate with an intensity unknown to us, all the loveliness His eye beheld; just as years afterwards, when, fatigued with the labours of the day, He found refreshment on the shaded slopes of Olivet, and holy joy as His eye wandered over the blue waters of Genesereth, sparkling in the sunlight.
He rejoiced, we say, in these things because His Heart was full of all that was Divine, because He saw in them at once the expression of the Divine Beauty and the creation of the Divine hand; because His Heart was pure and single, and therefore as it sought but God, and desired but God, so it found Him everywhere. Lastly, He rejoiced in all creation, inasmuch as He saw in it the work of His own hand by reason of His unity of operation with the Father, resulting from the unity of the Divine Nature.
The example of our Lord, as far as He is imitable for us, was needed in this respect, for two reasons. First, in order to teach us how it is that the beautiful works of God may be for us means of raising our souls to God Himself, and of dilating our hearts with love of Him; and secondly, as a condemnation of that false spirituality which would make indifference to the beautiful in the works of God an evidence of advanced sanctity. Better inspired have been those numerous saints to whose pure hearts a lovely flower or some fair scene of earth has revealed the Eternal Beauty, for the full and unveiled possession of whom their pure and free souls were panting.
The love of the Father was that all-absorbing impulse in the Heart of Jesus, which in the heart of a simple creature would have taken the form of a passion. What other result could come from this than that every mark of the Father's handiwork should flood His Soul with joy? So it will be with us. In proportion to our purity of heart and our love of God, will be our capacity for a spiritual appreciation of the beautiful works which are but emanations from Himself.
If the Heart of our Divine Lord found such well-springs of happiness in the contemplation of those works in the natural order which were to His eye revelations, or rather the abiding presence of the Eternal beauty, wisdom, love, and other attributes, what shall be said of its complacency in those of the order of grace? We are about to meditate on the complacency of the Heart of Jesus as reflected in that of His ever Immaculate Mother.
As He regarded that Mother's face, He saw the beauty of the spotless soul reflected therein, and His Heart rejoiced in that masterpiece of spiritual loveliness, in the consideration of that singular privilege which elevated her so far above all other creatures. He rejoiced, moreover, in that other special prerogative of hers - her Divine Maternity. The memory of that word by which she had consented to become His Mother, and thus the sharer of His sorrows, and His helper in the work of man's redemption, made sweet melody to His Heart as He watched her moving reverently before Him in her lowly occupations. But, above all, He rejoiced in her sublime humility, by which, ascribing to God alone every grace she had received, and desiring to employ them but for His glory, she rendered that homage to His sovereignty of which so many of His creatures defraud Him. Jesus, then, in the House of Nazareth is our first great Exemplar of devotion to His ever Blessed Mother, and of the consolation which those possess who truly love her.
But He opens for us, in His Hidden Life, another source of consolation. He would teach us how to sanctify the strongest of human ties, and that nothing more purifies the soul than the tender, reverential love of a child for his mother. This is a tie surpassing every other in the order of nature in intimacy, in strength, in beautiful associations. Those who have grown hardened in sin have been reclaimed by vividly recalling to their world-worn minds some long-forgotten memory of the mother whose heart perhaps they had broken.
Jesus has sanctified for ever this filial tie, and whilst discovering to us, in His love for His own Blessed Mother, one of the sources of happiness to His Sacred Heart, He becomes our Model, not only of devotion to her, but also of the reverential love with which we should regard our human mother. In the evil days through which we pass, the beneficial effect of so hallowing an influence over the hearts, not only of the very young, but also of those on whom the world has put forth its noxious breath, would be incalculable.
There are, again, those who seem imbued with the false notion that piety is incompatible with human enjoyment, and hence, as we have shown before, that the enjoyment of human things is incompatible with sanctity. Our Lord has disabused us of this error, and by example taken from His Sacred Heart has taught, to those at least who know how to penetrate its depths, that its spirit is sweet, sanctifying what is human, and elevating it into being in part Divine.
- text taken from the 1906 edition of The Heart of Jesus of Nazareth - Meditations on the Hidden Life; it has the Imprimatur if Bishop John Baptist Butt, Diocese of Southwark, England, 5 February 1890