The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1919. NATIONAL CONSECRATION TO THE S. HEART

New Zealand Tablet, 26 June 1919, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1919. NATIONAL CONSECRATION TO THE S. HEART

Willy HI significance of the Feast of Corpus ; Christi, r|usitt which has we recalled by for another year. significance of the Feast of Corpus Christi, which has again gone by for another year. . It is now our duty to invite attention to the important Pastoral Letter of the Hierarchy of Australasia which exhorts all good Catholics to renew the consecration of their homes to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. • In another page of the Tablet 'we publish the eloquent Pastoral, which presents' in a masterly and profoundly theological manner "the urgent and tender claims of the devotion so' especially suited in our day to knit close to Christ 1 His' faithful children and to make to Him atonement for the, coldness and the neglect with which His marvellous love is repaid by sinners. The Pastoral will be read solemnly r in all our churches on next ' Sunday. ' Our readers will do well to re-read it for themselves and to meditate quietly and devoutly on the burning words which tell us of Our t :...■!>-, '>■ _~rc_'.u.J-,« ■ e: — „„ lij „* t.t:_ '~v .1 11.:.. i. J-iOIU. s arucvtiun iui Lia cum ui j.xia iiuugtsi" niii'sii

for our love ' in return. - We ; have come' to an epoch in which the world is full of talk about the reconstruction .of society and the renewal of 'social and national conditions. ; We have our; own good 5 reasons to mistrust many' of those who are loudest "in their rhetoric and to doubt their sincerity. We have watched the progress of their councils and we have discovered no sign that any zeal for eternal Truth arid Justice inspires them. People to whom religion and the honor of God 1 are dear sadly recognise that there is every indication that the labor of the builders will be all in vain for the reason that they shut God and His Law out of their deliberations. In all this we find a powerful motive for welcoming the direction of our Hierarchy, which will lead us at least to begin the new era with a grand religious profession of faith and love in and for Him Who alone can give to the warring world perfect peace.

Sitio —l thirst! The last words of Christ on the Cross testify for all time His love for mankind. His bodily thirst was but a symbol of that divine thirst for our love which never ceases. As He gave us the Blessed Eucharist in order that His Body and Blood might be. the food of our souls as long as we are in this world, so too He gives us His Heart, aflame with love for us, in order that it may be the object of our affection and devotion, and the sacred fire that is to maintain among men the warmth of Christian charity. He offers His Heart to us all—to individuals and to families. It was wounded visibly by the spear of the Roman soldier, but no less real is the invisible wound which love has made in it. As the human heart is the centre of the affections and the very throne of life so the wounded, bleeding Heart of Christ is the symbol of all the mysteries which reveal the love of God for mankind. The Church recognises in this beautiful devotion an antidote for the peculiar evils of. the age in which we live. The heresies of the past are waning and errors and aberrations are changing to denials and blasphemies. Religion is becoming more and more identified with true Christianity and men are becoming divided into two great classes Christians and atheists. The Love of Christ is the remedy for the coldness and the ingratitude of men who forget God in their pursuit of power, wealth, or pleasure the devotion of the Sacred Heart is the form of atonement and consolation which our outraged Saviour desires from his faithful children. In this devotion the individual will find consolation and sanctification families will find it the source of those blessings and graces which they need now more perhaps than at any other period of the world’s history. As the Sacred Heart will win to Christ the individual heart and save it from sin and danger, so it will bless the hearths and homes in which it is honored and will be a bond of love and union which will safeguard and protect parents and children in the shelter of Christian homes, which the world needs so badly nowadays, which are the last bulwarks and defences of nations.

Beyond the seas the men who have made so many fair promises are building on quicksands, and it is doubtful if any intelligent people entertain even remote hopes of their success. Let us forget them for the moment in order to think of ourselves and for ourselves. Let us make sure that we lay deep and true the foundation of ,our own lives as Christians for the years that are still to come or one and all of us. Let us .descend : into the depths of our , own hearts and realise how much we need the love and grace of the Sacred Heart, to renew us arid to quicken us unto true life, and whether we are sinners of many years or of few — sinners we all —let us remember that it was to ... save sinners He .came, and that in the love of His Heart is the sure source of that fountain of His Precious Blood that will wash 1 away our sins. If we are guilty of great offences, He came to save that which was Tost; if we ; are merely tepid and worldly-minded, - -3- * C 4 is ■ w J r\4---Kri4-itrrtftv* --/T A J r> »-* H AwonliiitAn <■ ttiur TX" GUI ID UITIUX7U VT3UTTWII 'VVA.I t*uvi • vx vut uxujjj

His Heart is the ; fire that will inflame us if we suffer, if we are despondent, if life has lost' its sunshine arid its warmth, He suffered too, He was neglected and left alone to die, 1 and He will ' understand when nobody else could,' and He will be to : us, in full measure and flowing over, the consolation; for all we have lost in life and the Friend in Whom all friends are - found and gathered up for ever. Christ loved us and gave Himself for us: let us give Yourselves to Him. '' Let His love inspire us to love Him in return, to love our brethren as Christians should, to love His Church more than anything else in the world—for it is His* mystical body,—to promote through the Church His honor and glory and the salvation of our own souls and of the souls of others. Thus, inspired by the love of the Sacred Heart let us go forward to the real work of regeneration of society, with the blessing of Our Lord and Saviour on us and on all who are dear to us.