Israel, however, would be tempted to consider circumcision sufficient to gain a share in the blessings of God. This led Jeremiah the prophet would go so far as to say that physical circumcision had no value in itself, what mattered was the circumcision of the heart. If the greatest command in the Law was to love God with your whole heart and to love your neighbor as yourselves, to circumcise the heart meant to remove all obstacles, all hardness, which kept one from the love which was to characterize God’s people.
St. Paul develops the teaching of the prophets in our first reading today, when he says, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” What makes one an heir to the kingdom of heaven, is not circumcision, but faith in Jesus Christ which strips the heart of all selfishness, which seeks to imitate Christ’s outpouring of love in his self-sacrifice to the Father. To be a Christian is to seek to make one’s heart like the heart of Christ.In 1677, Our Blessed Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun in France and revealed his Sacred Heart.
She said, “I could plainly see His heart, pierced and bleeding, yet there were flames, too, coming from it and a crown of thorns around it. He told me to behold His heart which so loved humanity.”
The Lord lamented to St. Margaret Mary that he found so few souls on earth who truly loved him. So many lukewarm hearts, so many slothful hearts, so many divided hearts, so many ungrateful hearts, so many hearts indifferent to his sacrifice, hearts that could not care less that the Son of God became man and suffered and died for them. The Lord particularly lamented the irreverence and coldness of his people for the Eucharist, the sacrament of his love.
“Behold this Heart,” the Lord said to Margaret Mary, “which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love. In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love....”
In order to circumcise our hearts, to strip our hearts of indifference, ingratitude, lukewarmness, and irreverence for the Eucharist, we do well to ponder and behold, like St. Margaret Mary, the Lord’s Sacred Heart, to contemplate his love for us and his suffering for us, to repent of our sins and to engage in the prayer and fasting and penances and works of charity that will enkindle the fire of love for God, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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In reparation to the Sacred Heart for all sin and blasphemy, ingratitude and indifference, we pray to the Lord.
For an increase in faith, hope, and love for all Christians, for a renewed reverence for the Holy Eucharist, we pray to the Lord.
That our children and young people may be kept safe from the poisonous errors of our culture, and that their families may be places where the faith is practiced and cherished.
For all those whose love for God has grown cold, who have fallen into moral laxity or despair of the mercy of God, for all souls in danger of hell, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts.
For all the needs of the sick and the suffering, the homebound, those in nursing homes and hospitals, the underemployed and unemployed, victims of natural disaster, war, and terrorism, for all those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today, for their comfort, and the consolation of their families.
For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, for the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, for the deceased clergy and religious of the diocese of Cleveland, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.
Holy Father, hear our prayers, and enkindle in our hearts the fire of your love, circumcise our hearts to make them evermore like the Sacred Heart of Your Son, who is our Lord forever and ever.
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