by Ottavio De Bertolis
We all know the Litany of the Sacred Heart: approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1899, they are a simple and profound way of invoking the Heart of Jesus, contemplated under various aspects and in different figures. With today, we begin to offer our readers some reflections on the individual litanies, so that they can more easily feel and enjoy the depth of the Scriptures contained therein and in some way concentrated. So let's start with the first one.
This expression refers us to many places in Scripture. In particular we can take John 17:26: "I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them." Thus Jesus himself teaches us what Paul will call the mystery of adoption as sons, the center and summit of all Redemption, its deepest meaning: in fact we are no longer servants of God, but sons. In fact, the Heart of Jesus gives us what we do not have by nature, but what He alone possesses, that is, that relationship with the Father. This means that our relationship with God is not the one that each of us has with our own father according to the flesh, but multiplied infinitely: in fact the father is the principle of duty, of law, and therefore of sanction. The father, in other words, is the principle of authority; it is necessary that, in our life as children, we are born aware of this, and yet it is also necessary that, as we become adults, we make the precepts or the law our own, internalizing them, so that we no longer obey out of fear or fear, but because we know and we share the values proposed to us.
In this sense Paul observes that the law is like a teacher for us: it must be there, but we, when we become adults, are no longer under a teacher or a power, but, so to speak, we walk alone, in freedom. and not in slavery. Again, John says that the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth were given to us through Jesus Christ. When we invoke the Heart of Christ as the Son of the eternal Father we ask precisely not to live with God a relationship of slavery or obedience as servants, but in a relationship full of trust through which we know that He, God himself, has loved us for first. Here is precisely the new Name of God that Jesus reveals to us, that he makes us know and will make us know again, that is, even more. You will remember that Paul teaches that we have not received a spirit of slaves to fall back into fear, but a spirit of sons by which we cry: Abba, Father, that is: Daddy.
Here is the new name.
Thus, the father is the principle of authority and command, as we were saying, and therefore of the prohibition: it is no coincidence that the commandments, the law of Moses, are all a "not" to do this or that. But Jesus did not give us a law, but love, and in this way he taught us not to obey an external law, but to love moved by the Holy Spirit, which is his own Spirit.
Thus the love of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us: this is, at the same time, the love of God for his Son, who is given to us, so that we are so loved from the Father with the same love with which He loves his eternal Son, and, at the same time, we are given the love with which the Son loves his Father in return, offering himself to him, so that we are no longer the ones who live, but Christ lives in us. This is why Jesus tells us "I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God", not to separate or distinguish ourselves from Him, but, on the contrary, to unite with Him in the same relationship. Invoke like this the Heart of Christ therefore means asking Him to make us children as He is His son, choosing and desiring for us what He chose and desired for Himself, to live like Him. For this reason we offer Him our day: to fill, so to speak, of Him, of his Spirit our prayers, actions, joys and sufferings.