The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1918. THE MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART

New Zealand Tablet, 30 May 1918, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1918. THE MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART

fUNE, with its roses in the northern hemiUNE, with its roses in the northern hemisphere, comes in sorrow once more. June, with its grey skies and its dull days in the N— south, is again a month of gloom. The red roses remind the sufferers of the blood that their dearest have shed ; the long nights are symbolic of the darkness of suspense and pain that hangs over the homes of Australasia. Rut June brings another memory and another message: the only memory and the only message that can help a suffering Christian people to. endure heroically the burden the war has laid upon them. June is the month of the Sacred Heart. It recalls us all to the practice of that devotion which is founded on the immense love of Our Saviour for His children, who need all the strength and all the consolation which He alone can give them. The present Pope has pleaded with us all on behalf of the Heart of Our Lord which is ever yearning for the love of men, and he has pointed out that never more than at the present time was greater need for men to draw close to that Divine Heart and to draw from that inexhaustible fountain the graces and comforts necessary in our day. In accordance with his will the soldiers of the Italian army have been almost all specially consecrated to the Sacred Heait- since the war began and we know from our chaplains that on the battlefields of France our own Catholic kinsmen eagerly seek for badges and medals

that they may go to meet death protected by the Heart of Jesus. The Pope wants not only the soldiers but also them who remain at home, and not only individuals but whole families, to share in this devotion and to enroll themselves as members of the great Christian family which has Christ’s Divine Love for its centre. * The war is the result of forgetfulness of the lessons of the Gospel. If men were mindful of their duty to God there would be no place in the world for the greed and the avarice and the lust of power to which the war and all wars are due. By the sign of love are Christians known to-day, as they were after the Last Supper, when the Saviour in His last discourse commanded His followers to love one another; and by the absence of love are those who are responsible for the slaughter known to be the enemies of Christ. The war is the scourge of God on a sinful people ; and not until they have expiated will His hand be stayed. Through the iniquity of others the innocent have been involved in the sufferings, and they will recognise that such pains as theirs are make them more like the Master who suffered so much for the sins of mankind during His lite on earth. Their faith will teach them that their wrongs and their pains can be made a bond of close union with Him ; and in their dark night of grief for lost loved ones they will be sure that His Sacred Heart is full of compassion for them, and that the waters of bitterness which His own Heart knew in the garden of Gethsemane are an earnest of His sympathy for His children who suffer on earth to-day. lie is with the angels and lie cannot suffer any more. He sees the Face of God in glory and He is surrounded by the saints who sing eternally in the great white rose of love about the throne of the Father. But the mercy and the love that filled His life when lie walked beside the Lake of Galilee are still the same. If His glory was the end of His own time of passion it does not mean that He has lost interest in (he passion of His children who are still in the world. He has known grief; He has known loneliness; He has known what it is to be punished for the crimes of others; and lie is the only One who knowing all this is able to help those who are constrained to walk as He walked and to suffer as He suffered, however afar off, and however small their burden be in comparison of Mis own. “Come to Ale all ye who labor and are heavily burdened is the message lie has for the wronged and the afflicted ; and lie offers them the shelter of His Heart and its love that there they may forget all in His sympathy and in His affection. His Heart will be their comfort ; and His love will repay them for the love of those whom they shall see no more until they meet them face to face in His presence in Heaven. At all times men and women have found that Heart their sure refuge. To-day when the homes of the world are stricken and when universal tears have marked the passing of the Angel of Death the Sacred Heart appeals more than ever to those who mourn and find no human consolation for their sorrow. The men who have fallen with the badge of His Heart on their hearts are with Him now; and the mothers who taught their sons to wear that badge and who wear it themselves find in Him a force to sustain them and even a joy in their anguish. On many of the badges are written the words, Thy will he done! Only they who can lean bn the Heart of Christ and pray that prayer know what perfect peace His love can bring amid the trials of life. •3f he have said that the war and its sufferings and trials are the result of forgetfulness of God. There is no need to remind Catholics that one of the nbjcAs of devotion to the Sacred Heart is to make reparation for such forgetfulness and for the neglect of a world which puts its pleasures and its profits before Christ. The devotion is not only a means of atonement which He Himself suggested to us, but it is moreover the most powerful means of renewing on earth that fervor of love and that intensity of Christian life which our

time needs so badly. Individuals may do, and are doing, much; but as the family is the true unit of society the renaissance of Christian life ought to begin in the home and from there diffuse the spiritual force which can leaven the whole_ mass, if society is an organic body the families may be likened to the cells that compose it, on the health of which its health depends, the life of which is one with its own life. Every cell counts, and the health of the whole is the health of all the parts. Each Christian family is a power for good incalculable in its ultimate results, a centre of force unlimited by the confines of the earth itself. I he special blessing of the Sacred Heart is promised to every family that practises the devotion, and special graces will be given to all the members of the family which consecrates itself to the Heart of Christ. There will be graces for them that suffer, graces for them that are lonely, graces in life and graces in death; and, not less than all these,, the grace of doing real efficacious work for God’s honor alid glory by promoting on earth the revival of that love" for Him and for each other which is the one and only secret of happiness and welfare for mankind.