Heart of Jesus, our Life and Resurrection
“For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me."(Gal 2:19-20)
Saint Paul sentence from the letter to the Galatians "; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me " seems to be a good commentary on the next invocation of the Litany to the Heart of Jesus. Faith gave Saint Paul experience and understanding that Jesus Christ gives real life. Saint Paul already knows that since the encounter of the Risen One, his life no longer belongs to him, but to Jesus Christ. And although he lives in the body, like all of us, he is aware of belonging to Jesus. The heart of Jesus is the source of our life and resurrection. It gives us eternal life.
Jesus is our life. He is not only the beginning and cause of our spiritual life, not only our divine guest who comes to visit us; He comes to remain in our soul permanently. Christ wants to live and work in our soul so that we can live his life.
Jesus said: " Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. "(Jn 15,4-5). What wonderful horizons have been opened to us! This transfusion of Christ's life into our lives is a mystery of God's infinite love.
This topic is often raised by Saint Paul: “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. […] Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it. (1 Cor 12:12, 27) “yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me. “(Gal 2:20)
Paul the Apostle teaches, therefore, that we are one body with Christ. He is the head and we are the members. We must be aware of this, we cannot forget about it, because it is a great dignity offered to us. We should think about it often with love. Let us do all our activities in the presence of Jesus and in his honor, and then we will become a canvas on which the Divine Master will paint his picture. This is what it means to live a life in union with Christ. We also call our Savior our Resurrection. That is how he called himself, turning to Marta crying at his brother's grave: "I am the resurrection and the life" (cf. Jn 11:25). He is the Resurrection of the dead and the Lives of the living - adds St. John Chrysostom. Just as he raised Lazarus, he will also resurrect our bodies at the end of the world.
Jesus is the cause of our resurrection because He merit it with His death. Our first resurrection takes place in the sacrament of baptism, in which the soul receives a real supernatural life. It is the pledge of the resurrection of our bodies. Then the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us. The spirit is life.
The second resurrection takes place in the sacrament of penance. At every moment, on all continents of our earth, there are thousands of resurrections more amazing than the resurrection of Lazarus.
The resurrection of our bodies will occur because we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. We are one body with Christ, of whom He is the Head and we are the members. Because the Head is Risen, members must also be resurrected. "Is Christ divided?" - asks St. Paul in the Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 1, 13).
The Savior prepares us for the resurrection through Holy Communion. He said: " Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day" (Jn 6:54). Hence the Council of Nicaea calls the Eucharist a symbol of the resurrection.
The Resurrection of Christ is the model and pledge of our resurrection to the future. According to Saint Paul we should imitate the Risen One. So, as Jesus Christ came out of the grave and did not return to it again, so we, having obtained the life of the soul by the grace of baptism and the sacrament of reconciliation, we need to beware not to return to sin and avoid the evil. And further: as Christ did not belong to the world after his resurrection, so we should be directed to God. St. Paul, teaching the Philippians, said: "For our homeland is in heaven" (cf. Phil 3:20).
LIVE THE WORD!
Look at your life - is it Jesus' life? Can others, looking at you, say that Christ lives in you? Try to remember all day that you are going to heaven and live as if you were to get there today.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george