Deuteronomy 7: 6-11
Moses said to the people:
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
“It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him. Therefore, observe diligently the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that I am commanding you today.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
The Heart of Christ
In 1872, General Congregation 23 confirmed for the Society of Jesus the “gentle burden” of promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart. The ensuing work was extremely effective, but by 1972 and the centenary of the consecration, the devotion no longer appealed to some Jesuits who believed it had become obsolete and overly sentimental. Father General Pedro Arrupe decided, then, to pen a letter addressing these concerns.
Rather than reject the devotion, Arrupe called for its renewal. He was convinced that the “divinely human love, symbolized in the Heart of Christ” was desperately needed “in a world ever more eager for love, ever more in need of comprehension and justice.” Imagine, with Arrupe, what would happen if we truly believed the words of Deuteronomy, “You are a people sacred to the Lord...The Lord set his heart on you and chose you.”
How will God’s love for all people change the way you see the world today?
—Alex DeWitt, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province finishing his theology studies at Regis College in Toronto.
Prayer
Lord, help us to love with your same love. Let your Sacred Heart be our heart, so that we may see all people, especially “the smallest” among us, as your beloved ones, and thus, our beloved ones, too. Amen.
—Alex DeWitt, SJ