Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, fountain of eternal life, Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary.
O my adorable and loving Savior, consume my heart with the burning fire with which Yours is aflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Your love.
Let my heart be united with Yours. Let my will be conformed to Yours in all things.
May Your Will be the rule of all my desires and actions. Amen.
-Prayer to the Sacred Heart by St. Gertrude the Great
Reflect
Upon becoming a new dad, a friend of mine described the experience of bringing a new baby into a room as inviting all occupants to a "baby campfire."
I instantly knew what he meant.
Instinctively, we know to gather, to see with new eyes, and allow ourselves to become transfixed on the thing of beauty before us.
The lure of the hearth or the campfire is something you’ll immediately recognize if you have ever spent time skating, sledding, skiing, camping, or hiking in the woods. Fire, in these circumstances, is the universal gather-er. We instinctively circle ‘round as close as we can bear, knees tingling, cup of cocoa in hand, while the sun sinks low, the rain sets in, or our tired muscles relax. The heat of the fire warms us, nourishes us, and mesmerizes us.
What we also know to be true is that fire is powerful. It has the power to transform forest to field, carbon to diamond, and our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.
The third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is depicted in a variety of ways. My favorite among them, hands down, is fire. So the words of St. Gertrude are particularly potent as she describes the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a glowing furnace of Love.
It makes perfect sense to me that this "glowing furnace" would provide her both refuge and sanctuary—that she would find herself consumed with Its love, desiring to be animated by it, and drawing nearer.
Her words articulate an invitation, almost tactile, to the transformative nature of love in Jesus’ most Sacred Heart, that our own hearts might be set ablaze.
Let Us Pray
God of Love, would that I draw near enough to your Sacred Heart that by the transforming fire of your love to be consumed. Come and dwell in my heart; make me new today. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
For Discussion
St. Gertrude implores that the graces of God’s love be poured onto her. What graces are you most desiring to be poured on yourself today?
How would it look for your heart to be consumed by the "burning fire with which Yours is enflamed?"
In His Heart: The 2020 Prayer Pledge // Day 25 #BISblog #prayerpledge //Click to tweet
Katie Cassady is a regular contributor to the BIS blog. She is a wife and mom to three little girls in Denver, CO. Steeped in theological reflection, beekeeping and motherhood, she is appreciative of any and all wisdom she can glean from those living intentional lives of faith. Find out more about her here. Read all of Katie's posts here.
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