The Heart of Jesus Our Model - Part I

A soul consecrated to the Sacred Heart, a soul given to reparation, must feel the need of modeling its life on that of the Jesus.  How can we say that we are really consecrated to the Sacred Heart, how can we say that we are His victim of reparation, when we retain in our heart feelings, desires, and attractions which are opposed to His?

It is clear that in order to model our heart on the Heart of Christ we cannot limit ourselves to eliminating this or that fault, to acquiring such and such a virtue; rather, we must strive to reform our whole life.  However, when the divine Master offers us His Heart as a model, He spoke of two virtues in particular, meekness and humility:  "Learn of Me because I am meek and humble of heart" (Mt. 11,29).  Not without reason has He spoken thus, knowing that when we have removed all movements and feelings of pride and self-love from our heart, we will also have suppressed all our other faults; and when we have acquired a profound humility, we will have acquired all the other virtues as well.  Let us pause, then, to consider this great lesson of the Heart of Jesus.

First, Jesus speaks to us of meekness.  This is the virtue by which man is enabled to master everything that falls under the heading of "anger."  Meekness gives the power to restrain and dominate all those passionate movements -- even slight ones -- which sometimes make us exceed just limits, and lose sight of the divine Guide.  Since the guide of a soul desirous of giving itself to the service of God, is God Himself, is the Heart of Jesus, we must never lose sight of Our Lord or withdraw from Him, even for a short time; if we do, we will end by following our own self-love and trivial passions.  Meekness, however, gives us self-mastery, enabling us to dominate every kind of irritation.  If we examine ourselves carefully, we shall see that these irritations are almost always caused by some little hurt to our pride; the irascible appetite has been aroused by something which has wounded our "ego."  Meekness, as we can see, is closely connected with humility.

from Divine Intimacy

by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD