A Faithful Heart

‘That which makes home in heaven is that which makes heaven home, and that is the reign there of a true and tender heart. When we speak of home, we do not mean bricks and mortar: when we speak of heaven, we do not really mean streets of gold and crystal seas, still less having everything we want. We cannot rest in that kind of thing. We cannot doubt that any world that is wholly God’s creation is altogether lovely and beautiful, but when we think about heaven as our home it is not because heaven is beautiful, but because God is there and we find our abiding-place in His Heart. As has been admirably said by a good Frenchman, “We do not find God in heaven, but we find heaven in God”. That is because we find home in God. The Sacred Heart is our sure home, and we must return again and again to that home in our prayer.

The Sacred Heart is a faithful heart. Probably we have all been faithful to some people but unfaithful to others. We have “let them down”, as we say. The Heart of Jesus has never let any one down. Our hope for the world, for the Church, for the great body of Christian people outside the Church, for our own solitary soul, is in His faithfulness. The apostles had their differences, St Paul sometimes withstood St Peter to the face, but their union was in the Heart of Jesus. It is the same with us today. There are many divisions amongst Christian people, but when we are troubled about the divisions in the Church, we can remember that there is one Heart which is always faithful, and if we are tempted to despair of union amongst ourselves we may none the less have hope of union in Him’.

Father Andrew SDC, 1869-1946