MCLA (Melbourne Catholic Lawyers’ Association)
Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus 18/6/04
St. Augustine’s, Bourke St.

“It was God’s good pleasure to let all completeness dwell in Him.” In this teaching of St. Paul to the Colossians, we see affirmed the basis for the mystery we celebrate today: the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Old Testament is full of metaphors when it relates God’s dealings with man: God raises his hand, stretches out his arm, keeps watchful eye, and gives ear to prayer. He is a jealous lover, who seeks those who will love Him after his own heart.

In the Incarnation, metaphor becomes reality. The God who is pure Spirit chose to see with human eyes, to stretch out a human hand to heal, to love with a human heart.

The heart is the mysterious fountainhead of the person, the centre of man’s spiritual strength and faculties, of his intelligence – the engine of the passions and the place where their power is most keenly felt. The heart is where intentions are formed and plans devised. It is the point of convergence – for fallen man, often the locus of conflict – for all one’s powers.

The ‘completeness’, of which St. Paul speaks, dwells especially then in Christ’s Heart. And what a heart, in view of its union with the Divinity: In the Heart of Christ there is the perfection and flowering of every human virtue: tenderness and compassion, certainly; but also zeal for the Father, strength, endurance and courage – in the human heart of God, all true loves are present and well-ordered, all virtues perfectly activated and balanced. And it is with reference to His own Heart that Christ can claim: “I came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfil it!”

For it is in the Sacred Heart of Jesus that the promise delivered through Jeremiah finds its first, and perfect fulfilment. “I will set my law within them and write it on their hearts.”

In the Heart of Christ there is not only the Justice of Perfect Holiness, but Mercy giving birth to compassion. We find in this Heart, not only Infinite Goodness in itself, but Goodness that desires to communicate itself to others in forgiveness, reconciliation, and friendship. The Sacred Heart is the Ark of the New Covenant, because it not only radiates Divine Holiness, but also supplies every remedy needed by fallen men, and empowers Him, by grace, freely to share in that very holiness. It is of this gift that St. Paul speaks when he tells the Romans that the love of God has been poured into our hearts.

The figure of the Good Shepherd placed before us by Ezekiel and St Luke’s Gospel is a vivid illustration of the love of God, which compels Him to pursue man, who easily strays into dangerous pastures. For obvious reasons this is a day of sanctification for the clergy, who are called in a pre-eminent way to continue this work of the Divine Shepherd.

In this vein, it is perhaps not inappropriate to consider the vocation of lawyers, who in their own way act as shepherds (we hope, not as wolves!!) for all good human law, insofar as it participates in the Divine Wisdom, is ordered to human flourishing – both for individuals and communities.

Living as we do in a diverse society, Catholic lawyers know that they cannot bring theological reasoning directly to bear in the debates of the day. Guided however by the certitude that the light of Faith brings, and following the example of Christ’s own Heart, which beginning with compassion, seeks gently but firmly to persuade by the power and beauty of Truth itself, the Catholic lawyer should have at his disposal both the sharpest wit that reason can furnish, and the most open of hearts. In this spirit, Catholic lawyers have distinguished themselves in the defence of the most fundamental of rights, that of the Right to Life itself. We must not allow this commitment to flag, but renew our zeal for its vindication, for upon this, the future of all other rights, all other just causes, depends.

The imitation of the Christ, and as part of this a truly successful vocation to the law, demands that each of us strive to become a cordatus, literally a person of the heart, a person of wisdom and understanding, courage and compassion. Christ also demands of us that we have an undivided heart: we cannot leave our faith and its obligations at the door of the office, chambers or court.

Today, for the first time, the MCLA is going to take up a collection after communion – yes, we want to prove we’re Catholic! The proceeds will go towards the street kids who live in the slums of Manila. So that we don’t fool ourselves, it’s sometimes necessary to open our hearts by opening our wallets. St. John asks how the love of God abides in a man who has the substance of the world, but refuses to help his brother in need. Let us love in deed and in truth. In doing so, we will live out the prayer enshrined in James McCauley’s great hymn:

Jesus in your Heart we find
Love of the Father and mankind
These two loves to us impart
Divine Love, in a human heart