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The Time After Pentecost
poverty of Christ, He uses this power to pay homage to His Father. “All My things are Thine, and
Thine are Mine.” Christ was not satisfied with having once paid the price of our redemption;
He is not satisfied with being merely our exemplar and teacher. Love unites. He draws us to
Himself and unites us to Himself in a mysterious but efficacious participation in His life and
merits. He could not have done more. He could not have given us His love more completely
or more perfectly. And all this love, “which surpasseth all knowledge,” He has revealed to us in
the symbol of His Sacred Heart.
What is meant by the veneration of the Sacred Heart? It means a living faith in the mercy and
love of Jesus; it means a consciousness and understanding of the mystery of Christ’s love for us.
It means especially a devout and grateful regard for that living union between Christ and the
soul, between the head and the members. It implies an abiding joy in the realization that we are
united to Him, that we have been elevated by Him to share His life and His riches.
“That being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend with all the
saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth; to know also the charity of
Christ which surpasseth all understanding, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God”
(Epistle). We should dwell on the infinity of Christ’s mercy and love. We must place Him before
all else. We must be conscious of our mystical union with Him. Then, indeed, we shall be filled
with the fullness of God.
Prayer
O almighty and eternal God, look down upon the heart of Thy beloved Son, and upon the praise
and satisfaction which it renders to Thee in the name of sinners and such as seek Thy mercy,
and do Thou graciously grant pardon in the name of Thy divine Son, Jesus Christ, who liveth
and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.
Third Sunday after Pentecost
The Mass
The memory of Easter dominates the texts and prayers of the Mass for this Sunday. First of all
we are reminded of Christ the Redeemer, the restorer of life. “What man is there of you that
hath a hundred sheep, and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the
desert and go after that which was lost, until he find it; and when he hath found it, lay it upon his
shoulders rejoicing?” (Gospel.) Did we not also experience this attention of the Good Shepherd
at Easter? Our first rescue by the Good Shepherd, at our baptism, has not yet been completed.
We are still exposed to danger; we may still wander away from His vigilant care, become lost in
the wilderness and the thicket of sin. We still must struggle against the powers of evil working
within us and the temptations which assail us from without.
Because of these many dangers, like the straying sheep of the Gospel, we turn sorrowfully to the
Good Shepherd at the beginning of the Mass today. “Look Thou upon me, O Lord, and have
mercy on me; for I am alone and poor. See my abjection and my labor; and forgive me all my
sins, O my God. To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul” (Introit). The Kyrie and the Gloria
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