18 August 2021
Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
The second half of the 19th century witnessed two great devotions within the Catholic faith. The first was the devotion to the Sacred Heart and the second was the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Looking at the portrayal of these two images, they seem rather dated and certainly lacking in the militancy and concern for social justice which predominates our image of religious sentiment today. For this reason, history is important since for some, these images and their respective devotion viewed out of their historical context strips them of their power and importance. These images actually reflect a strong response to the materialism of the time, especially a materialism that saw the fullness of the human person residing in an understanding of the material world and a negation of anything spiritual. Hence it was not surprising that racism and eugenics developed in a time when the survival of the fittest supplied the moral imperative for many persons. The Catholic Church disagreed with this vision and supplied the loving heart of Christ as an alternative to the cold laws of survival of the fittest and the iron laws of nature. In today’s reading we hear of workers who complained that full wages were given to those who worked only a few hours. The owner of the vineyard noted that if he wanted to dispense mercy and justice that was his business. And that of course is the message of the Sacred Heart, that Jesus gives us the mercy of God and not his justice which we all too often deserve. And it is Mary in her immaculate heart, a heart that holds no obstacles to that mercy, that in turn provides us with an example of how we need to accept that same loving heart of Christ. Nothing shows more concern for social justice than the images of the hearts of Jesus and Mary because it is the image of these two hearts that reflect the love for all humanity and the desire that we should place no obstacles in the way of that love.