As a Sacred Heart Sister, I have grown to love the invocation in the Litany to this Divine Heart which says, Heart of Jesus, abode of justice and love. Let’s face it, isn’t that what we all long for, an abode – a home, where we feel safe and loved? Where we belong?
Earthly homes are temporary, but this home in the Heart of God, is eternal.
I know only too well how transitory our earthly homes can be.
I am native of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a city nestled along the banks of the mighty Susquehanna River. In June, 1972, my city took a monumental pounding for days as the torrential rains of Hurricane Agnes hung over the Wyoming Valley. People were evacuated from the flood plain, fleeing the rising, surging waters, until the river’s muddy depths finally overflowed its banks, flooding all the cities in its path, and leaving in its wake a trail of devastation and destruction.
My parents were among the many in higher elevations of the city to open their doors to friends and relatives displaced by the flood waters. Desperate people filled churches and gathered around television sets as national news reported the near apocalyptic devastation hitting the region.
“Oh, Joe, our wedding dishes!” my grandmother blurted out, horrified by the shocking images of their beloved, now flooded Wyoming Valley. “Catherine, we’re lucky to be alive,” my grandfather responded pragmatically. Still, he worried about the state of the family’s home.
After the waters had crested and receded, residents were permitted back into the flood plain of the city. Family members walked through their neighborhood in South Wilkes-Barre, assessing the waters’ toll, viewing scenes that resembled a war zone.
Years later, my mother told me that when they entered my grandparents’ home, they saw that everything was destroyed.
Everything, that is, except a china cabinet still standing in the corner of a room, the very cabinet
containing the cherished wedding dishes!
All of them stared incredulously and in awe at this miraculous sight. The plates were unbroken, the cups still hung from their hooks, and an inch of mud was atop the saucers! To their further amazement, there, stuck with floodwater to the glass door of the cabinet, was a plastic Sacred Heart badge, its origins a mystery.
Carefully the dishes and cups were removed and placed in a box. With the removal of the last dish, my mother said, the cabinet collapsed. She would always say it was held up by the Sacred Heart Himself.
I once asked my dear mother why God had spared those dishes. She answered with a profound wisdom and simplicity, “The Sacred Heart of Jesus knows everything about us. He knew those dishes were important to your grandparents, and that is why He saved them. He loves us.”
He loves us.
This Heavenly Father who in His goodness has made a home for the poor (cf. Psalm
68) – a provident God who takes care of us in love.
Indeed, our earthly homes may be swept away by fire or flood — here we have no lasting city (Hebrews 13:14) — and yet the Divine Heart of Jesus our abode of justice and love, is eternally ours.
We need never fear.
In Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), –and in His Heart — in this, our own home, we take refuge!
(Images courtesy of my uncle Christopher Calore)
At the Wellsprings of the Savior 