The triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Eucharist

Adoracja z Niepokalanowa

Rounding off this succession of great celebrations - Easter, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart of Jesus - today we mark the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The origins of this liturgical day stretch back over several centuries of Marian devotion. It was extended to the universal Church by Pope Pius XII in 1944, and later placed on the Saturday following the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart by Pope Saint Paul VI in the reform of the calendar in 1969, highlighting the union between the Heart of the Son and the Heart of his Mother.

Love that sees and sends

Sunday 14 June 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Exodus 19:2-6 Psalm 100

Romans 5:6-11 Matthew 9:36-10:8   A picture in the Church of the Monastery of St Francis in Zadar city, Croatia

Meditatio:

‘..When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’  (Matthew 9:36)

 

Commentary:

The setting of the story is Galilee where, in Matthew’s plan, Jesus’ teaching, healing, and preaching begin to establish the pattern for those who are called. Chapter 10 opens with the calling of those whom Matthew refers to as the Apostles (that is, ‘those sent’).

We need to be mindful of the context in which the very early Church developed. It was not a tightly-knit, canonically well-ordered structure with clearly defined roles and ministries. Rather, it was an evolving communion, spread across the lands of the eastern Mediterranean, gradually moving out from the holy land and flourishing under fierce opposition. It first took root mainly among the Jewish people and then increasingly among the Gentiles.

In the first reading from the Book of Exodus, the people are reminded of something easily forgotten:

I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

Before there was covenant or law, there was initiative. God sees; God acts; God carries. The relationship begins with grace. The image is a precious one: God not only delivers, but lifts, protects, and draws his people into close relationship.

Psalm 100 echoes the same truth in familiar language:

Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture (v.3).

We belong before we achieve. In other words, we are claimed before we prove ourselves.

In the second reading, Saint Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, takes this further still. God’s love is not a response to goodness; it precedes it entirely:

God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

That love is not abstract. It is poured out, given freely, even when unearned. Indeed, Paul speaks of God’s love being ‘poured into our hearts’ (Romans 5:5), suggesting not something distant, but something deeply personal and interior.

When we hear that language - love poured into the heart - we are reminded of that fountain of love: the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which whose feast day we marked last Friday. The love of God is not just an idea but a reality - burning, wounded, and poured out. The heart of Christ, aflame and pierced, is the sign of a love that holds nothing back. It represents both his humanity and his divine compassion, a love that enters fully into the suffering of the world.

In the Gospel, that same love becomes visible in a moment that is easily passed over. Jesus looks at the crowds - not from a distance, but with attention –

and he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (v. 36)

 Jesus, in his heart, sees clearly, feels deeply and is moved to act. From compassion comes action and mission. He invites us now into that same mission:

The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest (v. 38)

The people carried on eagles’ wings become a ‘kingdom of priests’; the sheep of the pasture become those who help gather others; and those who have received mercy become those who extend it.

The call to pray for more ‘labourers’ because the ‘harvest is plentiful’ is not to be interpreted narrowly, as though only ordained ministers or consecrated religious are called and sent to announce or live the Gospel. Yes, we need to pray for that too.  After all, no priests, no Eucharist or sacramental  absolution.

Every baptised Christian is called to live out their vocation fully and to witness to the love of God wherever they are. And if people speak out and act boldly in defence of racial justice at this time, we should not hesitate to speak out and act boldly in defence of all human rights. In doing so, we bear witness to Christ as the first disciples did.

  

Some extras:

Collect prayer (Roman Catholic missal of 1970)

God our Father, we rejoice in the faith that draws us together, aware that selfishness can drive us apart.  Let your encouragement be our constant strength. Keep us one in the love that has sealed our lives, help us to live as one family the gospel we profess. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Post-Communion prayer (Roman Catholic missal of 1970)

Lord may this eucharist accomplish in our Church the unity and peace it signifies. Grant this through Christ our Lord.

Private prayer after Holy Communion

(from The Family Missal and Prayer Book of the Church of the Holy Spirit, Ballyroan, Dublin, 1976)

Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd, you felt sorry for the people who were harassed and dejected.  Master of the apostles, you have sent labourers into the harvest to bring your healing grace to men; and the harvest has been rich. Lord of the harvest send labourers today to continue your work among men so that all the children of God may be reconciled.

Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Eucharist

Vision of Margaret Mary Alacoque,
Painted by Armand Cambon (1819-1885)

Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  This major feast day was incorporated into the universal liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church in 1856, almost two centuries after the private revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. In those revelations, she reported that Jesus asked for a feast in honour of his Sacred Heart to be celebrated on the Friday after the great celebration of Corpus Christi. And so it is.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart spread throughout the world. It draws our attention to the human Heart of Jesus as the symbol of his total self-giving love. Typically, images of this devotion depict his Heart aflame with love for humanity - wounded and vulnerable, revealing the cost of our redemption.

A Johannine approach to the Eucharist

Source: here

We, too, can be transformed into bread broken for a world that hungers. Here is a short prayer based on a reading of the Gospel of John that I composed many years ago:

In the beginning was the Word
And the Word became flesh

And that flesh became bread;

Which has now become us

Broken for a united world

Returning to the source from it came

And so, after we come to the close of a long discourse in the sixth chapter of Saint John. Let’s recap on what we have heard, read and mediated in our hearts whenever we take the sixth chapter of Saint John into our hearts and minds:

Jesus feeds all of those who come to him (John 6:1-15)

The Harp of the Holy Spirit

Source: Celestial Choir

Yesterday, the feast of Saint Ephrem (the Syrian) was celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church. Saint Ephrem was a fourth‑century deacon and Doctor of the Church, and he is especially honoured in the Eastern (Syriac) tradition. Living in the eastern part of the Roman Empire (in what is now modern‑day Turkey), he emerged as a significant voice in defending the divinity of Christ against the Arian heresy - the claim that Christ is not fully divine. Elements of this error have reappeared in different forms throughout history and continue to surface in various ways today.

Ephrem never became a priest or bishop. He remained a deacon and used his gifts in many ways, especially through the composition of beautiful hymns and poems, for which he is known as the ‘Harp of the Holy Spirit’. His ministry was expressed through teaching, preaching, and especially through his poetic and musical works. He is associated with the madrāšê (teaching hymns), which were performed by choirs -traditionally including women - with musical accompaniment such as the lyre. One tradition notes that women’s voices played an important role in this form of liturgical instruction, reflecting the dignity of their participation in the life of the Church.

Many of his hymns contain striking reflections on the Eucharist. In one of them he writes:

'In your bread is hidden the Spirit which cannot be eaten.
In your wine dwells the fire that cannot be drunk.
Spirit in your bread, fire in your wine:
it is a wonder that our lips have received!'
(Hymns on Faith, 10)

In common with many early Christian writers, Saint Ephrem did not produce a single systematic treatise on the Eucharist. Instead, he expressed its mystery through poetic and symbolic language. Images such as fire, Spirit, medicine, bread of life and nourishment point to the profound reality of Christ’s presence and the life‑giving grace communicated in the Eucharist.

Eucharist is a community sacrament

Over the centuries, the emphasis within the Christian life - and, within this, on the Eucharist - has shifted between communal and individual dimensions. From the fragmentary evidence available regarding liturgical practice in the early Irish or Celtic Church, it is reasonable to infer that the Eucharist was a central act of the community. This was certainly the case in monastic settings such as the island of Iona, where Saint Columba (Colmcille) lived after his departure from Ireland.

Words of life

At the end of the sixth chapter of John, we may locate ourselves within the scene: among the crowd, among the wider group of disciples, or among the Twelve closest followers of Jesus. The teaching is demanding. As many recognise, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’  (John 6:60). Indeed, the passage bears the depth of reflection of the early Church, already living from the mystery of the Eucharist. Yet, whatever its historical development, Christians trust that Scripture is truly the Word of God, communicated through human witnesses under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.