Christians are supposed to be the disciples of Jesus Christ. They are supposed to make Christ present in the culture of present day man, even if two thousand years have since passed. They are supposed to make Him present by “doing this in memory of Me”. They are not just to repeat His Words and the gesture of the Breaking of the Bread. They are supposed to proclaim His Words “in His memory”. They are supposed even to Break the Bread “in memory of the way He was, and still is, broken”.

“In memory of Me” is so important that it makes all the difference. When the Christian proclaims the word while forgetting to do it “in memory of Him”, he ends up to codify that word, turning it into a law and fossilize it into a Book. When the Christian, even more so a priest, breaks the bread while forgetting that he is doing it “in memory of Him”, he ends up to create a ritual that resembles more magic than a mystical experience.

Before the Christian Bible, before the Code of Canon Law, even before Christianity became a religion – distinct from all the other religions, yet with with similar characteristics that give her the right to be called so – there was a Person with a human heart. It is quite paradoxical to notice that, what rationalists and humanists find it so irrational in religion is when it renders people without a human heart. It is a pity how religious people, including Christians, are not able to listen to what rationalists and humanists are telling them. What rationalists and humanists are seeking is not a more rational religion, but a religion at the service of man, a religion with a human heart. To argue with the rationalists and the humanists may only serve to reveal and confirm the parody of religion.

Can it be that rationalists and humanists are closer to the Heart of Christ than most Christians? One of the main dramas lived by Jesus of Nazareth was His ever growing tension and confrontation with the Pharisees that represented the established religion, a religion of the Law and rituals, or traditions. In fact, their main accusation was that Jesus was abolishing the Law, upon which their religion was founded. Yet, Jesus tried to explain that He came to bring the Law to perfection, by revealing the Heart of God that the Law sought to affirm.

It is not as much the Law that stands for Who God is, His Divine Goodness and Beauty, but the human heart. In the Heart of Jesus the Divine Love meets the human heart. The Heart of Jesus is unique, because it brings the human heart, with all its aspirations, desires, attractions, hurts and brokenness to the divine threshold, and the unconditional mystical and divine embrace to the human being.

The Heart of Jesus is a human heart that speaks the language of Divine Love. It is a human heart formed in the womb of a simple and immaculate girl, Mary of Nazareth. However, at the same time, it is the Word of God that took flesh, becoming Jesus, becoming the Heart of Jesus. It is this Heart that every human being craves for. It is this Heart that every man longs to see and encounter, even today. Rationalists and humanists might be right in their critique and in many aspects of their vision of man. But without the Heart of Jesus, they might be risking creating another religion far worse than the one of which they rightly seek to free man!

Contact Fr Paul Fenech.