Heart means "love" and Jesus’ heart is an inexhaustible source of eternal, immense, incalculable love. It is an inexhaustible source of delight, the more you draw the more it is abundant; it is a fruitful source of blessings and joys from which the channels of mercy, charity and love flow without interruption.
The Gospels disclose us the various manifestations and nuances of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: a heart that is merciful, commiserates, is filled with joy, admires and forgives, is wounded, loves passionately both the Father and men, his brothers, "having loved His own .... He loved them to the end "(Jn 13:1).
One of the many short prayers spoken by Catholics in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is precisely: "Oh Jesus inflamed with love, I wish that I had never offended you." Every act of Jesus' earthly life was caused by the infinite love for all creatures: the Eucharistic sacrifice is a certificate of high charity, love devised the immolation of the Cross, love hid Jesus under the sacramental species, love wanted the consumption of the Host into the Holy Communion.
Jesus says in The Twenty-Four Hours of the Passion : “Ah, my child, it is Love which prevails in everything, over Me and within Me. Love is nail for Me, Love is scourge, Love is crown of thorns – Love is everything for Me. Love is my perennial passion, while that of men is in time. Ah, my child, enter into my Heart, come to be dissolved in my love, and only in my love will you comprehend how much I suffered and how much I loved you, and you will learn to love Me and to suffer only out of love”.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus calls those who labor and are burdened to Him, and show Himself to them as "meek and humble of heart" (Mt 11,28:29)
The Heart of Jesus is a spring of glory and of graces. In fact Jesus tells Luisa that as many virtues as His Heart practiced, so many springs were formed in It. And as they formed, innumerable rivulets gushed forth, which, spurting up to Heaven, worthily glorified the Father in the name of all, and dropped again from Heaven for the good of all creatures. Now, as creatures also practice virtues, they form little springs in their hearts, from which their little rivulets gush forth, which cross mine and, spurting together, glorify the Celestial Father and descend for the good of all, forming such harmony between Heaven and earth that even the Angels remain astonished.
Jesus loves all creatures, but He prefers those who are meek like Him, those who are capable of loving sweetly.
Again, in a passage from Luisa’s Diaries Jesus says that how intolerable to Him is the hardness of the human heart! More so before His, which is all loving tenderness and goodness toward them.
The most beautiful prerogative of His heart is tenderness; all the fibers, all the affections, the desires, the love, the heartbeat of His heart have for beginning tenderness, so that His fibers are tender, His affections and desires are most tender, His love and heartbeat are so very tender that they arrive to liquefy His heart for tenderness, and this tender love makes Him arrive to love creatures so much, that He is content to suffer, rather than to see them suffer. Then, Jesus reiterates that a love when it is not tender is like a food without seasoning, like an aged beauty that doesn't know how to attract anyone to make itself loved, and like a flower without perfume, like an arid fruit without humor and sweetness. A hard love without tenderness is unacceptable and would not hold the virtue to make itself loved by anyone. Therefore His heart suffers so much in seeing the hardness of creatures, that they arrive to change His graces into scourges."
True love is not subject to discontents; rather, from the very discontents it takes the opportunity to change them into the most beautiful contentments by virtue of love. More so, since, being the contentment of contentments, He cannot tolerate any discontent and He is forced to give her whatever thing renders content in order to have her all conformed to Him. Otherwise, there would be some clashing and dissimilar fibers, heartbeats or thoughts which would make them lose the best of their harmony. Moreover, true love operates out of love, and out of love it does not operate; it asks out of love, and out of love it surrenders. So, true love ends all in love; out of love it dies, and out of love it rises again.”
What a great relief to us it is to think that we are the object of God’s love, a love that is always and forever, God impressed His mark in our lives, because He does not want to lose us, He created us for Him and only in Him we realize our own good. Faced with such an intense and eternal love, you can neither betray nor stop loving.
Let us ask to Jesus to make us feel more and more in love with Him, with the only regret not having experienced his love before now: "Late have I loved you, Lord!" (St. Augustine).
My Jesus, boundless Love, give me Your love! My Love and my All, may your love inundate me everywhere, and burn all that is not yours. Let my love run always toward You, to burn away all that may sadden your Heart.