Homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mass of Consecration of the Diocese of Fort Worth to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

June 21, 2026
Sacred Heart Catholic Church
Comanche, Texas

Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Psalm 25
1 John 4:7-16
John 15:9-17

“Behold the heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself in order to testify its love. And in return I receive from the greater part only ingratitude by the irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love.” This is the quote offered by Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque during his fourth apparition to her in 1675.

It expresses really, concisely, the spiritual foundation for the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Christ’s divine and human love for all. Secondly, the ungrateful and tepid response of too many human beings to that love and indifference that causes Him sorrow. And finally, the invitation to us to make reparations for these sins of lukewarmness by uniting our hearts to Christ’s heart of unconditional love; by spending time with Him, especially at Mass and in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; and sharing His love with others as His friends.

This is the foundation of the practice of receiving Holy Communion on nine consecutive first Fridays of each month. For Christ wants us to be close to Him, for He has come to be close with us.

On June 12th of this year, just nine days ago — with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the birth of our nation, serving as a catalyst — the Catholic bishops of the United States of America gathered together at Mass on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and consecrated our nation to the care and protection of the Sacred Heart. And in so doing, the bishops of the United States entrusted our nation’s history to Christ’s mercy; and offered our future to His providence; and placed the present in His wisdom and in His love.

As we celebrate sincerely the gift of our freedom, a gift given by God that marks our national character, it is essential that we return to the heart of Jesus as the source of our freedom. A freedom that we have used to give Him glory, and a freedom that we haven’t used to [unintelligible] with Him with sins of pride, and the freedom that we can use to offer Him love with gratitude and reparation for the many offenses that He, our friend, suffers daily.

The message of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as conveyed to us through the lives of such saints as St. John Eudes, St. Margaret Mary Alacogue, and St. Claude de La Colombiere manifests that God’s being, His very being, is pure love. And this love became incarnate in Jesus Christ and His love was the selfless motive for His entire life: His ministry, His miracles, His passion, His death and resurrection. And His crucifixion was the greatest and the incomparable act of His love. The love of His Most Sacred Heart motivated His suffering and death on our behalf, and the Holy Spirit makes us one with that love.

We can be tempted to be so overwhelmed by the cross that it can prompt us to be afraid of God and, out of shame for our sins, keep ourselves at a distance from God. We can come to think of the crucifixion only as an act within history and fail to accept the selflessness of this redeeming action. This is what leads us to become indifferent and avoidant of Christ’s love for us.

The gift of His Sacred Heart to us shows that divine love is more than action. It is a dynamic and constant state of being by which Jesus invites us into friendship with Him.

We consecrate the Diocese of Fort Worth today to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that we might never forget that we are His Church because of His initiative and we must be His church on His terms. He has entrusted us with His mission of salvation from sin extended to all people.

We make reparations for sins of indifference to Christ’s love; indifference to priestly religious vocation; indifference to the virtue of chastity and purity of heart, in priestly and religious life; indifference to His teaching on the sanctity of marriage, chastity, and family life; irreverence in the celebration of the liturgy; indifference to injustices suffered because of racial prejudices; indifference to the plight of the poor; and indifference to the sick and suffering, to the unborn, and to those who have suffered from sins of abuse perpetrated against them within and outside of the Church.

We make reparation by this act of consecration, and we resolve to spend time with Christ heart to heart, to be His friend in prayer and Adoration, and to love and honor Him in the presence of our neighbors and thereby turn from the spiritual laziness and indifference to the love of Christ’s Sacred Heart.

St. Claude de La Columbiere, who served as St. Margaret Mary’s spiritual director (both of whose relics are present here for veneration along with those of St. John Eudes, another devotee of the Sacred Heart), once said Christ’s suffering was a greater than necessary act of love where a single drop of blood sufficed for salvation, yet He gave all due to boundless affection. In our temptation we whipsaw between despair and presumption, extreme sins against hope.

We can neglect that the Sacred Heart makes known the truth, that Christ not only sacrificed Himself for us but that He also has affection for us. He not only loves us, but He also likes us, and He delights in us, and He wants us to spend time with Him as his friends.

When we hear the Gospel proclaimed, pay attention to how much Jesus liked people. He was with them all the time and He was kind to them. He enjoyed their company, even those who rejected Him. We cannot truly be Christians if we don’t also presume to like people as much as love them.

Before the Diocese of Fort Worth is formally consecrated to the Sacred Heart, the Sacred Heart has already turned itself towards us in love. That is the deepest comfort and the deepest challenge of the meetings today, for consecration is not cajoling Christ into loving us. It is joyfully accepting being loved by the One who has loved us from the beginning and who now asks us to love Him in return which we do with gratitude in our hearts.