CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “MASS DEDICATED TO THE HEART OF CHRIST – HOMILY OF POPE JOHN PAUL II (1984)” – VaticanVa
“‘My soul, give thanks to the Lord, all my being, Bless His Holy Name'” (Ps. 103 (102), 1).
1. With these words of today’s liturgy, dear brothers and sisters, I wish to address myself, together with all of you, to the God of Love. And I wish to do so through the mystery of the Heart of Christ.
I choose these words because they speak of our human heart – what the Psalm refers to as “all my being”. It is precisely this that we have in mind when we speak of the “heart”: our whole being, all that is within each one of us. All that forms us from within, in the depths of our being. All that makes up our entire humanity, our whole person in its spiritual and physical dimension. All that expresses itself as a unique and unrepeatable person in its “inner self” and at the same time in its “transcendence”.
The words of the Psalm – “My soul give thanks to the Lord, all my being bless his holy name” – say that our human “heart” addresses God in all the unimaginable majesty of his divinity and his holiness and, at the same time, in his wonderful “openness” to mankind: in his “condescension”.
In this way “heart” meets “Heart”; “heart” speaks to the “Heart”. …”