Inaugural Mass

Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Our Lady of the Assumption 30 June 2022

Dear Father James; Deacon Greg, and dear friends who will be inducted as members of the Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

Association of the Hour of Presence to the Heart of Jesus

This evening the Lord brings us together to celebrate the beginning of the official presence of a new pious association in the Archdiocese of Vancouver. It is a worldwide movement, found in over 30 countries, that includes clergy, Religious and lay faithful.

At the outset I wish to thank Remi A Vasquez for being instrumental in bringing this association to my attention – and to yours. I am also very grateful to Father John Horgan for kindly agreeing to serve as Diocesan Director for the Association, also known as the Guard of Honor of the Sacred Heart. Unfortunately, as you know, he is unable to be with us this evening, but is very familiar with this Eucharistic Apostolate and enthusiastically endorses this apostolate. Father David Bellusci has agreed to serve as its Spiritual Director, and I wish to thank him as well.

What is this Association?

The Guard of Honour is intimately tied to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was popularized by St. Margaret Mary, who received visions in which the Lord expressed how much he loved 2 humanity and suffered because of humanity’s indifference. This devotion concentrates especially on Jesus’ Heart as wounded. Long ago, it was pierced by the soldier’s lance on Calvary, and today it is pierced by the ingratitude and apathy of so many people.

The Guard of Honour has its specific origin in the “spiritual current” that gave new life to the Church in France after the Protestant Reformation. It embodies in itself the French School’s tradition of Christocentric prayer, the monastic tradition of “work and prayer,” and the Salesian tradition of Sacred Heart devotion.

God’s Presence in the Everyday

Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, foundress of the Guard of Honour, was a widow who had lived and developed her life of prayer in the world, in the midst of other duties and responsibilities, in the daily through which we ordinarily experience our union with God. Because it is in the heart of one’s daily tasks that Jesus is most ignored and offended, it is precisely there – amidst the busyness of modern life – that he wants to reach us and seek our love.

Therefore, as the current Manual of the Guard of Honour (2013) specifies, “The Hour of Guard. . . does not consist of spending an hour in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. It consists rather in living the hour chosen from one’s day, without making any change to one’s usual occupations – be they familial professional, or other – with a keener 3 awareness of the presence of God. During this hour, the Associate offers everything he or she does, everything he or she is, in a spirit of praise and reparation. . . . Even the hour chosen on the “dial” should be regarded as symbolic and is not to be regarded as the obligatory time to be fulfilled every day” (P. 31).

From this, we can see that the Guard of Honour is a devotional practice that is not only for those who are committed to adoration in one of our many chapels, but also for those who cannot access them for any reason whatsoever, especially because of ill health, distance, and so on. It is with great pleasure that we see this devotion being established in the Vancouver Archdiocese.

Gospel

Now allow me to say a word about this evening’s Gospel. It is taken from Jesus’ farewell address to his Apostles at the Last Supper when he shares with them his last will and testament. He repeats what he said to them right after washing their dirty feet. They were to love one another, just as he has loved them. But he goes a step further and adds that no one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Two thoughts here deserve our attention.

First, this is a reference to Jesus’ imminent death on the Cross – laying down his life. Love, true love, is sacrificial; it is ready to “give up” or surrender even life itself for the good of the other.

Second, this offering of one’s life is carried out for one’s “friends.” Jesus identifies these “friends” as his disciples. They aren’t just his servants, but his friends (cf. Jn 15:15). This is who we are: “friends” of Jesus, his companions.

Friendship with Jesus Fostered by Prayer

Just as the Lord wanted his disciples to be with him, to “abide with him” (cf. Jn 15:4) before he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom, so must we open ourselves to his presence with us before we set out to fulfill our baptismal responsibility to be evangelizers.

Moreover, those who have a personal relationship with Jesus cannot keep to themselves what they enjoy. They feel compelled to pass on that Good News.1 “There is nothing more beautiful – Benedict XVI once said – than to know Jesus and to speak to others of our friendship with him.”

But what is friendship? When both parties want the same things, and reject the same things. Friendship is a communion, a kind of partnership of thinking and willing. Friendship with Christ is a sharing of his “mind,” having “the same mind . . . that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). We are, then, not merely servants who obey Jesus’ orders, conscripts in his salvation army, but friends who know him.

God knows me by name, as a true friend of his. I am not just some nameless being in the infinity of the universe. The Lord knows me personally. So, the question is: Do I know him? Do I try to know him better through the daily hour of presence in the Scriptures, but also in the Sacraments, in the Communion of Saints, in the people who cross my path whom he sends my way?

Let me close by citing Pope Francis’s insistence on the importance of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as the heart of every Christian life:

I invite all Christians [let me paraphrase: you], everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord.” The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace.”

Conclusion

Dear brothers and sisters: your induction into the Guard of Honour will bring you and your families closer to the Lord’s redeeming embrace, and bestow many blessings on all of us. Your fidelity to your chosen hour when you are more intentionally close to the Heart of Jesus will lead to your sanctification.

Let me now read to you the beautiful letter I received today from Father John Horgan.

J. Michael Miller, CSB

Archbishop of Vancouver