What’s in a Name?

 

            Upon hearing the name of our family farm, one likely begins to wonder whatever was meant by such a strange title.

            We knew that we wanted our farm to signify our devotion to Our Blessed Mother and to the Sacred Heart of her Son.

            A meditation I read some time ago came to mind.  I can’t be sure, but I think it was by Saint Bonaventure.  In it, he prayed that the Lord would take him into His Heart as a refuge and that he would be sealed therein safe from all evil, safe in Divine Love.  He said that when the Sacred Heart was opened by the lance, the door that had long been closed to the Garden of Eden was reopened. 

            What a beautiful meditation!  To find Eden in the Sacred Heart of Jesus! 

            But what a small door it was that opened into that hidden garden!  One is reminded of Christ’s words in the Gospel that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.  I heard once that the “eye of the needle” was actually a reference to a very small gate commonly known by this name.  When a merchant had to enter the city by this gate, he would have to get off of his camel, unload all of his goods and the camel would have to get down on its knees and crawl through the gate. 

            To enter the Sacred Heart through the lance wound, we have to rid ourselves of everything, we must be perfectly detached from created things.  We must be willing to become humble and small.

            The thorns that crown this Sacred, wounded Heart, cause fear at the outset.  Human nature fears suffering and we must indeed suffer to enter this Heart.  It is no easy task to become perfectly detached from created things.  It is a purgation by fire which causes great pain.  But it is by embracing this suffering and this cross that we come to peace in the Garden. 

            And once we are inside this enclosed Garden, the thorns that were once a deterrent to us become a hedge of protection – they make for us a safe haven.

            The thorns are visible on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  They are present in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but they are hidden.  The roses which crown her heart are not devoid of thorns.  She bears her sorrow in utter obscurity while her Son’s sorrow is evident in the Passion.  We must endeavor to share in His pain as she did.  It is only by sharing in His suffering and death that we will come to the shores of eternal beatitude.

            It is the cross that brings resurrection.  It is pain that brings us peace.  It is the thorn that makes for us a haven.