Painful Swords Piercing the Heart of Jesus

Divine Appeal Reflection - 173

Today, consider in Divine Appeal 173: "We are in times of violence. Great offences will befall... I am sad and My heart is pierced by very painful swords."

There is a violence that makes no noise. It does not destroy buildings, spill blood, or attract public attention. It is born in the secret sanctuary of the heart when a person slowly loses the capacity to receive another person as a gift. This hidden violence is one of the deepest mysteries surrounding human sin. Before one wounds another’s body, the heart may first wound the person’s dignity within its own imagination. The other becomes an obstacle, rival, inconvenience, or enemy—and eventually someone whose suffering no longer matters . Consider the mysterious story of Nabal and Abigail. Nabal possessed wealth, abundance, and security, yet his heart was closed, harsh, and contemptuous toward David's men(cf. 1 Sam 25:2–38). His refusal created a situation in which violence was ready to multiply . Abigail entered the crisis with humility, wisdom, courage, and peace. She stood between an insult and a coming act of bloodshed. Her hidden intervention prevented destruction. This is a magnificent mystical image for our age: one soul united to God can stand between two movements of darkness and prevent evil from becoming history. The world may never know how many tragedies were prevented by a mother's prayer, a priest's silence, a wife's forgiveness, a friend's intervention, or a religious soul remaining before the Eucharist. The Catechism (cf. CCC 2302–2305) teaches that peace is not merely the absence of conflict but the fruit of justice and charity . The practical question is therefore not simply, “Am I violent?” It is more frightening: “When tension enters a room, what becomes stronger because I am present—peace or darkness?” A manager humiliates an employee publicly. Everyone watches. One colleague later spends an hour listening to the wounded employee instead of joining the gossip. A family argument begins, and one person refuses to repeat the cruel words inherited from previous generations. A priest discovers conflict among parish leaders and refuses to manipulate one side against the other. These are not small actions. Mystically, they are places where the Kingdom of God enters history. St Catherine of Siena understood that reform begins with a soul becoming inflamed by God rather than merely becoming angry about the world's failures. Holiness interrupts its journey. The soul becomes a sacred threshold where darkness is prevented from passing into another person. Perhaps this is one of the deepest forms of reparation: not merely mourning the wounds inflicted upon the Heart of Christ, but refusing to allow another wound to leave our own heart and enter the world.

A deeper mystical insight appears when we realise that every human offence is first an offence against love itself. God created the human person to become a place where divine love can pass into creation. Sin reverses this movement. Instead of receiving love and transmitting it, the soul receives grace and stops it within itself. The person becomes spiritually blocked. What should have become tenderness becomes self-protection. What should have become authority becomes domination. What should have become intelligence becomes manipulation. What should have become strength becomes intimidation. The extraordinary story of Samson reveals this tragic distortion. Samson received extraordinary strength,(cf. Judg 13:24–25; 14:1–20; 16:4–31) but his life shows how divine gifts can coexist with interior disorder when the heart remains insufficiently surrendered . His strength could defeat enemies, yet it could not automatically conquer his own passions. This is a severe lesson for every vocation. A person can possess gifts without possessing himself. A priest may have a powerful preaching gift but remain unable to accept criticism. A business leader may possess remarkable intelligence but use employees as instruments. A husband may provide materially while emotionally dominating his family. A religious superior may possess administrative skill while creating fear in the community. A talented young Catholic may defend the faith brilliantly online while becoming cruel toward those who disagree. The mystical tragedy is that the gifts of God can become swords when they are no longer governed by love. The witness of the saints asks us to examine the purpose of every gift. Why has God given me influence? Why has He given me education? Why has He given me authority? If authority makes others afraid to speak truth, something sacred has become distorted. If knowledge makes us incapable of listening, intelligence has become an enclosure. If religious responsibility makes us unavailable to suffering people, ministry has become disconnected from its Source. The Catechism warns against anger and deliberate hatred because violence is not simply a physical problem; it is a corruption of charity itself (cf. CCC 2302–2303). The mystical remedy is profound: place every gift back into the Heart of Jesus. Let your strength become protection. Let your words become shelter. Let your authority become service. Let your intelligence become light. Let your influence become a bridge. The Heart of Christ suffers whenever His gifts are turned against His children—but His grace can transform even dangerous strength into sacrificial love.

One of the most mysterious forms of violence is the violence of memory. Some people are not fighting the person standing before them; they are fighting someone from twenty years ago. A husband reacts to his wife through wounds created by his childhood. A superior distrusts a community member because of a betrayal experienced in another community. A young man becomes aggressive because humiliation has become part of his identity. The past silently enters the present and demands new victims. Here the uncommon biblical story of Jephthah becomes deeply significant(cf. Judg 11:1–11). He was rejected by his family and driven away by his brothers . Later, when his strength was needed, the same society that had rejected him sought his help. His story carries the mystery of a wounded person whose history becomes entangled with tragic decisions (cf. Judg 11:29–40). It teaches us that unhealed rejection can follow a person into moments of great responsibility. A wounded soul may receive power before receiving healing. This is spiritually dangerous. A person who was once ignored may later become unable to tolerate being contradicted. Someone raised under humiliation may later humiliate others. Someone betrayed may later become incapable of trust. Someone who suffered abandonment may begin abandoning others before they can be abandoned again. Here lies an astonishing mystical law: the wound that is offered to God can become an altar; the wound that is protected from God can become a weapon. Imagine a woman whose family betrayed her financially. Years later, she refuses to help any relative, not because prudence requires boundaries, but because her entire heart has become organised around revenge. Or consider a priest who was treated unjustly early in ministry. Twenty years later, he unconsciously repeats the same harshness toward younger priests. The victim becomes the continuation of the violence. This is why Christ must enter memory. The Catechism describes forgiveness as rooted in the transformation of the heart and recognises that forgiveness can reach even situations where human reconciliation appears impossible (cf. CCC 2840–2845). The mystical work is not pretending that evil never happened. It is refusing to allow evil permanent ownership of the future. Bring the memory before Jesus repeatedly. Do not merely ask Him to remove pain. Ask Him: “Do not allow what happened to me to determine what passes through me.” Then the soul becomes a place where the inheritance of darkness finally ends.

There is another sword that pierces the Heart of Christ: the violence of spiritual abandonment. This happens when a person sees another soul collapsing and decides that the suffering is too complicated, inconvenient, embarrassing, or demanding. The world often imagines violence only as something actively done. But Scripture reveals that refusing to protect can also have terrible consequences. Consider the Levite's concubine in the Book of Judges,(cf. Judg 19:1–30) a disturbing and painful biblical narrative in which human beings fail catastrophically in hospitality, protection, and moral responsibility, and the resulting violence exposes the profound disorder of Israel . The story is difficult precisely because Scripture does not hide the consequences of a society in which human dignity is no longer protected. It confronts us with a severe question: What happens when everyone assumes someone else will act? Today, a child is being bullied, but teachers believe another teacher will intervene. An elderly parent is neglected because each sibling assumes another sibling is responsible. A woman is suffering abuse, but neighbours remain silent because they do not want involvement. A young seminarian shows signs of spiritual collapse, but everyone assumes his formator has noticed. A religious sister is repeatedly isolated in community, but others remain neutral to preserve “peace.” Yet neutrality can sometimes protect the person causing harm rather than the person being harmed. The Catechism insists upon respect for human dignity and teaches that peace requires the safeguarding of persons and the practice of fraternity (cf. CCC 2304–2306). St Peter Claver entered a world where countless enslaved persons were treated as objects rather than persons. He responded by approaching those whom society had effectively abandoned. St Katharine Drexel used her resources and vocation to challenge patterns of exclusion and neglect. Their holiness was not sentimental compassion. They moved toward suffering that others had learned to avoid. This is the apostolic challenge of the Appeal. When a soul encounters suffering, Christ asks: “Will you become another person who passes responsibility away?” A nurse can see beyond the next task and recognize a person entrusted to her care; a lawyer can pursue justice without losing compassion; an officer can protect without contempt; a religious superior can correct without crushing; and a student can defend a humiliated classmate (cf. Mt 25:40; Mic 6:8; Col 3:12–13).The mystical heart of peace is therefore holy responsibility. Love says, “This suffering may not be entirely mine, but because God allowed me to see it, I cannot pretend it does not exist.” Sometimes the painful sword is removed not by a great miracle but by one person finally saying, “I will not leave this soul alone.”

The highest mystical dimension of this reflection is found in the mystery of God's apparent vulnerability before human freedom. Love does not force itself. This is why the Heart of Jesus can be wounded. Not because God is powerless, but because divine Love freely leaves room for the beloved’s response (cf. Deut 30:19; Rev 3:20). This mystery is almost unbearable: the Almighty chooses to love without coercing (cf. Hos 11:8–9; Jn 15:13). The Almighty allows the human heart to reject His grace. The Creator permits His creatures to wound one another. The Redeemer enters the consequences of human violence without becoming violent Himself. The prophet Hosea offers a remarkable biblical window into this mystery. His personal experience of wounded love became mysteriously connected with God's revelation of divine fidelity toward an unfaithful people (cf. Hos 1:2–3; 2:14–23; 3:1–5). Love remains capable of sorrow precisely because love refuses indifference. Only what we love can truly wound us. Therefore, Christ's sorrow reveals not distance but unimaginable closeness. He is wounded because every soul matters. He sees the unborn child, the frightened refugee, the neglected elderly person, the prisoner, the violent offender, the victim, the lonely priest, the exhausted mother, the forgotten religious, and the young person losing faith—not as anonymous statistics but as persons created for eternal communion. The mystical invitation is breathtaking: Christ does not ask us to carry the world's pain by ourselves. He asks us to allow His Heart to teach our hearts how to carry a small part of it without becoming destroyed. The Catechism teaches that peace is ultimately the fruit of Christ's reconciliation and that hostility is overcome through His saving work (cf. CCC 2304–2305). Therefore, the final mystical question is not, “How can I escape the darkness of the world?” It is, “Can Christ find in me one place where darkness does not reproduce itself?” When insult reaches you, will it stop there? When betrayal reaches you, will it stop there? When anger enters your heart, will you bring it to prayer before it becomes someone else's wound? When you witness suffering, will you become indifferent—or an intercessor? This is the hidden vocation of every Christian: to become a place where evil reaches its boundary and cannot travel further. In such a soul, the sorrow of Christ becomes prayer; the wounds of humanity become compassion; and the world's violence encounters something it cannot understand—the invincible gentleness of a heart possessed by God.

Prayer 

O Adorable Jesus, receive every wound within me before it becomes another person's wound. Purify my memories, anger, fears, and hidden resentment. Make my heart a boundary where violence ends. Teach me holy responsibility, courageous compassion, and faithful intercession. May Your wounded Heart transform my suffering into peace, mercy, and love. Amen.

Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.