i love you with all my liver

In some parts of Africa they believed that the seat of love is the liver. So probably during valentines day they give each other a card shaped like a liver with a note, I love you with all my liver. Actually scientists today would say that the seat of emotions including love is the mid-brain. But of course even these same scientists today would still follow the traditional line by saying I love you with all my heart and when they are busted by their girlfriends they would still consider themselves heartbroken and not mid-brain broken. This is so because traditionally we believe that the center of emotions and most especially of love is the heart. Regardless whether this comes from the liver of the mid-brain or the heart, the heart for us has symbolized love everything else that this loving entails.


Today we celebrate the love of God for us symbolized, and I should add, actualized by the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It summarizes so to say the many aspects of the love of God in Jesus in the many images used in the gospel to depict this fact. We have for example the prodigal son and the loving Father, the parable of the lost coin, the image of a shepherd looking for his lost sheep and many others. The image of the sacred Heart summarizes these all for it depicts all at once God’s passion for the sinner and his commitment to save all.
Passion and commitment. These are the two things which I would like to reflect with you this morning.
To have a consuming passion and the commitment to act, is the willingness to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to get what you want. It is a heartfelt promise to yourself from which you will not back down nor back out. Yes many of us have dreams and yes many of us have good intentions – we will do this, we will do that – so many dreams, so many intentions but only a few are willing to make the commitment necessary to attain them, and only a few have the passion to work to attain these dreams.
I believe this is what makes things difficult in the seminary most often. We want to be here, but we do not show enough effort to deserve to be here. We want to become priests, but we do not utilize the potentials that we need in order to become one. There can be a lively interest but what is an interest if there is no zeal, when there was no passion, when there is no commitment. And there is a big, big difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when it is convenient. But when one is committed to do something, one could not accept excuses, only results.
Today let us put passion and commitment to our duties and our ideals. To do so would be inconvenient as it was inconvenient for the shepherd to look for that stupid wayward sheep. But that is what commitment demands. A committed person does not back out because of inconvenience or difficulties, he would not accept excuses – only results, for commitment is the willingness to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, to get what you want. It is a heartfelt promise to yourself from which you will not back down nor back out. No excuses, only results.
Today as the high school seminarians put on the scapular of the sacred heart of Jesus I would like you to remember the attitudes of the same heart to which you now pledge allegiance. For our leaders especially - do things with a passion, commit yourselves to your responsibilities and do them with passion, be in love with what you do.
One of the most touching scene in the movie pearl harbor was when President Roosevelt insisted that they bomb Japan to make the latter feel that the Americans would not take the bombing of Pearl Harbor sitting down. The generals, the policy makers, his cabinet secretaries all were saying that it is impossible to bomb Japan at a time when they lost almost all their planes and aircraft carriers. It was an almost chaotic meeting, with Roosevelt insisting that they could do it and all the rest insistent that it could never be done. The impasse was broken when at the height of his passion Roosevelt who was sick of polio and was sitting on his wheelchair, laboriously and painfully stood up by himself struggling so excruciatingly and in agony. All were shocked, all kept quiet, then he broke the silence saying, it could be done! And it was done.
This can only come from a man who knew what it was to be so committed to his duty, and one who has so much passion for his responsibilities despite his own feeble frame and handicap. Follow the way of the Heart of Jesus.