“The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Well of Living Waters in which the Sinful Soul
finds Grace and Salvation"
By Rev. J. Fuhlrott
"Give me to drink" - John iv. 7.
Let us transport ourselves in spirit to Jacob's well, and contemplate how our divine Savior, exhausted with the journey, seats Himself beside the well, while His disciples go into the city to obtain food, and how the Lord requests the Samaritan woman, who had come to the well, to get Him water, with these words: "Give me to drink." O most gentle Jesus! Why does Thy divine Heart thirst? If even the source of salvation thirsts, how may our dry souls be refreshed?
St. John the Evangelist writes: "Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour." (John iv. 6). To this St. Augustine remarks: The mysteries are already commencing, for it is not without reason that Jesus is fatigued, not without cause that the power of God is exhausted. He is tired by the journey, and sits down at the well, at the sixth hour. He sits down tired. All this has meaning and signification." And what does it signify? At the sixth hour the Sacred Heart of Jesus thirsts, for at this hour Eve, so tells us St. Chrysostom, transgressed the commandment in Paradise. He thirsted at the sixth hour, the hour, as another saintly writer remarks, at which man sinned, and was driven out of Paradise. He thirsted at the sixth hour, that is the hour, says St. Anthony of Padua, at which Thou, O my Jesus, didst dwell upon the source of mercy - the cross - and in the same way Thy divine Heart thirsted, whilst Thou didst cry out, "I thirst" After what didst Thou thirst? Surely it was the salvation of those, replies the same St. Anthony, for whose redemption Thou didst shed Thy blood. Now we can no longer be surprised that the tired and thirsty Heart of Jesus requested a drink of water from the Samaritan woman. St. Albertus Magnus says: "He thirsted more for the woman's salvation than for the drink of water; and, seated at the well, He led this sinner to salvation in the most wonderful and gentle manner, so that she, who had been vicious and atrocious, became now meek and contrite of heart, a gentle lamb of Christ, and became finally a martyr for the Christian faith, whose holy relics are still preserved in the Basilica of St. Paul at Rome.
O ye thirsty and sinful souls, come also this living source, to this spring of salvation, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to which St. John says in his secret revelations: "To him that thirsts I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely" (Apoc. xxi. 6). Let us meditate more closely upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the source of salvation.
Small and
unimportant was the fountain which Mardochai once saw in a dream, but this
fountain soon grew into a river, and was turned into a light, and into the sun,
and abounded into many waters. (Esther x. 6). What does this strange
mysterious dream of Mardochai signify? How can water turn into light and
sun. By this little fountain that became a great river we are to
understand the Sacred Heart of Jesus. "What is this, O kind Jesus?"
exclaims
Mallonius, "what is this? Behold, the little fountain of blood enclosed in
the Heart of Jesus! And after the lance had opened His side, was that
fulfilled which God said to Moses: "Strike the rock and water will flow
therefrom; for after the mystical rock - Christ - had been struck with the
spear, the little fountain grew into a river."
Again, how could the river of this precious blood and water which flowed from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, be turned into light and sun? Have you never seen the sun reflected in a clear stream, on the pure waters of a river, how it imparted its image to the waters by the reflection of its rays, and formed another sun, so that the spring itself seemed to be a shining sun?
Look at the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There you have not only the source of all grace and every good, but you have a mystical sun that sends forth its rays of grace in every direction, and to the further most parts of the world in the most miraculous manner. O how miraculous, how rich in graces is this fountain of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus! O men, come, come, hasten to this divine fountain. Let not the words of Scripture apply to you: "for my people have done two evils" They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water and have dug to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (Jerem. ii. 13).
It is quite suitable and instructive in this place to remember the story of the healing of the man who was born blind, whose eyes the kind Jesus touched with dust and spittle, ordering him to go to the pool of Siloe, and there to wash his eyes with fresh water, where upon he would see. O good Jesus, who would not wonder at this unusual way of divine curing? Couldst Thou not have given sight to this blind man by a simple word? Why didst Thou send him to the pool of Siloe? St. Gregory he Great says: "Every act of Christ serves for our instruction." This man born blind is the human race which, by the sin of Adam, is blind from birth. Jesus saw this blind man and had compassion upon him, and in His mercy delivered him from his affliction, and how did He do this? He sent this blind man to the pool of Siloe, which, according to the holy Fathers, was a prototype of Christ crucified. "Christ," says Cornelius a Lapide "is Siloe; that is to say, the fountain of living water that flows into eternal life," for when He permitted His Sacred Heart to be opened upon the cross, the source of all grace and blessing was opened up to the human race, of which divine fountain the prophet Zachariah says: "In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for the washing of the sinner." (Zach. xiii. I). Christian soul, who art blind and a sinner, imitate this blind man who, with the greatest joy, hastened to the fountain of grace, and if, like him, you are despised by the Pharisees and Scribes for your devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and laughed at, do not grieve, for in this wholesome pool, you can be cleansed not only from the filth of your sins, but you will also obtain the enlightenment of grace. "Christ will enlighten thee." (Eph. v. 14). Because of Him, the Psalmist says: "For with thee is the fountain of life: and in they light we shall see light." (Ps. xxxv. 10). Listen to St. Thomas: If we desire to be cleansed from our blindness of heart, we must be washed spiritually, as Isaias tells us in these words: "Wash, cleans yourselves." there is no more wholesome bath for the soul than the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Herein, wash yourselves then, in the blood of the Lamb, who says of Himself: "To him that thirsteth, I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely." (Apoc. xxi. 6). That well in Egypt wherein the Mother of God washed the clothes of the divine Child is, to this day, held in great veneration by Christians as well as by Mahometans. Its waters cure in the most miraculous way many sicknesses. St. Peter's fountain at Rome, which sprang in a miraculous manner out of the Mamertine rock at the foot of the Capitol so that St. Peter could baptize the roman soldiers who were converted to Christ, is also famous, and even to this day there flows a healing water from this fountain.
There are many other miraculous fountains, but there is one which, without comparison, surpasses all the others, namely, the fountain of life: the Sacred and divine Heart of Jesus. Ask that disciple who reposed upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus, what he drew from this divine fountain. "Rivers of wisdom," says the Venerable Bede, so that he could say: "In the beginning was the Word." O happy disciple! Who can comprehend the incomparable sweetness which thou didst then drink in from the most amiable Heart of Jesus!
St. Bernard mentions five fountains of the Redeemer: The first he calls the fountain of mercy; the second, the fountain of wisdom; the third, the fountain of grace; the fourth, the fountain of love; and the fifth, which is the Sacred side and Heart of Jesus, he calls the fountain of life, in which we are not only cleansed from sin, but born again to a new life. "From this fountain," says St. Ambrose, "there flows, not the corruption of death, but the source of life everlasting." O men, why do you drink of the inebriating filthy waters of worldly pleasures? why do you forsake the fountain of life eternal?
An abundant fountain of grace is God, the crucified, the Eucharistic, and especially His Sacred Heart, whence flows the source of all graces and blessings. How beautifully the Lord says through Ezekiel: "I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness." (Ezek. xxxvi. 24).