Over the past week, I have been using the Hallow app to pray through a Sacred Heart Retreat. Since the month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it has been a great way to reflect and pray with this devotion. Some of the days have been about various obstacles to giving our hearts fully to Jesus and embracing the Sacred Heart. One of these obstacles is being lukewarm in our spiritual lives. Are our hearts on fire with love for Jesus and do we live with an awareness of His love for us?
I think one of the worst things we can allow is to become lukewarm in our faith. In the meditation on the app, Mother Olga, one of the people leading the retreat explains that being lukewarm is “a disease that progresses” and it is “like a death in slow motion” (Sacred Heart Retreat, Day 2). Being lukewarm prevents us from loving Jesus as we should.
How can we look at Jesus and not recognize His Sacred Heart, burning with love for us and not want to be filled with that same fire? What it comes down to is being lukewarm. We all go through periods of spiritual dryness in our lives, but this is not the same as being lukewarm. Being lukewarm is being neither hot nor cold, and being indifferent. How can we encounter Jesus Christ and not be impacted each and every day by His love? If we are lukewarm, this is the reality. We would go about our days, moving from task to task, event to event, without even thinking once about Jesus. We might be living lukewarm lives in some aspects, because we all fail to love Jesus at times, due to our weaknesses and sins. How do we overcome this obstacle?
We can ask Jesus to help us. One of the suggestions from Fr. Pierre, a priest providing reflections for the retreat, was to pray “Jesus, I don’t want to be lukewarm” or “Jesus, send the fire of Your love so that I can truly be on fire for love of you” (Sacred Heart Retreat, Day 2). He will help us if we ask. Going to mass, reading scripture, receiving the sacraments, spending time in His presence, and surrounding ourselves with a faith community are all ways that we can continue to keep the fire burning.
Jesus’ love and His Sacred Heart change everything. Do we allow His love to change our lives? My prayer for each of us today is that our hearts would be continually set on fire with love for Jesus and that we would not be hindered by the obstacle of being lukewarm.
Faith and The Good Stuff 