The glory of God's Heart

The fullness of each person is the glory of God's Heart. ~ Life Unfolding: Offering the Gift (2013)

This morning when I posted my St Ignatius day greetings on Facebook I added: May we all always seek to live AMDG! These initials are the abbreviation of the Jesuit motto, Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, To the greater glory of God: an invitation to live our lives for God and others as fully and generously as possible, so that everything we are and do flows from God and is directed back to God. It is a reminder that in all things our sole aim and desire should be the praise and glory of God - not ourselves: no mean feat in our success-driven world.

Of course, I could have added that RSCJ don't actually live AMDG, but are called, instead, to be AMSCG - to the greater glory of the Sacred Heart. This is set out in paragraph 4 of our Constitutions, which explains both the end and the means. And interestingly, this is the only part of the Constitutions where someone felt we needed to hit the Caps Lock key...

By our charism, we are consecrated
to GLORIFYING THE HEART OF JESUS:
we answer His call
to discover and reveal His love
letting ourselves be transformed by His Spirit
so as to live united and conformed to Him,
and through our love and service
to radiate the very love of His Heart.

So the call to glorify the Heart of Jesus is a call to transformation, union, love... a call to a process of growth and self-gift, in which our motivations, desires and resources are transformed and placed at God's disposal, and we become and radiate the Love at the centre of our lives. And the measure in which we live this love is the measure in which we live and become the fullness for which we were created: a fullness of love and for-Godness... and it is in this fullness that we do indeed become the glory of God's Heart...


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