Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the dedication of this chapel.
It was dedicated in 1997 by Archbishop Daniel Buechlein.
We normally just call it the Sacred Heart Chapel, but I read that its full name is the Chapel of the Resurrection and Glorification of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Now it is from the glorified heart of Jesus that all graces come, flowing like a river from his pierced heart.
This was prophesied by Ezekiel.
He had a vision of the new temple, not of a temple built of stone, because no temple ever was or will be built that looked like what he described.
It is rather a symbolic vision of the temple of the new covenant.
This is the temple of which Christ said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.
He was speaking about the temple of his body.
So when Ezekiel saw that water flowed down from the right side of the temple, he meant that water flowed from the right side of Christ.
This happened when one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, Christ's side, and at once there came out blood and water.
The blood and water are symbolic of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and baptism, but water is also more generally a symbol of grace.
So Ezekiel sees a river of grace flowing from the pierced heart of Christ.
Initially, he just saw water trickling from the right side, but in a part of the passage that the reading skipped, as he follows the trickle downstream, it becomes ankle deep, then knee deep, then waist deep, and finally a river too deep to wade across.
Just so the graces that flow from the heart of Christ become more abundant as the centuries pass, the church grows, and the great saints arise.
The course of this river as described in Ezekiel is not all downstream, and that's another sign that this is in fact a symbolic vision.
Ezekiel says that the river empties into the sea, whose salt waters it makes fresh.
The sea in scripture is often an image of people who do not submit to God.
Isaiah writes, for example, the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.
There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.
So the waters of the river that make salt water fresh are an image of grace bringing people to conversion, and an image of baptism in particular.
Salt water cannot quench thirst, but fresh water can, and Christ says, or said on the cross, I thirst.
Now, along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow.
Saint Jerome says that these are the divine scriptures.
Their fruit will serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.
The literal sense of scripture, he explains, nourishes souls, while the spiritual sense cures the wounds of sinners.
Their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail, because Christ said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
What keeps them fresh and bearing fruit is the river that flows out of the sanctuary.
It is by the grace of Christ that we discover in scripture what we need to be nourished and healed.
The responsorial psalm also speaks of this river, which gladdens the city of God.
It is surely a joy to know we are loved by God, and to experience his blessings, which we do particularly at church.
The other verses speak chiefly of God as the source of the city's strength, and this indeed is what grace does in enabling us to resist temptation.
Saint Augustine comments, mountains splinter, the sea rages, but God stays faithful to the city by means of this impetuous river.
What is it, and what are its impulses?
They are the inundation of the spirit.
So, in this way, God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress, particularly that distress of being tempted and not knowing where to turn to resist the temptation.
Turn to him and be saved, Isaiah says.
Do not rely on your own strength, but on his, and nevertheless do all that you can.
Christ, who thirsts for the conversion of sinners, said one fateful day to the Samaritan woman, give me a drink.
Yet he told her that he had living water to give, and promised, whoever drinks of the water I will give him will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water flowing up to eternal life.
Such is a runlet of the stream that gladdens the city of God.
Jesus spoke of this elsewhere, saying, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
Now this he said about the Spirit, the evangelist explains.
This he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.
Now, if the Spirit of God dwells in you, then you are the temple of God, as St. Paul says.
So not Christ only, but each one of us is the temple of God, because he is a Christian, or because every Christian is another Christ.
The life of a Christian is the imitation of Christ.
Christ had established that he was at least a prophet, for he told the Samaritan woman things about her that he had no natural way of knowing.
So she thought perhaps he could settle the dispute about where worship should be offered.
The Jews said it could only be in the Jerusalem temple, while the Samaritans worshipped only on Mount Gerizim, which she called this mountain because they could see it there rising above them, as they talked.
Jesus replies, this hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
In the future, it will no longer be necessary to worship in either of these two places.
Indeed, that future was already present, because Christ was present, and in that future, the essential thing would not be the location, but to worship the Father in spirit and truth.
Our temple is Christ.
This expression, “spirit and truth,” has been interpreted in various ways.
But Saint Basil says, by truth he clearly meant himself.
If we say that worship offered in the Son, the truth, is worship offered in the Father's image, that is, in Christ, for Christ is the Father's image, we can say the same about worship offered in the Spirit, since the Spirit in himself reveals the divinity of the Lord.
This is the worship that we are to offer in our churches, where Christ and the Spirit act through the sacraments.
After the earthly life of Christ and the Samaritan woman, this city became known as Flavia Neapolis, and in AD 484 the Samaritans rebelled against the Byzantines.
They lost their rebellion, and the Emperor Zeno built a church dedicated to the Mother of God on Mount Gerizim, overlooking the place where these two had talked, Jesus and the woman.
The Bishop of Neapolis, Tarabinthius, saw in this a fulfillment of Christ's prophecy, that there would be worshipers in spirit and truth there.
That church, which has since been destroyed, turns out to have many things in common with our chapel.
Both are octagonal. The eight sides recall the eighth day, the day of the resurrection.
This is one of the classic shapes for the churches, but certainly a very appropriate one for the chapel of the resurrection and glorification of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The church on Mount Gerizim is built of local stone, and this chapel is faced with local stone.
That church overlooked Jacob's well.
This church overlooks the well, or at least the pump, where people pump farm water.
That church is on a low mountain. This chapel is on a hill.
Both were in places that were a bit remote, so that they were intended more as a pilgrimage destination than to serve the local people.
That church was inside a fortress, lest the Samaritans rebel again, as in fact, they did 50 years later.
This chapel is to be said within a fortress, a spiritual fortress, a wall of prayer.
So let us continue to worship here in spirit and truth, thanking Christ for all the graces that flow continually from his Sacred Heart to gladden the city of God.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.