In June of this year, 1999, Pope John Paul II not only reflected on political circumstances and lived the anxieties and hopes for a peace of justice and solidarity for the people of Kosovo, he also once again became a pilgrim and an apostle of the Gospel in the country of his birth. He delivered a great message to all people when he affirmed: "I love the world because I have a homeland".
The institutes and movements which are characterized by the spirituality of the Heart of Jesus were filled with surprise and joy as they heard the Pope's repeated declarations regarding the extraordinary topicality of the values proclaimed and fed by devotion or veneration of the Sacred Heart.
On Sunday, June 6th, he started by inviting the faithful to render "praise and glory to the Heart of Jesus, in which the paternal face of God is revealed most completely". He continued by clarifying that "God placed in the Heart of Jesus all that He wanted to tell us of Himself and of His love, it is through this Heart that He has expressed it... It is through the Heart of Jesus that we read the eternal divine plan for the salvation of the world. And it is a plan of love" (Oss. Rom., June 6,1999).
On Monday, June 7th, he invoked the Heart of Jesus, and referred to it as "our peace and reconciliation". And then, commenting on the seventh beatitude - Blessed are the peacemakers - he exclaimed with anguish: "How much innocent blood has been shed in the 20th Century in Europe and in the entire world... How much innocent blood is being shed before our very eyes. The tragic events in Kosovo are a painful demonstration of this... Societies and nations need men of peace". He spoke of his hope for "men who will fill their hearts with the peace of Christ and take it to others, take it into homes, into institutions, into work places, into the entire world" (ibid, June 9,1999).
But the Pope gave us his greatest gift on Sunday, June 11th, when he sent the faithful of all the world a "message" to recall the centenary of the consecration of the human race to the Heart of Jesus, which was proclaimed by Leo XIII on June 11,1899. In his message the Pope emphasized that this consecration to the Heart of Jesus "is to be associated with the missionary action of the Church, for this corresponds to the desire of the Heart of Jesus to propagate in the world... His total dedication to the Kingdom and to ever increasingly unite the Church in the offering of Himself to the Father and in His existence for others". In this document the Pope repeatedly invited us to see, in the mystery of Our Savior's wounded side, the highest expression of His gift to the whole of humanity: that of redeeming love; and he spoke of his desire to "make it understood that Christianity is the religion of love". This is an inestimable gift, but it also creates a great responsibility: the duty to accomplish the new evangelization.
The Pope explained that the Christian who, when looking at the Heart of Christ, consecrates himself to Him, finds himself to be the bearer of His light. And, animated by his spirit of service, he cooperates in presenting all mankind with the possibility of being elevated towards their own personal and communal fullness.
Andrea Tessarolo, scj