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Published on:

23rd May 2020

Happy Clappy!

Saturday, May 23rd, 2020

 “All peoples clap your hands”. These are not usually the first thing we like to see in our churches or even necessarily anywhere. Associated with sometimes mistimed and misappropriate situations, news of this happening at a Christian meeting somewhere might trigger an immediate desire to get away as fast as possible. And yet they are the words of today’s psalm. Part of their importance is to demonstrate the very incarnate nature of Christianity. Christianity is not a merely cerebral or spiritual exercise. We are not angels. We have been gifted with bodies - for the very purpose, first of all, of the endless and public praise and worship of God. This is why churches will never remain closed - and why mass viewed on a screen in our lounge room is never ever sufficient. Embodied creatures, Christians are sacramental beings - like Christ, both body and spirit. Spending time in church, and adopting different positions in worship like standing, kneeling, sitting, the placement of our hands - and yes, when appropriate clapping too - are an essential part of our lived Christianity. For it is not just my heart which is Christian - I am Christian.

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About the Podcast

The Furnace
The Furnace is a free brief daily homily podcast by a priest of the Emmanuel Community for the Archdiocese of Sydney. The aim of the podcast is to proclaim the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the "glowing furnace of love" (St Gertrude the Great).
Why The Furnace? Quite simply because most people in Australia, and the
world, can no longer get to Mass, or even into a church. The point of these
podcasts is to bring people a share of the Mass in the Word of God and prayer.
But why the name? Because the Heart of Jesus is a “Furnace of love”. This
is how St Gertrude the Great describes it. As she prays:

O Sacred Heart of Jesus,
fountain of eternal life,
Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love.
You are my refuge and my sanctuary.
O my adorable and loving Saviour,
consume my heart with the burning fire
with which Yours is aflamed.
Pour down on my soul those graces
which flow from Your love.
Let my heart be united with Yours.
Let my will be conformed to Yours in all things.
May Your Will be the rule of all my desires and actions.
Amen

The point of these homilies is first of all to share this with everyone - to
share the love of God’s heart with every human heart. There is nothing original
about that. This is, basically, all priests are ever trying to do. And it’s the only
real point of the Catholic Church: invented by Christ to share Christ, starting
from his pierced heart on the cross on Good Friday. It’s only fitting that at this
time each of us are being refitted with slightly larger crosses that our creator
comes to meet us from the cross with his own heart pierced and broken.

There is so much I could say about the Heart of Jesus - but I would have
to go on forever, because his Heart is infinite. So I’ll finish with the invitation of
another of the great saints of the Sacred Heart, St Claude la Colombiere:
May the Heart of Jesus Christ be our school! Let us make our abode there . . .

Let us study its movements and attempt to conform ours to them.
My friends, lets enter Jesus’ heart together.

It’s not just me recording it, or just you listening to a recording.

I rely on your prayers, and as I write and talk I am praying for each of you. And
in any case, there is no such thing as a Christian doing something by themselves:
like the Trinity, where one is, the others are. So let’s enter together, for Jesus is
standing in front of us now, with his heart wide open, to enter and experience
his love, his healing, his teaching, authentic freedom - and eternal life with him.