Drawing Close to the Sacred Heart With Julia Greeley
“Heart speaks to heart” (St. Francis de Sales).
“I Thirst”: Using Our Gifts to Quench Christ’s Thirst
In a message by Pope St. John Paul II for Lent 1993, the great pope called the Church to reflect on Jesus’ words, “I thirst” (John 19:28) and “Give me a drink” (John 4:7). In these words, he wrote, ‘we hear a cry from the poor, especially those who did not have access to clean water’. In a subsequent letter to the Missionaries of Charity, St. Teresa of Calcutta (then simply known as Mother Teresa) elaborated on this message:
“‘I thirst’ is something much deeper than Jesus just saying ‘I love you.’ Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you — you can’t begin to know who He wants to be [for] you. Or who He wants you to be for Him.”
This Lent, Catholic Women in Business invites you to reflect with us on how Jesus thirsts for each one of us and how we can quench His thirst — through prayer, through sacrifice, through loving His children who are most in need (and there are so many this Lent in particular!). In our content this season, we’ll be exploring how, as Catholic professionals, we can begin to understand “who He wants to be” for us, “who He wants [us] to be for Him,” and how we can share His great love for us all with everyone we encounter.
We live in a country that is obsessed with power: who has power and who doesn’t, how to achieve power, and how to correct its imbalances. To some extent, examining power is right and just: As Catholics, we are obligated to advocate for the oppressed and to oppose evil.
However, it’s easy to adopt the world’s distorted focus on dominance that conflates justice with retribution. When we make this fixation our own, we forget that we serve a crucified Lord, and it seeps into our personal and professional lives.
For example, on a day-to-day level, we can lose ourselves in the pursuit of what we believe is due to us, making sure we achieve all of the acclaim or rewards we feel we deserve. Alternately, we may allow ourselves to become embittered when we perceive someone who is thriving in the eyes of the world, whom we believe deserves less or worse.
Taking this jaundiced worldview to a community or societal level, we can be tempted to despair when we see groups or individuals who appear to encourage — or even benefit from — division, injustice, and persecution.
Instead of despair, as we observe Black History Month as Americans and begin Lent as Catholics, let us meditate on the very different example of Julia Greeley, a Black American candidate for sainthood.
An Example of Self-giving Love
A former enslaved woman, Julia was blind in one eye — an eye that, throughout her life, was said to sometimes ooze. She had received the blinding injury at the age of five, the result of standing close by while her mother was being whipped.
Poor and illiterate, Julia went to Denver after the Civil War to work as a housekeeper for the state’s governor. Later, she did laundry and scrubbed floors, including at her church, Sacred Heart. She never married, and while she was extremely arthritic, she spent her free time taking necessary items to Black and white families alike: food, clothing, coal — one time carrying a mattress on her back and another time taking a stroller to a family with a baby.
Despite the risk to an older, Black woman during a time of prevalent and overt racism, Julia executed these dangerous missions of mercy under the cover of dark like a commando. She did so due to the fact that the white beneficiaries of her charity were often embarrassed to accept it because of her race.
These corporal works of mercy weren’t the end of Julia’s hard work to build up Christ’s kingdom, however. She spent the first Friday of each month doing spiritual works of mercy: visiting fire stations and delivering pamphlets from the Sacred Heart League. Julia had a profound devotion to the Sacred Heart, even passing to eternal life unexpectedly on the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
Her funeral and lying-in-state attracted a large crowd of people from all strata of society, united in mourning for this woman in recognition of her example of humility and self-giving love.
Following Julia Greeley’s Example
There is a lot of talk today about systems and structures, whether it’s building, dismantling, or changing them. How often do we keep in mind that these systems and structures are made up of individuals made in the likeness of God? Do we interact with each person we meet with this truth in mind? Because it’s part of the revolutionary work of God that Mary proclaimed in the Magnificat, the work of casting down the mighty from their thrones and raising up the lowly.
Finding balance in the struggle against injustice and oppression through our day-to-day relationships is where Julia’s devotion to the Sacred Heart becomes instructive.
St. Francis de Sales described the way we should relate to Jesus’ Sacred Heart in prayer, saying that it is when, “heart speaks to heart.” It only stands to reason that when we know Jesus in this intimate way, we are better able to recognize him in our neighbor.
Dietrich Bonhoffer — who, as someone killed for his role in a conspiracy to overthrow the Nazis, knew something about dismantling systemic racism — had this to say: “The person who loves their idea of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”
The truth is, our personal, individual vision of a just society, community, or workplace may not match God’s. We even work against his vision if we pursue justice without consulting with his son’s Sacred Heart.
Moreover, revolutionary change is not always dramatic. Sometimes, the fight against evil takes place by stealthily winning people’s hearts and minds: a counterinsurgency of love, going house to house and knocking on doors, just like Julia Greeley, whose desire to console Jesus’ Sacred Heart led her to offer help to people who were ashamed to be seen receiving it.
Julia Greeley’s rule of life based on radical charity shows us that there is true power in giving up secular ideas of power and justice. She loved the enemies of peace and unity even as they continued to act in ignorance and hatred, holding them accountable through her Christ-like witness of compassion.
After all, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us — and as someone who lived and was eventually killed under Roman occupation, Jesus was speaking quite literally.
Of course, Jesus’ example also showed us there’s a time and place for righteous indignation and decisive action. Through discernment and prayer, we can trust the Holy Spirit to show us which weapon in our spiritual arsenal is the best option for a given situation.
This Lent, let’s follow Julia Greeley’s example and draw closer to Jesus’ Sacred Heart, letting him use us to love our neighbor, transforming our workplaces, communities, country, and world to build his kingdom of true justice.
Maggie Phillips is a freelance writer and military spouse with three small children and an incredibly patient husband. Follow her work at mrsmaggiephillips.com and on Instagram at @maggies_words.