Jesus, Mercy Incarnate

accord that honor to pure, self-forgetful love of God and neighbor (as dis- cussed in section 4c of this essay) which presupposes trust and goes beyond it. For a summary of Fr. Rozycki’s teaching see Sr. Elzbieta Siepak, She made an Ordinary Life Extraordinary (Dublin: Divine Mercy Publications, 1996) 21-24. 35 That the heavenly Jesus Christ still has an affective longing and thirst for the good of souls, and that it is possible for us to bring additional joy and delight to His glorified Heart has been believed by an impressive array of saints, including St. Gertrude the Great, St. Margaret MaryAlacoque, St. Claude De La Colombière, theVen. Bernard de Hoyos, St.Alphonsus Liguori, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Bl. Dina Bélanger, and St. Faustina. Earlier in this century, the idea was endorsed by Reginald Garrigou- Lagrange, O.P. in his essay “Consolare il Cuore di Gesù?” in Vita Cristiana , no. 16, 1947, p. 30: “the loving adoration due to Our Lord is for Him an accidental joy (beatitudo accidentalis) that many souls refuse him.” The question of how the glorified Jesus can be said to “thirst” or “long” for our love, and receive “joy” from us was addressed also by other notable theologians in this century. They generally argued that the glorified humanity of Jesus is “impassible” but no “insensible” to our response of love to Him today (Andrea Tessarolo, S.C.J.).We shall quote two of the best passages below. Gerald Vann, O.P. wrote in The Pain of Christ and the Sorrow of God (NewYork: Alba House, 1994), 89-90: How can there both longing, desire still in Christ, since he is glorified and in the state of beatitude wherein all desires are ful- filled? But the answer is, I think, that Christ longs for the pres- encewith himof His Bodywhich is the Church in the sameway that, according to St. Thomas, the soul in glory longs for the res- urrection of the flesh; a longing, a desire, which is welcomed as part of the total love story, and because — unlike our human desires on earth — it has in it the certainty of fulfilment. Louis Verheylezoon, S.J. added the following reflections in his compre- hensive work Devotion to the SacredHeart (Rockford, Ill.: TAN, 1978), 89: True, [Christ’s] happiness is complete, nothing is wanting. His essential happiness caused by the intuitive vision of the Divinity, and by His hypostatic union with it, cannot increase. But in addition to that He enjoys an accidental happiness and 94 Jesus, Mercy Incarnate