The Righteousness of God: A Heart Unveiled by Love

Rom 3:21-30a, Psalm: 129, Lk 11:47-54

Memorial of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin

My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

On this Memorial of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom our Lord revealed the profound mysteries of His Sacred Heart, the Word of God presents us with a stark and saving contrast. It is the contrast between a righteousness we futilely try to build for ourselves and the righteousness that God freely gives us as a gift of grace.

In the Gospel, Jesus’ condemnation of the scholars of the law reaches its climax. He accuses them of a terrible irony: they “build the memorials of the prophets” whom their own ancestors killed. In doing so, they testify that they approve of the prophetic legacy, yet their present actions betray the same spirit that rejected the prophets. They hold the “key of knowledge,” the Law that should lead to God, but they themselves do not enter, and they “prevent those who are trying to enter.” Their religion has become a barrier, a system of human approval and intellectual pride that obscures the living God. It is a righteousness constructed by human hands.

This bleak picture of human failure makes the proclamation in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans all the more glorious. “Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,” Paul declares. The Law, misused by the scholars as a barrier, had the true purpose of revealing our sin and our need for a Savior. But now, a new way has been opened. “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God,” yet all “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus.”

This is the heart of the Gospel. Justification is not something we earn; it is something we receive. It is not a wage, but a gift. Our boasting, our building of religious monuments to our own piety, is excluded. We are made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ, who offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice of expiation, appeasing God’s righteous wrath against sin through His infinite love.

This is the breathtaking truth that was visibly manifested to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. In the revelations of the Sacred Heart, Jesus did not show her a heart that was cold, distant, or demanding of impossible standards. He showed her a heart burning with love, a heart that loves us infinitely despite our ingratitude and coldness. The Sacred Heart is the ultimate sign of the “righteousness of God”—not a stern judge’s verdict, but a lover’s ultimate gift. It is the divine response to the human failure we see in the Gospel. Where we build barriers, God tears them down with His wounded side.

As Pope Benedict XVI beautifully taught, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” The Sacred Heart is that encounter.

So, what is our takeaway? We are all tempted, in subtle ways, to be like the scholars of the law. We can sometimes think our piety, our knowledge, or our service makes us worthy before God. Today, both Paul and Saint Margaret Mary call us to lay down that burden. We are called to stop building our own memorials and to simply come before the pierced Heart of Jesus, acknowledging our poverty and receiving His grace.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart, with its promises of mercy and grace, is an invitation to live by faith in this unconditional love. It is a call to console that Heart by accepting the gift we could never earn.

Let us pray, then, for the grace of true humility. Let us ask St. Margaret Mary to intercede for us, that we may have the courage to drop the “key of knowledge” from our prideful hands, and instead, with the faith of a child, enter through the door that is the wounded and loving Heart of our Savior. Amen.