Introduction of Prof. Dr. Bernard Ars, President of the F.I.A.M.C., to the consecration of Catholic doctors to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, proclaimed in Rome on June 21, 2019.

The consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus of catholics who practice medicine is a means and a call to grow in inner life, so that our medical professionalism is rooted in the depth of being and that it builds, in the silence and the serenity of the heart, the foundations of Life.

Christian interiority consists in a delicate and permanent attention to the voice of God who speaks to our heart and to our conscience, by inspirations and calls to the Good, the True and the Beautiful. It reveals itself in a joyful and permanent readiness to respond to this voice, like Mary: “May it be done to me according to your word”.

Only our God is incarnate on earth, in Jesus, True God and True Man, to teach you “the Way, the Truth and the Life”. Risen, victor over Evil, He shows us the way of Hope, founded in what is “reserved for you in heaven” (Col. 1, 5) and in His real presence, at all times, in the Eucharist.

To live in the real presence of Jesus strengthens us in the choice of the just service of man, facing the fascinating offers of techno-sciences. This presence illuminates our conscience in its discernment and makes it capable of objecting to the claims of evil. It inspires us in the accompaniment, full of attention and compassion, of the human person in vital and social precariousness.

In the process of consecration, there is a commitment to put himself under the influence of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, at once symbol of His physical Heart, united to His divinity; and Charity of Christ, spreads itself over men from the Eucharist. This step responds to the message addressed to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, by our Lord Jesus Christ, on June 16th, 1675, day of Corpus Christi, in Paray le Monial (France): “Here is the Heart that so loved men, has spared nothing, one that burns up to show its love and receives only coldness and contempt“.

For us, catholics who practice medicine, to consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is to connect ourselves to the source of the infinite love of God for us. It is to revive the “flame” of dedication, of seeking truth to find new ways of healing, caring for and relieve. It is to revive the fire of charity, of attention and compassion, towards our patients, through gestures that lift up rather than push down, that serve life rather than pretending to dominate it.

This consecration puts us in connection with the source of the burning Love of God. This Love enables us to break down the barriers of anonymity and indifference to communicate the tenderness of divine affection to the disabled, the sick, the traumatized, to those who are neglected and weakened by life. We will thus be able to build an ethos of fraternity, centered on openness to others and particularly to those who need effective medical help, but also a compassionate look, attentive listening, a gesture of tenderness.

To consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is also to bring us into the time of a deep relationship with God. When we love, we do not experience time anymore. It takes another dimension. We do not see is go bye anymore. It does not count anymore.

The medical world is sick of a calculated time, subject to the exclusive standard of performance. Clinical practice is caught in a whirlwind of administrative tasks and noisy messages that do not encourage reflection nor the quest for meaning. The research focuses on the desire to publish, quickly and often, often at the expense of rigor and originality.

May the resourcing by the consecration allow scientific research to enlarge the space of reason, so that it knows the greatness of its mission, the ultimate meaning of its work and the moral criteria that guide its action, clearly signaling what the inherent dignity of the human person requires and what it refuses.

The medical world is a “laboratory of society”. Medicine is a “laboratory of life”, a “laboratory” where we go down to the heart of life. When listening to the patient, it is the whole life of the person who appears or shines through. Clinical practice can be a window to the heart of the human person, because it is often in fragility that the envelopes, the masks fall to expose the truth, the heart of the woman and the man.

The consecration to the Heart of Jesus would give to the world of doctors, a new impulse to consider the person in his unity and in his depth, to discover in him of her the face of Christ, the One who had united Himself with all men, especially with those who suffer. This is how doctors can help change the world, turning it to the One who gives it meaning, the One who is our Hope. To go to the heart is to abandon superficiality to enter the depths of meaning. In doing so, it is a whole impulse that is given, a hope that is transmitted, a joy that is given to the sick, the disabled and the poor.

Doctors can transform the world. By giving themselves to their patients, they make them discover the meaning and value of their suffering when it is united with that of Christ, to contribute to the Salvation of the world. The sick enter into the heart of their lives by touching the Heart of the One who gives life and saves the whole creation. The consecration of Catholic doctors to the Sacred Heart of Jesus makes them instruments of salvation operated by Christ, which reveal to their patients the same path of the Heart, through which they too can become actors of the transformation and of the conversion of the world, to build a civilization of Love.