A Heart of Healing

Dear Readers, I am not the first person to use this phrase, but I do believe that this year has made me forced to accept that God works in very mysterious (and often darkly funny) ways. When randomly picking my Saint of Year for 2026, the feast day of the saint I happened to get (St. Agostina Pietrantoni) is the day before my wedding. And she died at 30 - the age I am turning this year. Incidentally, my birthday falls on the Feast of  the Sacred Heart this year, a year when I have had to face more than ever what I affectionately call my “wonky” heart, and the reality of a surgery in the not so far future. 

Now, you may think: what does the Sacred Heart and a malformed human heart have to do with infertility, particularly in a year where The Fruitful Hollow is focused on a theme of celebration? For me, it is finding the joy and peace that the Sacred Heart has given me in unifying my suffering heart to the heart of Love Itself, pieced because of love for me, for everyone. 

When you look at an image of the Sacred Heart, it is a heart aflame. Aflame with love for you in the darkest part of your journey. Burning bright to help you not stumble when you feel abandoned in the darkness that infertility or any sort of grief can bring. Seeing that heart burning with total love, it makes my own heart and soul quiet. When I hate my heart and body, with all its problems related to the genetic condition that makes me permanently infertile, I see a heart that was pierced for me and loves me when I can’t love myself. And if that perfect heart can love my imperfect one, then maybe I am worthy of love, of the beautiful vocation that God is calling me to, even if I am unsure as to how fulfilling that vocation will ultimately look like. 

The other part of most images of the Sacred Heart that stands out to me is that Jesus is looking right at you while pointing to that pierced, burning heart. His gentle but firm expression meets my tired, unsure, tear-stained one while He points directly to His heart. Always directing me to His love. His perfect, sacrificial love. And I hear a gentle litany:

My worn daughter, my heart burns out of Love for you. 

My unsure daughter, my heart burns bright to guide you. 

My scared daughter, my heart burns to protect you. 

When your heart can take any more, let my heart carry yours. 

When you are carrying so much by yourself, let my heart carry yours. 

When you can’t love yourself, let my heart love yours. 

And in that, I can let my frailties, my doubts, my need for control go. And my scared, exhausted heart can rest in Love’s sacred one. There is a heart that loves and knows me and my struggles more than anyone here on earth can. So then when I get up, my heart is also burning with love, with that deep joy to meet the day, the doctors’ appointments, the hard news, the baby showers, the day-to-day highs and lows, the expected and unexpected. 

If a heart of pure love can love my wonky heart and body, then that same Sacred Heart loves you totally. Know we are praying for you, and may the heart of Jesus and His Blessed Mother hold you close.