If The Catholic Register were written by nattering nit pickers of negativism, we would find two unfortunate things to say about Cardinal Leo’s recent meditation about June being dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The first would be that the sheer logistical limitations of communication, even in this age of instant-everywhere-always-on information flow, keeps the meditation’s power and beauty from being distributed as universally as it truly merits.

Posted on the Archdiocese of Toronto website, the Cardinal’s message is a must-read for every Catholic in every parish within the district’s boundaries. Emphatically, not just as a “duty read” to keep up with what Leo has to say. No. It needs to be read as a gift of faith-fueling inspiration for whatever fire is needed in Catholic hearts as we mark Pentecost in our spiritual and daily lives.

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Its inspiration operates on a myriad of levels but two in particular demand mention here. 

One is the critical reminder that “symbols” of the Church are not empty vessels of human memory and habit. They are embodiments of reality itself: real reality, not the fictions of our egos or perversities of our wishes. 

“Symbols are important as they convey meanings in what they represent, and they point beyond their own reality to something else, someone else,” Cardinal Leo writes.

The second vital point of inspiration is that discovering the fullness of such “real reality” is a mission whose end is “fundamentally oriented towards our future glory (with) the discovery of the personal face of God.” 

By attending to the symbolic realness of Our Lord’s Sacred Heart, Cardinal Leo says, we transcend the limits of intellect and come to know His Heart, as it were, face-to-face.

“In this way the Sacred Heart becomes not just a symbol of the greatest love that ever existed, but also a wellspring of hope and endurance in the face of suffering, sin, and uncertainty for all those who approach the Sacred Heart with faith, humility and trust,” he says.

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“For men and women of faith, God is more than a concept, an ideal, the divine law-giver or the mysterious ‘Someone up there, somewhere.’ He is the God who has revealed Himself…He is the God of Jesus – the only God.”

In a world where virtually (literally “virtually”) everything is an icon or brand marker, a tawdry symbol of the clanging cymbals of the market’s necessary evils, Catholics of the Toronto Archdiocese need to hear, meditate upon, absorb and take comfort from the Cardinal’s message. So do Catholics far outside the Toronto Archdiocese, people of Christian faith who aren’t within the fold of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, even people beyond (for now) the hearing of Christ’s call. 

Obviously, only the nattering nitpickers of negativity referenced above would fault the Cardinal and the Archdiocese for the unfortunate limits of communication that impede such a full-scale imparting of his crucial word. We at the Register are clearly not among them.

We do, however, have a secondary nit to pick with a key member of a certain well-known pro-life organization. He, unfortunately, made public use of the Cardinal’s words in a manner antithetical to the import Leo intended for symbols generally and their reality as the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

A tweet posted on a personal thread several days ago tied Cardinal Leo’s message directly to the annual June clamour over the flying of LGBT Pride flags in Catholic schools. “BREAKING: Canadian Cardinal: Catholics shouldn't use 'Pride' symbols—they're 'contrary to God’s divine revelation'” the headline on the tweet read.

In fact, nowhere, anywhere in the Cardinal’s meditation does Cardinal Leo even mention Pride flags – indeed, any flags – at all.

He instead urges Catholics to “honour the Sacred Heart in every home, parish, school, convent, hospital and Catholic institution. Our very own Catholic symbols help us to deepen our faith and shape our prayer life, not to mention the lives we lead and the choices we make.”

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He stresses: “We do good to use our own symbols to tell our own story without resorting to trendy, misguided and inadequate symbols that do not represent us as Catholics but rather contribute to confusion… about what the Catholic faith truly teaches regarding the human person, human nature, and natural moral law.”

Reasonable inferences can be drawn from those words, but they are only that: inferences. They must never limit the far deeper reality Cardinal Leo expresses about the Sacred Heart of Jesus.