(June 12, 2010) The devotion to the Sacred Heart is a devotion that is deeply rooted
in the Christian people. In biblical language, "heart" indicates the centre of the
person where his sentiments and intentions dwell. In the Heart of the Redeemer we
adore God's love for humanity, his will for universal salvation, his infinite mercy.
The heart has always been expression of our love and existence and is the wellspring
of our emotional and affective lives. Devotion to the Sacred Heart in the Church is
part of the mainline of our faith: The reason is that it is basically honour paid
to the love of God as seen in and symbolized in the Heart of Jesus. Without that Divine
Love we would not exist at all, nor would we have been redeemed. For, every love,
even divine love is to desire good for another person for the sake of the other.
The church dedicates the month of June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and calls us to
spend our time reflecting on what it means to live our lives so as to reveal the Love
of a Merciful God to the world. The feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated on Friday
after the Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Devotion to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus is devotion to Jesus Christ Himself, but in the particular ways of meditating
on his interior life and on His threefold love, namely, His divine love, His burning
love that fed His human will, and His sensible love that affects His interior life.
Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical, On Devotion to the Sacred Heart, published in1956,
explained this three fold love with which the divine Redeemer unceasingly loves His
eternal Father and all mankind. He says that primarily, the Sacred heart is a symbol
of that divine love which Jesus shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit but which
He, the Word made flesh, alone manifests through a weak and perishable body, since
"in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Secondly, it is the symbol of
that burning love which, infused into His soul, enriches the human will of Christ
and enlightens and governs its acts by the most perfect knowledge derived both from
the beatific vision and that which is directly infused. Finally the Sacred Heart
is the symbol also of sensible love, since the body of Jesus Christ, formed by the
Holy Spirit, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, possesses full powers of feelings and
perception, in fact, more so than any other human body. Since the Sacred Scriptures
and the Teaching of the Church instruct us that all things find their complete harmony
and order in the most holy soul of Jesus Christ, and that He has manifestly directed
His threefold love for the securing of our redemption, it unquestionably follows that
we can contemplate and honour the Heart of the divine Redeemer as a symbolic image
of His love and a witness of our redemption and, at the same time, as a sort of mystical
ladder by which we mount to the embrace of "God our Saviour." Hence, says Pope Pius
XII, His words, actions, commands, miracles, and especially those works which manifest
more clearly His love for us, such as the divine institution of the Eucharist, His
most bitter sufferings and death, the loving gift of His holy Mother to us, the founding
of the Church for us, and finally, the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles
and upon us, all these, we say, ought to be looked upon as proofs of His threefold
love. Devotion to the Sacred Heart has two elements: consecration and reparation:
We consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart by acknowledging Him as Creator and Redeemer
and as having full rights over us as King of Kings, by repenting, and by resolving
to serve Him. We make reparations for the indifference and ingratitude with which
He is treated and for leaving Him abandoned by humanity. Pope Pius XII himself explained:
"Certainly, among the other things which properly belong to the worship of the Sacred
Heart, that consecration stands out and is notable, by which we, recognizing that
we have received all that we are and have from the eternal love of God, dedicate ourselves
and all that we have to the Divine Heart of Jesus." However, the Pope added: "if the
first and chief thing in consecration is the repayment of the love of the creature
to the love of the Creator, the second thing at once follows from it, that, if that
Uncreated Love has been neglected by forgetfulness or violated by offenses, compensation
should be made in some way for the injustice that has been inflicted: in common language
we call this debt one of reparation." When Pope Leo XIII consecrated the world
to the Sacred Heart in 1899, he explained this consecration in the following word:
"For we, in dedicating ourselves, not only recognize and accept His rule explicitly
and freely, but we actually testify that if that which we give were ours, we would
most willingly give it, and we ask Him to graciously accept from us that very thing,
even though it is already His." In other words, in consecration we as it were say
that we acknowledge He already has most full rights over us, as Creator and Redeemer,
and we owe Him everything, and He would not need to repay us at all. But we say that
we beg Him to kindly accept the very same service on a title of love, and propose
to serve Him better. On May 31st 1992, Pope John Paul II at the Mass
of canonization of the Jesuit Priest Saint Claude de la Colombiere, the Spiritual
Director of Saint Margaret Mary of Alocoque proclaimed: "For evangelization today,
the Heart of Christ must be recognized as the heart of the Church: It is He who calls
us to conversion, to reconciliation. It is He who leads pure hearts and those hungering
for justice along the way of the Beatitudes. It is He who achieves the warm communion
of the members of the one Body. It is He who enables us to adhere to the Good News
and to accept the promise of eternal life. It is He who sends us out on mission. Thus
devotion to the Heart of Jesus reminds us that it is in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus
that we find the pattern for becoming fully human ourselves. In His Incarnation, saving
life, death and Resurrection, we receive both the pattern and the means to become
more like Him. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is a form of devotion to the person
Jesus, and especially to His Love. From the earliest days of the Church, Christ's
open side and the mystery of blood and water were meditated upon. It is observed that
from the time of Saint John and Saint Paul there has always been in the Church something
like devotion to the love of God, Who so loved the world as to give it His only-begotten
Son, and to the love of Jesus, Who has so loved us as to deliver Himself up for us.
But, accurately speaking, this is not the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it pays
no homage to the Heart of Jesus as the symbol of His love for us. From the earliest
centuries, Christ's open side and the mystery of blood and water were meditated upon,
and the Church was beheld issuing from the side of Jesus. But there is nothing to
indicate that, during the first ten centuries, any worship was rendered the wounded
Heart. It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we find the first unmistakable
indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Through the wound in the side the wounded
Heart was gradually reached, and the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of Divine
Love. In the Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries devotion arose, although it is
impossible to say what where the first texts. It is in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries that we find the first unmistakable indications of devotion to the Sacred
Heart. Through the wound in the side, the wounded Heart was gradually reached, and
the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of love. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century, the devotion was practiced as a private, individual devotion of the mystical
order. In the sixteenth century, the devotion took an onward step and passed from
the domain of mysticism into that of Christian asceticism. It was constituted an objective
devotion with prayers already formulated and special exercises of which the value
was extolled and practice commended. The first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated
on August 31, 1670, in Rennes, France, through the efforts of Fr. Jean Eudes. From
Rennes, the devotion spread, but it took the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
for the devotion to become universal. In all of these visions, in which Jesus appeared
to St. Margaret Mary, the Sacred Heart of Jesus played a central role. The “great
apparition,” which took place on June 16, 1675, during the octave of the Feast of
Corpus Christi, is the source of the modern Feast of the Sacred Heart. In that vision,
Christ asked St. Margaret Mary to request that the Feast of the Sacred Heart be celebrated
on the Friday after the octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi, in reparation for the
ingratitude of men for the sacrifice that Christ had made for them. The Sacred Heart
of Jesus represents not simply His physical heart but His love for all mankind. This
Visitation nun had a personal revelation involving a series of visions of Christ as
she prayed before the Blessed Sacrament. She wrote, "He disclosed to me the marvels
of his Love and the inexplicable secrets of his Sacred Heart." Christ emphasized to
her His love and His deep hurt caused by Man's indifference to this love. In the vision,
on the feast of Corpus Christi 1675, Margaret Mary reported that Jesus told her, "Behold
the Heart that has so loved men...instead of gratitude I receive from the greater
part of mankind only ingratitude." He promised that, in response to those who consecrate
themselves and make reparations to His Sacred Heart: He will give them all the graces
necessary in their state of life. He will establish peace in their homes. He will
comfort them in all their afflictions. He will be their secure refuge during life,
and above all, in death. He will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings.
Sinners will find in His Heart the source and Infinite Ocean of mercy. Lukewarm souls
shall become fervent. Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection. He will
bless every place in which an image of His Heart is exposed and honoured. He will
give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts. Those who shall promote
this devotion shall have their names written in His Heart. In the excessive mercy
of His Heart that His all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion
on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they
shall not die in His disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. His divine
Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment. The devotion became quite
popular after St. Margaret Mary’s death in 1690, but, because the Church initially
had doubts about the validity of St. Margaret Mary’s visions, it wasn’t until 1765
that the feast was celebrated officially in France. Almost 100 years later, in 1856,
Pope Pius IX, at the request of the French bishops, extended the feast to the universal
Church. It is celebrated on the day requested by our Lord, the Friday after the octave
of Corpus Christi. On May 25 1899, Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Annum Sacrum,
declared that all Catholics should consecrate themselves to the Christ's Sacred Heart,
and expressed his intention to solemnly consecrate all mankind to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus. The church recognises that the Devotion to the Sacred Heart is a wonderful
expression of the Church's piety for Christ and calls for a fundamental attitude of
conversion and reparation, of love and gratitude, apostolic commitment and dedication
to Christ and his saving work. Pope John Paul II reflecting on the Heart of Jesus
said that to celebrate the Heart of Christ means to turn toward the profound centre
of the Person of the Saviour, that centre which the Bible identifies precisely as
his Heart, seat of the love that has redeemed the world. If the human heart represents
an unfathomable mystery that only God knows, how much more sublime is the heart of
Jesus, in which the life of the Word itself beats. In it, as suggested by the beautiful
Litanies of the Sacred Heart that echo the Scriptures, are found all the treasures
of wisdom and science and all the fullness of divinity. In order to save human kind,
said the Pontiff, God wished to give him, his Son a "new heart," faithful to his will
of love. This heart is the heart of Christ, the masterpiece of the Holy Spirit, which
began to beat in the virginal womb of Mary and was pierced by the lance on the cross,
thus becoming for all the inexhaustible source of eternal life. That Heart is now
the pledge of hope for every man. Pope Benedict XVI in his Angelus message said
that the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is deeply rooted in the Christian
people. In biblical language, "heart" indicates the centre of the person where his
sentiments and intentions dwell. In the Heart of the Redeemer we adore God's love
for humanity, his will for universal salvation, his infinite mercy. Practicing devotion
to the Sacred Heart of Christ therefore means adoring that Heart which, after having
loved us to the end, was pierced by a spear and from high on the Cross poured out
blood and water, an inexhaustible source of new life. From the infinite horizon of
his love, said the Pontiff, God wished to enter into the limits of human history and
the human condition. He took on a body and a heart. Thus, we can contemplate and encounter
the infinite in the finite, the invisible and ineffable Mystery in the human Heart
of Jesus, the Nazarene. The Pope then added that every person needs a centre for his
own life, a source of truth and goodness to draw from in the daily events, in the
different situations and in the toil of daily life. Every one of us, when we pauses
in silence, need to feel not only our own heartbeat, but deeper still, the beating
of a trustworthy presence, perceptible with faith's senses and yet much more real:
the presence of Christ, the heart of the world. While inaugurating the year for
Priest on the 19th of June 2009, Pope Benedict XVI said that the heart
of God burns with compassion. In the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus the Church
presents us this mystery for our contemplation: the mystery of the heart of a God
who feels compassion and who bestows all his love upon humanity. It is a mysterious
love which in the texts of the New Testament is revealed to us as God’s boundless
and passionate love for mankind. God does not lose heart in the face of ingratitude
or rejection by the people he has chosen; rather, with infinite mercy he sends his
only-begotten Son into the world to take upon himself the fate of a shattered love,
so that by defeating the power of evil and death he could restore to human beings
enslaved by sin their dignity as sons and daughters. But this took place at great
cost, the only-begotten Son of the Father was sacrificed on the Cross: “Having loved
his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end”. The symbol of this love
which transcends death is his side, pierced by a spear. The Apostle John, an eyewitness,
tells us: “one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came
out blood and water.” Then the Pontiff called on the priests to live in a spirit
of fidelity to the heart of Christ. He told them that “The Church needs holy priests;
ministers capable of helping the faithful to experience the Lord’s merciful love,
and convinced witnesses of that love. In the Eucharistic Adoration which is to follow
our celebration of Vespers, let us ask the Lord to set the heart of every priest afire
with that “pastoral charity” which can make him one in heart and mind with Jesus the
High Priest, and thus to imitate Jesus in complete self-giving.”