The Holy Father, Pope Francis, has announced that he is preparing a document on the topic of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our Catholic tradition dedicates the month of June to the Sacred Heart. However, this devotion is not limited to the month of June. It is for every month of the year. During June, some of our parishes conducted devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and celebrated the Solemnity on Friday, June 7.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not only easy to understand, but it’s even easier to allow yourself to be caught into God’s personal love for you, so clearly represented by the image of the Sacred Heart. His personal love for you is represented by Jesus’ large, blood-filled heart pierced with a crown of thorns. In recent years, for a variety of reasons, this devotion has decreased. However, I suggest that this once very popular pious practice is very relevant for contemporary Catholics of all ages.
Speaking about the upcoming document, the Holy Father said, “I believe it will do us much good to meditate on various aspects of the Lord’s love that can illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal and say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost heart.”
The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a very “fleshy” image because it is a human heart, and at the same time, a “celestial” image because that human heart beats in the Son of God. The Gospel of John speaks of the heart of Jesus as the source of living water, which pours itself out. It is a heart that welcomes all. It is a heart that is sacred because at the Incarnation, the eternal, almighty God took on human flesh. The human heart of Jesus is a wounded heart, represented by the crown of thorns around it, and it is a divine heart.
God so loved us that He became flesh to save us, and God’s love continues to save us. The heart of Jesus is full of compassion. To Him, bring yourself, your wounds, your hurts, your pains and your sins. Allow the Lord’s love and mercy to respond to you and connect with you. Let His mercy and love flow into you. God desires to forgive us, and God desires that we be reconciled with Him.
The image of the Sacred Heart reminds us to practice the law of Christ, to love one another. In my opinion, this is the hardest of the commandments to observe. There are those we do not like; those with whom we disagree; those whose lifestyles we find offensive; those who have hurt or offended us; those whose criticisms of our values, even our Church and our faith, we cannot tolerate. Yet, the Law of Christ is clear. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Devotion to the Sacred Heart can help us love others – to see them as loved by God. A goal of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is to inspire us to live His Law of Charity with all women and men, even our enemies and those who have broken our hearts.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart can do for us what the prophet Ezekiel spoke of when he said, “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit in you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts.” (Ez. 36:26-28) This devotion can refresh and renew us, and convince us that God loves us despite our feelings of being abandoned by or being distant from Him. This devotion can also help us to know, “the breath, and length and height and depth of Christ’s love that surpasses all knowledge.” (Eph. 3:17-20)
To paraphrase Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman, let your heart rest in His heart and you will find a tender welcome and a heartbeat that inspires you to live as a missionary disciple of Christ.
No matter the month of the year, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is always an appropriate spiritual practice. The Sacred Heart personally invites us to Jesus Christ, who loves us as we are.
“Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.”
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