Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Friday, June 15, 2007)

[DemBones DemBones]

Because the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is in June, the entire month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has a lengthy article about the Sacred Heart of Jesus but I'll quote just one paragraph here:

"When speaking of a large heart our allusion is to the person, just as when we mention the Sacred Heart we mean Jesus. This is not, however, because the two are synonymous but when the word heart is used to designate the person, it is because such a person is considered in whatsoever related to his emotional and moral life. Thus, when we designate Jesus as the Sacred Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, Jesus all loving and amiable. Jesus entire is thus recapitulated in the Sacred Heart as all is recapitulated in Jesus."


Devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to Jesus. The Sacred Heart reminds us particularly of the love Jesus has for humankind while the Five Wounds, the Precious Blood, and the Body of Christ (Corpus Christi) remind us of the great sacrifice Jesus made for us. It has been a tradition for centuries to meditate on the Sacred Heart, the Five Wounds, and so on. The image of the Sacred Heart is also familiar to all Catholics. The image itself reminds us of the love of Jesus in a very direct way. Crowned with thorns and pierced, the image of the Sacred Heart is also a reminder that Jesus died for our sins.

We are all familiar with images of the Sacred Heart alone, images of Jesus exposing the Sacred Heart within His chest, and images of Jesus with no image of the Sacred Heart. For me, the last type of image reminds me of the Gospel stories of what Jesus did and said during his three years of ministry, which are all worth remembering. But when I see an image of Jesus exposing His Sacred Heart, or an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus alone, I think immediately of the love Jesus had for humankind and am also reminded of His sacrifice for us. I also think of the Sacred Heart as representing the Soul of Christ or Anima Christi, which is one of my favorite prayers. It is no wonder that the Sacred Heart of Jesus has inspired mystics for many centuries.


Quoting the Catholic Encyclopedia again:

"But no special act, no practice whatever, can exhaust the riches of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The love which is its soul embraces all and, the better one understands it, the more firmly is he convinced that nothing can vie with it for making Jesus live in us and for bringing him who lives by it to love God, in union with Jesus, with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength."

The Catholic Encyclopedia has a long section on the history of devotion to the Sacred Heart but I think the first couple of paragraphs give a good idea of how it developed:

"(1) From the time of St. John and St. 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, in accordance with the example of the Evangelist, 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, as Eve came forth from the side of Adam. But there is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries, any worship was rendered the wounded Heart.

(2) 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 of the wound Heart was gradually reached, and the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of love. It was in the fervent atmosphere of the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries, in the world of Anselmian or Bernardine thought, that the devotion arose, although it is impossible to say positively what were its first texts or were its first votaries. To St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, and the author of the "Vitis mystica" it was already well known. We cannot state with certainty to whom we are indebted for the "Vitis mystica". Until recent times its authorship had generally been ascribed to St. Bernard and yet, by the late publishers of the beautiful and scholarly Quaracchi edition, it has been attributed, and not without plausible reasons, to St. Bonaventure ("S. Bonaventurx opera omnia", 1898, VIII, LIII sq.). But, be this as it may, it contains one of the most beautiful passages that ever inspired the devotion to the Sacred Heart, one appropriated by the Church for the lessons of the second nocturn of the feast. To St. Mechtilde (d. 1298) and St. Gertrude (d. 1302) it was a familiar devotion which was translated into many beautiful prayers and exercises. . ."



Novena to the Sacred Heart


O most holy Heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing, I adore Thee, I love Thee and with a lively sorrow for my sins, I offer Thee this poor heart of mine. Make me humble, patient, pure and wholly obedient to Thy will. Grant, good Jesus, that I may live in Thee and for Thee. Protect me in the midst of danger; comfort me in my afflictions; give me health of body, assistance in my temporal needs, Thy blessing on all that I do, and the grace of a holy death. Within Thy Heart I place my every care. In every need let me come to Thee with humble trust saying, Heart of Jesus help me.



This novena is to be said once a day for nine days. It may be said at any time during the year, is traditionally said from the Feast of Corpus Christi to the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and also on First Fridays by those making the First Friday Devotion.