The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Source: District of Great Britain

The Heart

The Heart is simply an organ of our bodies, a vital organ, but nevertheless just an organ. But the heart, to man, is also a symbol:

  • a symbol of life (the heart is at the centre of man’s body, from the heart, our life blood flows);
  • a symbol of desire, attraction or will (He has set his heart on this or that!): when we will or love something ardently, there is a veritable feeling in the heart;
  • a symbol of courage (Take Heart!): the heart beats quickly when there is danger;
  • and most pertinently, a symbol of the most supreme act of the will: love (I give you my Heart) and when our love is requited – we are broken hearted.

And when a heart is presented to us as wounded, it is a symbol of love to the point of suffering, to the point of self sacrifice.

Devotion Which Makes Jesus’ Love Possible

The devotion to the Sacred Heart, therefore, is not a devotion to the bodily organ but a devotion to Jesus’s love for us. It is not an affective devotion, the devotion of a detached, distant admirer (like a devotee gazing at a painting of his favourite artist in an art gallery); it is not a devotion of sentiment. It is nothing other than the devotion by which we make Jesus' effective love possible for us; the devotion which allows us to be loved by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Love Requires Communication

For we must understand that love does not exist in its true sense without communication, without a mutual will to the perfection of the other. One-sided love does not exist. Just as God cannot make the absurd possible, such as creating a square circle, God cannot love us with His divine love, cannot elevate us to participate in His Divinity without our reciprical love of Him.

When Our Lord died on the Cross, He completed our OBJECTIVE REDEMPTION, He died for all men. But for this redemption to be effective in us (our SUBJECTIVE REDEMPTION), in order that we win the prize, the crown for which we were made, we must love Our Lord voluntarily, freely, mutually.

  • He is always there gazing at us, waiting for us to look at Him so that He might trap our glance, begin to communicate with us, begin to pour out the treasures of His perfection into us, begin to unite His will with our will for our perfection.
  • He is always there waiting for us to unlock the gates to our beatitude. But unless we do, He cannot love us.

My dear breathren, the devotion the Sacred Heart is an opening of the floodgates of Divine Love. It is through this devotion that we place a hand on the crown of Glory which is to LOVE GOD AS HE LOVES HIMSELF.

Conclusion

If you have not already done so, enthrone the Sacred Heart in your homes. Make a novena  to the Sacred Heart during the month of June, and if you have not too many prayers at the end of your family rosary, make an short daily act of consecration to the Sacred Heart.

Finally, during this Mass, join your heart to Jesus’ living Heart in the Blessed Sacrament. Ask, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary that like her heart our hearts may be dilated by the treasures that pour forth the Heart of Her Divine Son.

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