Sacred Heart of Jesus: Make Our Hearts unto Yours

                     Original painting on Sacred Heart of Jesus with Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Louis Gonzaga, circa 1770, José de Páez, Mexico, 1727-1790

I

Devotion from our Christian Tradition
Heart is the seat of emotions. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which was encouraged by the mediaeval mystics and promoted by St Gertrude, St Margaret Mary Alacoque, St John Eudes, St Claude de la Colombiere and others, represents a devotion to Jesus in his human nature. In recent times,  Jesuit theologian Father Karl Rahner and the Servant of God Father Pedro Arrupe had keen devotions to the Heart of Jesus. Moreover, they promoted the devotion to the Heart of Jesus post World War II  and post Vatican II through their roles as theologian and Superior General of the Jesuits.  All these people call out for us to reconcile our life with that of the Lord’s promises.  It is a symbol of God's perfect love for all humanity, which is part of the mystical tradition of the spiritual theology in our Christian Tradition. Even though the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus suffered cardiac arrest in recent decades still it is relevant and important to pump fresh life into our spiritual and mystical life. 

The Sacred Heart was a powerful devotion that combated against the French Revolution, Communism and threats to family life. Pope Pius IX made it a feast of the universal church in 1856, and Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire world to the Sacred Heart in 1899. The devotion reached its peak in Pius XII’s 1956 encyclical Haurietis Aquas (You Shall Draw Waters), which placed God’s passionate love for humanity at its center.

Jesus spoke always from his heart. In his encounter with people what touched them most was the way he touched them with consoling words and actions. He not only touched them physically but also touched their heart and conscious inwardly. Human heart is considered as the seat of deep and intimate feelings of love, affection, compassion, passion for the beloved. All these poured out from him ceaselessly.

II

Teaching us to love ever more
What does our devotion to the Sacred Heart teach us? This devotion is about the intimacy between Jesus and us as an intimate union of the heart. Prayer to Jesus the Christ has many biblical attributes attached to him: He is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Good Shepherd, teacher, friend, saviour, life and resurrection, and others. In other words, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is about the person of Jesus Himself.

The portrait that comes to our mind when we look at the Sacred Heart of Jesus is that of LOVE. In art we see this image of the heart pierced with a crown of thorns yet love pouring out with full of grace like fire.  In faith we believe that the divine-man went on doing good by healing, teaching, and conquering evil. Jesus does all these things because of His love, a love that is in abundance. Through prophet Ezekiel  for instance, God promises to change Israel's heart of stone into a heart of flesh (Ezek 36:26) where as John’s Gospel would put it so amiably that Jesus’ heart is the source of living water.

III

Devotion in my daily life
How can I live the devotion to the Heart of Jesus in my daily life?
I can make the presence of the Lord in a number of ways: daily prayer, as a family reciting the Litany of the Sacred Heart, spending a few moments before the Eucharistic Lord (in the Sacrament), creating the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the house, trying one's best to attend the Friday Masses, making a personal or family Consecration to the Sacred Heart.

In our devotion to the Heart of Jesus we embrace the real, physical heart of Jesus, which is sacramentally present, in the Holy Eucharist. Therefore the feast of the Corpus Christi is a reminder that Christ’s body and blood are given to us which contain his heart. In the Heart of Jesus we see Lord’s Presence real and true. When we pray to the Heart of Jesus we see his presence in my life, in my joys and sufferings, my work and leisure, in my heart and mind, in my being, with my friends, family, enemies, everywhere he permeates in my life.

IV

Why the Heart?
Karl Rahner sees in the devotion to the Sacred Heart a very profound link with incarnation and having deep biblical foundations. God the Father letting his Son to take the place of man thus bring salvation to them is itself an act of unconditional love.  In the Gospel of John when we hear that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, not that the world could be condemned but that the world could be saved. On the cross we see Jesus' body is pierced with a lance blood and water flows out of it. It is a Christian theological imagination the outpouring of triune love into a broken and tragic world.

Looking at the misery and brokenness of this world even the heart of God is pierced.  In the face of the vulnerability and frailty of his humanity only God can save us with His heart. The Church of Today is a community of vulnerable faithful which needs urgently that pierced heart of our Lord to bring salvation, so that very heart of the world knows that it is loved. In other words, we need to allow God to love us better.

V

Heart of Jesus: Mystery of Man, Mystery of God
Why only the heart of Jesus? A great theological assertion is that we cannot understand God unless we understand ourselves. In fact, Rahner would say that the mystery of man is intimately related to the mystery of God; and both are indissolubly united in the mystery of Christ. Even though human person is not God yet, he is a creature of time and space who yearns for God in an historical continuum of change and multiplicity. Hence, our history is also the history of our salvation. In spite of uniqueness and multiplicity that man encounters man remains fundamentally one and united. In humanity's journey to God it is his only Son Jesus Christ is the real mediator who draws all men and women of all times and places into a loving relationship where salvific destiny is promised.

VI

Heart as a symbol
Rahner is of the opinion that because this unchanging relationship of every human person with Christ is so fundamental to salvation, Christian men and women need some human word which is capable of expressing it and of communicating it to others (SG, 535-36). In our day today life we use certain words in our langauge which touch our life more than other words. Because such words are central to our being as human person. One such word is heart. Down the centuries this one word has been profoundly meaningful to all men and women of all times. This word "Heart" speaks to us of man in his freedom, his historical contingency, his unavoidable destiny. This also man’s inner mystery, of his anguish, of his loves, of his passion, of his very openness to God (SG, 238-39). Moreover only the human heart has transcendent sense and only human body is enfleshed with a spirit.

Heart, an organ of the body is the center of the human person thus able to become a real symbolic expression of the whole human person. The heart, therefore, symbolises much more than just simple human love because sometimes it can be absent in a person. Rather, the heart symbolises the whole of man in the deepest existential center of his composite being (SzT 111, 384-86, 392-93). All the more, heart in its transcendent meaning is a real symbol, a meaningful part, symbolising the totality of the person, a primordial being, a wellspring of life. Therefore this symbol of the heart of Jesus is a perfect and real symbol to put into our faith and practice into a transformational phase radically, sacrificially, fully, lavishly, abundantly, totally and completely.

VII

Experience: I grew up in a family which had an enormous devotion the Heart of Jesus. On Friday's as part of the Rosary we had Litany to the Heart of Jesus and each decade was recited with Jezu bolya ani kalthya kalzacha, kar kaliz moze tujya kalza sarke "meek and humble heart of Jesus make my heart like yours." According to my grand father Kaitan Veigas (1904-1994) our family was consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a beautiful statue of the Heart of Jesus with its heart popping out was enthroned in 1915. This event put an end to all the evil that was happening like illness and deaths both humans and animals in the Veigas family. The same statue adorns our family altar even today even after 100 years.

What kept us alive in the rural set up of our upbringing living between the boothas/spirits and wild animals which was often cruel and harsh was our devotion to the Christ the King.  When the darkness surrounded evenings, and kerosene lamps were lit, the immensity of the devotion to the heart of Jesus was the only a tangible thing that gave us courage and strength to brace the isolation of surroundings. The resonance of those hymns to the heart of Jesus could eliminate all sorts of geographical isolation but also fill us with vigour to brace winds and rains, thunder and lightening when we walked to our long distant schools of our place.

VIII

Prayer to the Heart of Jesus
O most holy heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing, I adore you, I love you, and with lively sorrow for my sins I offer you this poor heart of mine. Make me humble, patient, pure and wholly obedient to your will. Grant, Good Jesus, that I may live in you and for you. Protect me in the midst of danger. Comfort me in my afflictions. Give me health of body, assistance in my temporal needs, your blessing on all that I do, and the grace of a holy death. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus I trust in thee.

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 19th June 2020.