488. The Sacred Heart of Jesus (I)

Meditations no. 231 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

God’s love is shown in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

God our Father has seen fit to grant us, in the heart of his Son, infinitos dilectionis thesauros, infinite treasures of love, mercy and affection. If we want to find evidence that God loves us - that he not only listens to our prayers but anticipates them - we need only follow the same line of thought as St Paul: He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things in him?

Grace renews a man from within, and converts a sinner and rebel into a good and faithful servant. The source of all grace is God’s love for us, and he has revealed this not just in words but also in deeds. It was divine love which led the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word, the Son of God the Father, to take on our flesh, our human condition, everything except sin. And the Word, the Word of God, is Verbum spirans amorem, the Word from which Love proceeds.

Love is revealed to us in the Incarnation, the redemptive journey which Jesus Christ made on our earth, culminating in the supreme sacrifice of the Cross. And on the Cross it showed itself through a new sign: One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. This water and blood of Jesus speak to us of a self-sacrifice taken to the last extreme: Consummatum est, - everything is achieved, for the sake of love.

Today, when we consider the central mysteries of our faith once more, we are surprised to see how very human gestures are used to express the deepest truths: the love of God the Father who gives up his Son, and the Son’s love which leads him calmly to Calvary.

Getting to know Christ’s Heart.

I must confide to you something which makes me very sorry and spurs me on to action: the thought of all those people who do not yet know Christ, who do not even suspect the great good fortune which awaits us in heaven. They live like blind men looking for a joy whose real name they don’t know, lost on roads which take them away from true happiness. How well one understands what Paul the Apostle must have felt that night in Troas when he had a vision in a dream: A man of Macedonia was standing beseeching him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when he had seen the vision, immediately they - Paul and Timothy - sought to go on to Macedonia, concluding that God had called them to preach the Gospel to them.

Don’t you also feel that God is calling us? Through the things which happen around us, he is urging us to proclaim the good news of the coming of Jesus. Yet sometimes we Christians turn our calling into something very paltry. We become superficial, and waste our time in dissension and jealousy. Or, worse still, some people are artificially scandalized by the way others choose to live certain aspects of the faith. Instead of doing all they can to help others, they set out to destroy and criticize. It is true that sometimes you find serious shortcomings in Christians’ lives. But the important thing is not ourselves and our shortcomings. The only thing that matters is Jesus. It is Christ we must talk about, not ourselves.

These reflections were provoked by suggestions that there is a crisis in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There is no crisis. True devotion to the Sacred Heart has always been, and is still, truly alive, full of human and supernatural meaning. It has led and still leads to conversion, self-giving, fulfilment of God’s Will, and a loving understanding of the mysteries of the redemption.

However, we must distinguish this genuine devotion from displays of useless sentimentality, a veneer of piety devoid of doctrine. No less than you, I dislike sugary statues, figures of the Sacred Heart which are incapable of inspiring any trace of devotion in people who have the common sense and supernatural outlook of a Christian. But it is poor logic to turn these particular abuses - which are disappearing anyway - into some sort of doctrinal, theological problem.

If a crisis does exist, it is a crisis in men’s hearts. Men are short-sighted, selfish and narrow-minded. We fail to appreciate the great depth of Christ’s love for us. Ever since the holy Church instituted today’s feast, the liturgy has offered us the nourishment of true piety by including among the readings a text from St Paul In it he proposes to us a whole programme of contemplative life - knowledge and love, prayer and life - beginning with this devotion to the Heart of Jesus. God himself invites us in the Apostle’s words to follow this way: May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith; may you, being rooted and grounded in love, have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The fullness of God is revealed and given to us in Christ, in the love of Christ, in Christ’s heart. For it is the heart of him in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. If people lose sight of God’s master-plan - the overflow of love in the world through the Incarnation, the Redemption and Pentecost - then they cannot grasp how devoted to us our Lord’s Heart really is.

True devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Let us realize all the richness hidden in the words “the Sacred Heart of Jesus”. When we speak of a person’s heart, we are referring not just to their sentiments, but to the whole person in their loving relationships with other people. In order to help us understand divine things, Scripture uses the expression “heart” in its full human meaning, as the summary and source, expression and ultimate basis of someone’s thoughts, words and actions. A man is worth what his heart is worth, is how we could put it.

To the heart belongs joy: My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. Repentance: My heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast. Praise of God: My heart overflows with a goodly theme. The decision to listen to God: My heart is ready, O Lord. Loving vigilance: I slept, but my heart was awake. And also doubt, and fear: Let not your hearts be troubled, but believe in me.

The heart not only feels, it knows and understands. God’s law is received in the heart, and remains written there. Scripture also adds: Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Our Lord reproaches the Scribes: Why do you think evil in your hearts? And, summing up all the sins man can commit, he says: Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

When holy Scripture refers to the heart, it is not referring to some fleeting sentiment of joy or tears. By “heart” is meant the personality which directs its whole being to what it considers its good, as Jesus himself indicated: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So when we talk of the Heart of Jesus, we are stressing the certainty of God’s love and the truth of his commitment to us. When we recommend devotion to the Sacred Heart, we are recommending that we should give our whole self to Jesus, to the whole Jesus - our soul, our feelings and thoughts, our words and actions, and our joys.

That is what true devotion to the Heart of Jesus means. It is knowing God and ourselves. It is looking at Jesus and turning to him, letting him encourage us and teach and guide us. The worst superficiality that could beset this devotion would be a lack of humanity, leading to failure to understand the reality of the incarnate God.

Our Blessed Lady is the teacher of love for God. If we treat her with love and devotion, as her children, and if we turn to her sweet, immaculate Heart always and in everything, she will take us straight to the Sacred and Merciful Heart of her Son.