When I was around 10 years old, I bought a tiny, three-inch plastic statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus from Gifts of the Spirit, the Catholic book store in Leonardtown that has since been renamed Heavenly Presents. The statue was neither elaborate nor particularly beautiful, but something about it appealed to me. Nearly three decades later, the faded little image of the Sacred Heart now sits on the desk of my home office.
My understanding and appreciation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus have grown over the past few years, and I'd like to encourage you to discover this devotion as we approach this year's Solemnity of the Sacred Heart on Friday, June 11, 2021.
The image of the Sacred Heart, with its various symbols, is meant to reveal God’s love for each one of us. In each image of the Sacred Heart, Jesus’ heart is exposed - outside his chest - as if he wants to show us how much he loves us. The flames on his heart represent his burning love for God the Father and for each one of us. The crown of thorns surrounding his heart recalls the thorns that soldiers placed on Jesus’ head (John 19:1) and reminds us of the pain that our own sins cause Jesus. The pierced side of the Sacred Heart is a reminder that all grace flows forth from Jesus’ wounded side. The cross on top of his heart is, of course, a reminder of Jesus' crucifixion for us.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus really took shape and spread through the influence of St. Margaret Mary Alocoque, a seventeenth-century French nun of the Visitation Order who had numerous mystical visions of Jesus. St. Margaret Mary had her first apparition of the Sacred Heart on December 27, 1673. She wrote:
Once, however, when I happened to have a little more time to myself than usual, and I was spending it in front of the Blessed Sacrament, God’s presence seemed to envelop me completely. I forgot all about myself, and where I was, it was so intense; … “My divine Heart,” he told me, “is so passionately fond of the human race, and of you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you and reveal my Heart to the world, so as to enrich mankind with my precious treasures. I’m letting you see them now; and they include all the graces of sanctification needed to snatch men from the very brink of hell.
Jesus intensely loves each one of us and wants what is best for us. As we see in the Gospels, his ultimate concern is that we turn from sin and discover the relationship with God for which we were created. He wants us to know him and to love him so that we can live in friendship with him in this life and in the next. He wants to save us from the tragedy of separation from him, both in this life and in the next.
More often than not, however, we respond to Jesus' great love with indifference. St. Margaret Mary writes about another apparition of the Sacred Heart:
It was at this moment that he revealed to me the indescribable wonders of his pure love for mankind: the extravagance to which he’d been led for those who had nothing for him but ingratitude and indifference. “This hurts me more,” he told me, “than everything I suffered in my passion. Even a little love from them in return — and I should regard all that I have done for them as next to nothing, and look for a way of doing still more. But no; all my eager efforts for their welfare meet with nothing but coldness and dislike. Do me the kindness, then — you, at least — of making up for all their ingratitude, as far as you can.
We don't tend to think of Jesus as wounded by our indifference to him, but he is. If you had given all that you had to show your love to someone, but they didn't care, wouldn't you be hurt? I've come to love the Sacred Heart image because it shows us that Jesus loves us and longs for us to turn to him in love. It pains him when we don't. Instead, we so often fill our days with pointless distractions, as if something other than God might be able to satisfy our own desire for happiness.
As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart this year, I encourage you to make some time to show your love for Jesus. Go to Mass. Spend some time in Eucharistic Adoration. Pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Read Scripture. If you'd like to learn more about the Sacred Heart, you can find more information, including a presentation that I gave two years ago, at https://saintaloysiuschurch.org/sacred-heart.