Devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to Jesus and his love. It is the image of God's love revealed in the pierced heart of His Son. It is a sign or a symbol of both the divine and human love that Jesus has for his Father and for us. It also symbolizes the interior life of Jesus which led to his willingness to lay down his life for us.
In Catholic churches and homes, one of the most popular images of Jesus is the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as we know it today, came about through the visions and experiences of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, given to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in France during the Seventeenth Century.
The development of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus over the centuries, prior to its becoming a public practice:
It is seen by the Church that Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, began at the Last Supper, at the instigation of the Eucharist itself. As Our Lord sat at the Paschal table, before pronouncing those sacred words that would become so core to our entire Faith (in fact, the very heart of the Church Herself) His Beloved Disciple, Saint John the Evangelist, lay his head upon the breast of Our Lord. He laid his head upon the Heart of Jesus Christ and remained there in repose.
It is in imitation of this repose, that Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus began. It then continued to develop, with an emphasis from the early Church Fathers, on the entering into the sacred wound in Christ’s side – the wound, created by the piercing of the soldier’s lance, whilst He hung on the cross. Cor Jesus, lancea perforatum, Miserere nobis (Heart of Jesus, pierced by a lance, have mercy on us), as the Litany of the Sacred Heart says.
For it was from this Sacred Wound that Blood and Water flowed – His Blood and Water – which was seen by the early Fathers, as the birth of the Church Herself. As the early theologian Tertullian stated:
By the wound in the side of Christ was formed the Church, the true Mother of all the living.
These Devotions are designed to focus our attention towards the love He has for us and to make amends for the indignities and sacrileges He has suffered from our neglect. To make amends through acts of reparation, so that our hearts will reciprocate in some small way, something of His Great Burning Love.
Neglected by us, in that we have forgotten the enormity of that which He has bestowed upon us. Because, through the institution of the Eucharist and His dying for us on the cross, He has given everything and we are unaware or even ungrateful.
Sacred Heart with the Immaculate Heart
We fail to watch, as His disciples failed. We fail to give homage, through our ingratitude, or rather our forgetfulness. It is now time for us to make some return for all that He has given us.
This is the message of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. And of course, this need for acknowledgement and gratitude towards Him is essential for our Salvation.
