…Only the Heart of Christ who knows the depths of his Father’s love could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way —-From the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.
Today is the feast of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is no co-incidence that it falls on a Friday each year, for it points to the mystery of Christ’s Passion when his blood was shed on the cross. And for that reason, at S. Barnabas, our shrine to the Sacred Heart is to be found beneath the Station of the Cross where Christ’s death is recalled.
From the time of S. Paul there has been in the Church something akin to devotion to the incredible love of God. However during the first ten centuries no specific worship was offered to the wounded Heart of Jesus. This changed by the 11th century when the tradition can be found- springing from the sacred atmosphere of Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries.
From the 13th to 16th centuries, the devotion grew widespread and is evident in many different religious congregations, such as the Franciscan, Dominican and Carthusian orders where it remained a private, individual devotion of the mystical order.
In the sixteenth century, the devotion was established formerly with prescribed prayers and special practices. The image of the Sacred Heart was everywhere in evidence, largely due to Franciscan devotion to the Five Wounds and the habit of Jesuits who placed the image on their books and the walls of their churches.
The most significant source for the form of devotion used today comes from S. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who claimed to have received visions from Jesus. The revelations were numerous, and the following apparitions are especially remarkable:
On December 27th 1673, the feast of S. John, Margaret Mary reported that Jesus permitted her, as He had once allowed S. Gertrude in a vision, to rest her head upon His Heart. He then disclosed the wonders of His love, telling her that He desired to make his love known to all mankind, and that He had chosen her for this work.
In June or July, 1674, Margaret Mary claimed that Jesus requested to be honored under the figure of His Heart of flesh, also claiming that, when He appeared radiant with love, He asked for a devotion of expiatory love: frequent reception of communion, especially on the First Friday of the month, and the observance of the Holy Hour.
During the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675, the vision known as the “great apparition” took place. In it Jesus said, “Behold the Heart that has so loved men … instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude …”. Christ then asked Margaret Mary for a feast of reparation on the Friday after Corpus Christi, bidding her consult Father de la Colombière, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray. The feast was taken up by the Society of Jesus and still exists today.
In 2006 Pope Benedict sent a letter to Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus. In his letter, Pope Benedict reaffirmed the importance of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It has always been close to the heart of Catholic Christians throughout the world, in the Roman and Anglican Church. Why not meditate upon the Sacred Heart in your prayers and thank God for his love freely given?
From the depth of my nothingness, I prostrate myself before Thee, O Most Sacred, Divine and Adorable Heart of Jesus, to pay Thee all the homage of love, praise and adoration in my power.
A prayer of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
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