Faith Filled Friday: The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It may seem odd to devote a feast day to a body part, but this is Jesus and His Heart represents His love and compassion.  Wikipedia traces the devotion to Christ’sheart: 

“Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus can be clearly traced back at least to the eleventh century. It marked the spirituality of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century and of Saint Bonaventure and St. Gertrude the Great in the thirteenth. The beginnings of a devotion toward the love of God as symbolized by the heart of Jesus are found even in the fathers of the Church, including Origen, Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Hippolytus of Rome, Saint Irenaeus, Saint Justin Martyr and Saint Cyprian, who used in this regard John 7:37-39 and John 19:33-37.”

I would also add St. Catherine of Siena to that list who in one of her mystically induced comas had an exchange of hearts with Christ.  Jesus took her heart out and replaced it with His.  Bishop Fulton Sheen in this magnificent quote traces all of redemption to Christ’s “eternal heart.”

 

“By a beautiful paradox of Divine love, God makes His Cross the very means of our salvation and our life. We have slain Him; we have nailed Him there and crucified Him; but the Love in His eternal heart could not be extinguished. He willed to give us the very life we slew; to give us the very Food we destroyed; to nourish us with the very Bread we buried, and the very Blood we poured forth. He made our very crime into a happy fault; He turned a Crucifixion into a Redemption; a Consecration into a Communion; a death into Life Everlasting.”

-Fulton J. Sheen

But it was St. Margaret Mary Alacoque of the Visitation Order who in the 17th century had a series of visions of Jesus and His sacred heart, and upon His request started a process of veneration to the Sacred Heart which ultimately led to this feast day.  

In today’s prefatory comment on the feast in this month’s Magnificat, it says: “Our Lord promised Saint Margaret Mary that ‘sinners shall find in my Heart the source and the infinite ocean of mercy’ and ‘those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in my Heart, never to be blotted out’” (p. 153).

This is my little effort to promote this devotion and thereby get written into Jesus’ Heart!  Do the same in some small way.  You should want to be so written.

I should say, of the many Catholic devotions, the devotion to the Sacred Heart resonates with me more than others.  Here is a beautiful traditional prayer on exchanging one’s heart with Jesus, published at Aleteia. 

 

O most holy Heart of Jesus, fountain of every blessing,

I adore you, I love you and with a 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 blessings on all that I do, and the grace of a holy death.

Within your heart I place my every care.

In every need let me come to you with humble trust saying,

Heart of Jesus, help me.

Amen.

 

I highlight two sentences which is at the heart (pun intended!) of the prayer.  First, the offering of one’s heart to Christ for His use and refinement.  Second, the use of Christ’s Sacred Heart as a deposit for one’s adversities.  When I have a particular trial or problem, I imagine picking that “thing” up with my first two fingers and thumb and reaching over and dropping it into Christ’s Heart.  In there it will be made better.  I learned this the first Catholic blogger I ever regularly visited, Ros of Living in the Shadowlands.  She’s passed away and her blog no longer exists, but I posted a tribute many years ago here.    

And don't forget the Immaculate Heart of Mary that comes on Saturday.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

I place all my trust in You.