Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Behold this Heart which has so loved men!
It is all Love and Mercy.

Tomorrow, the Friday following the feast of Corpus Christi, the Church celebrates the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, a feast day that dates back to the early Church Fathers. The devotion has grown over the centuries as the earliest Christians contemplated the crucified Jesus with deep veneration and love, meditating on his wounds. A special significance was given to the Heart of Jesus and the wound in his side. Timothy O'Donnell, S.T.D. writes in his book, Heart of the Redeemer, “under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, men came to see in His open side the wounded Heart of the Lamb.”

In 1675 a Visitation nun, St. Margaret Mary Alqcoque received a revelation from Our Lord which established the basic structure of this devotion to His Sacred Heart. As the depth of Christ’s love for each one of us is infinite, no one specific practice can describe this devotion.

Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

“Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of its very nature, is a worship of the love with which God, through Jesus, loved us, and at the same time, an exercise of our own love by which we are related to God and to other men. Or to express it in another way, devotion of this kind is directed towards the love of God for us in order to adore it, give thanks for it, and live so as to imitate it; it has this in view, as the end to be attained, that we bring that love by which we are bound to God to the rest of men to perfect fulfillment by carrying out daily more eagerly the new commandment which the divine Master gave to His Apostles as a sacred legacy when He said: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Pope Pius XII

Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

 
“The essential nucleus of Christianity is expressed in the Heart of Jesus; in Christ the whole of the revolutionary newness of the Gospel was revealed and given to us: the Love that saves us and already makes us live in God’s eternity. Even our shortcomings, our limitations, and our weaknesses must lead us back to the Heart of Jesus. His divine Heart calls to our hearts, inviting us to come out of ourselves, to abandon our human certainties to trust in him and, following his example, to make of ourselves a gift of love without reserve.” Pope Benedict XVI

The Word is Love
The Word is Truth
The Word is Mercy
Thanks be to God