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Sacred Heart of Jesus
By peace | December 13, 2007
The Catholic religion centres on Jesus Christ, and the chief way in which the Church adores God is in the sacrifice of the Mass. But the most important aspect of Christ is his love of man. The human heart has always been regarded as the seat and symbol of love. The Church has long encouraged a devotion to the heart of Christ as the symbol of his love.
This devotion is based on an incident of the Crucifixion described in the nineteenth chapter of St John’s Gospel. One of the Roman soldiers pierced the side of Christ with a lance to make sure that he was really dead, and blood and water flowed from the wound Christians meditated with tender sorrow on the pierced heart of Jesus, whose love for men was so great that he gave the last drop of his blood to save them.
Monks and nuns, such as St Bernard of Clairvaux and the English mystic Julian of Norwich, meditated often on the wounded heart and had remarkable personal experiences of the love of Christ. Learned theologians, such as St John Eudes, wrote books explaining how, in adoring the Sacred Heart, men adored Christ himself, God-made-man, with particular reference to his love for ungrateful man.
This devotion became widespread mainly through a French nun of the seventeenth century, St Margaret Mary Alacoque. She described how, in prayer, she had a vision of Jesus. In her vision, she saw his wounded heart, on fire with love. He said,”Behold this heart which has loved men so much and has received such little love in return.” She painted a picture of the heart as she saw it, with the wound of the lance in its side, a crown of thorns about it, a cross above it and flames surrounding it. This image has been reproduced all over the world. Devotion to the Sacred Heart spread rapidly, and now in most Catholic churches and many homes there is an image of Christ pointing to the heart visible in his breast. The devotion to the Sacred Heart has been accepted officially and encouraged by the Church, and there is a Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus celebrated on the eighth day after the great Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, Corpus Christ.
Topics: Faith |
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