“We the Christians are the true Israel which springs from Christ, for we are carved out of His heart as from a rock.” — St. Justin Martyr (d. 165)
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” — Matthew 11:29
“There is in the Sacred Heart the symbol and express image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love in return.” — Pope Leo XIII
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is devotion to Jesus Christ Himself, but in the particular ways of meditating on his interior life and on His threefold love — His divine love, His burning love that fed His human will, and His sensible love that affects His interior life. Pope Pius XII of blessed memory writes on this topic in his 1956 encyclical, Haurietis Aquas (On Devotion To The Sacred Heart). Below are a few excerpts which help explain the devotion:
54. …the Heart of the Incarnate Word is deservedly and rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that threefold love with which the divine Redeemer unceasingly loves His eternal Father and all mankind.
55. It is a symbol of that divine love which He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit but which He, the Word made flesh, alone manifests through a weak and perishable body, since “in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”
56. It is, besides, the symbol of that burning love which, infused into His soul, enriches the human will of Christ and enlightens and governs its acts by the most perfect knowledge derived both from the beatific vision and that which is directly infused.
57. And finally — and this in a more natural and direct way — it is the symbol also of sensible love, since the body of Jesus Christ, formed by the Holy Spirit, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, possesses full powers of feelings and perception, in fact, more so than any other human body.
58. Since, therefore, Sacred Scripture and the official teaching of the Catholic faith instruct us that all things find their complete harmony and order in the most holy soul of Jesus Christ, and that He has manifestly directed His threefold love for the securing of our redemption, it unquestionably follows that we can contemplate and honor the Heart of the divine Redeemer as a symbolic image of His love and a witness of our redemption and, at the same time, as a sort of mystical ladder by which we mount to the embrace of “God our Savior.”
59. Hence His words, actions, commands, miracles, and especially those works which manifest more clearly His love for us — such as the divine institution of the Eucharist, His most bitter sufferings and death, the loving gift of His holy Mother to us, the founding of the Church for us, and finally, the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and upon us — all these, we say, ought to be looked upon as proofs of His threefold love.
60. Likewise we ought to meditate most lovingly on the beating of His Sacred Heart by which He seemed, as it were, to measure the time of His sojourn on earth until that final moment when, as the Evangelists testify, “crying out with a loud voice ‘It is finished.’, and bowing His Head, He yielded up the ghost.”Then it was that His heart ceased to beat and His sensible love was interrupted until the time when, triumphing over death, He rose from the tomb.
61. But after His glorified body had been re-united to the soul of the divine Redeemer, conqueror of death, His most Sacred Heart never ceased, and never will cease, to beat with calm and imperturbable pulsations. Likewise, it will never cease to symbolize the threefold love with which He is bound to His heavenly Father and the entire human race, of which He has every claim to be the mystical Head.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart has two elements: consecration and reparation:
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We consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart by acknowledging Him as Creator and Redeemer and as having full rights over us as King of Kings, by repenting, and by resolving to serve Him.
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We make reparations for the indifference and ingratitude with which He is treated and for leaving Him abandoned by humanity.
Our Lord Himself gave this wonderful devotion to the Church when He appeared to St Margaret Mary:
“I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in my disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment”.
Sixteenth century Calvinism and seventeenth century Jansenism preached a distorted Christianity that substituted for God’s love and sacrifice of His Son for all men the fearful idea that a whole section of humanity was inexorably damned.
The Church always countered this view with the infinite love of our Savior who died on the cross for all men. The institution of the feast of the Sacred Heart was soon to contribute to the creation among the faithful of a powerful current of devotion which since then has grown steadily stronger. The first Office and Mass of the Sacred Heart were composed by St. John Eudes, but the institution of the feast was a result of the appearances of our Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675. The celebration of the feast was extended to the general calendar of the Church by Pius IX in 1856.
Today’s feast which brings together and highlights all the above mentioned attributes of the Sacred Heart, provides an opportunity for the faithful to gain a plenary indulgence by making an Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in Thee! Amen.
(sources: fisheaters.com, catholicculture.org)
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
A very – how shall we delicately phrase it – disturbing illustration?
It’s the sort of thing that makes non-Catholics say, “What the heck is that all about?”
Well, that’s their hard luck, is it not?
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It’s the sort of thing that makes non-Catholics say, “What the heck is that all about?”
Well, yes and know, Toad.
For instance, several thousand of millions of people around the world quite accustomed to religious art such as this and this, would probably sort of get it, what do you think? This part of the world, anyhow, is full of this kind of thing.
While you’re there, Toad, and what do you think of this recent article about Newman on faith and psychology (reason?)? I sense Toad is himself more of an “explicit reason” toad, no?
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Oops, “yes and no”, natch.
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Really, Godlen, I much preferred yes and know, (Thought it rather clever.)
I only received one of your illustrations, the Indian one I suppose it is.
And, yes. I asked myself ”What the heck is that all about?”
So, you clearly understand what I’m getting at.
The CP&S image is also very weird. And highly sexual.
Jesus as a rather ‘butch’ Surbiton hippie, it seems to me. But then, why not?
Though I have led a somewhat sheltered life.
So far.
The article on John Henry is very good.
A bit highbrow for me.
But I’m only a toad, after all.
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The CP&S image is also very weird. And highly sexual.
Possibly not all that suggestive if you get the whole picture, I feel, Toad.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/nru12_CZLt1FwIpqxKEfudMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0
By Francesco Podesti in 1864, apparently.
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You are right, as usual, Golden. Uncropped, it is considerably less – as you aptly put it – suggestive.
Francesco Podesti
Was known for his modesty.
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I first visited the site of the vision of St Magaret Mary Alacoque in 1988 when I was an Anglican Franciscan. I was staying at Taizé, a short distance to the north, and I hitchiked down to the shrine one morning, stayed for two hours then hitchiked back to Taizé. On the return trip, I was picked up by two Cistercian priors travelling by car on their summer holiday. This led to an invitation to visit Cistercian houses in France.
They only picked me up because I was in habit. Neither of the priors were wearing any religious garb at all…
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Sorry, I got carried away with my reminiscences and forgot the point. The point was that the chapel of the visitation was a rather humble small chapel on a side street of the town, packed with pilgrims. Like many places of Catholic pilgrimage in France, it takes its place alongside the boulangerie, the bar and the bicycle shop, and expresses a domestic form of piety not seen elsewhere.
That domesticity is what always spoke to me above all else in French piety.
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On the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, there were – oh – maybe 20 priests, 5 deacons and 5 nuns in the parish I belong to. And our auxiliary bishop, to boot. All there to celebrate the ordination of a mere temporary deacon. He (the deacon) suffered a wardrobe malfunction when the vesting priest placed the … actually I don’t know the name of the vestment that fell to the floor when the priest placed it on his shoulders underneath the dalmatic… but anyway – we parishioners all smiled when it dropped to the floor after the dalmatic was put in place and then had to be taken off.
Here endeth the lesson.
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“A very – how shall we delicately phrase it – disturbing illustration?”
Yes Toad, I admit that those who have not been brought up with this type of ‘Catholic piety’ (and that does not include you) might find such artwork rather strange! Anyway Golden points out how in different cultures there are other types of art that might look a bit foreign to us over here in the West. To cradle Catholics, who have absorbed a rich and varied spectrum of colourful, superb, both good and not-so-good, art all our lives, we fully realise that all this is simply to try to illustrate and explain some of the deep mysteries of our Faith.
You walk into a Catholic Church, and immediately you are surrounded by pictures of your ‘friends and family’ (Our Lord, the Blessed Mother, saints and angels) and all we hold as fundamental and meaningful (the Holy Cross, the tabernacle, etc.), the beloved and the sacred – it’s wonderful!
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a symbol of the immense love of God for Mankind. It is really an impossibility to be able to depict this adequately in a painting or sculpture of course.
________
Interesting anecdotes from johnhenry and Rabit – thank you. 🙂
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”Anyway Golden points out how in different cultures there are other types of art that might look a bit foreign to us over here in the West. ”</i.
Incontestably true, Kathleen.
To some of us, the sight of a god with an elephant's head and six arms might be a little, as you neatly put it – foreign – but to a Hindu, or a Brahmin, or whatever, it’s no odder than a statue of a female saint carrying her breasts on a plate is to us.
And we would do well to remember that.
Takes all sorts, dunnit?
What particularly appealed to me about the Podesti chef d’oeuvre was that it simply reeks of sex.
Always a crowd-pleaser.
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