Sacred Heart in Modern Times”
The tradition of the liturgy and of the writings
which it influenced clearly points up the two fundamental aspects of the Sacred
Heart devotion.
First of all the worship of latria paid by
the Church to her Savior is directed to His whole person and in particular to
His human heart, this heart of flesh which is hypostatically united to the
Person of the Word and is, consequently, both seat and symbol of infinite love—not
just the love of a man, but that of the God-Man. This heart is the center and
sign of the love of the Word made flesh, of the charity of God in human form.
Secondly, and because of this, the worship
rendered to the Sacred Heart is essentially a worship of adoration, as Pius XII
told us. Twice, moreover, in his Haurietis aquas, the Pope insisted that
the heart we adore is the glorious heart of the Lord. Our first duty toward it
is not reparation, but adoration of redeeming love, and consecration—that is,
the gift of self which ought to be the response to this love. If there is
expiation it is because we take a share in His redeeming sacrifice in order to
receive its benefits, the sacrifice of Him who alone takes away the sins of the
world.
To adore Him is to offer ourselves to Him; this is
the purpose of devotion, in the full sense which the word devotio had
for the ancients and for St. Thomas, and which it retains in the liturgy.
Originally in the Latin of classical antiquity devovere and devotio
referred to the act of dedicating someone to the gods of the netherworld.
Christianity took over the words to express that interior disposition by which
one dedicates, gives, or consecrates himself to God through Jesus Christ.
Naturally, in recent times when the word
"devotion" has come to be connected exclusively with those forms of
piety which are more or less emotional, the more or less sincere expressions of
certain "devout" souls, the word has been stripped of its rich and
noble significance. Today we prefer various substitute expressions, such as
"gift of self" or ''commitment," yet all are summed up in devotio,
the word Pius XII has continued to use to characterize the worship we owe to
the Sacred Heart.
For devotio is really worship, and
primarily liturgical worship. Further, it is that form of cult which is the
practice of the Christian life, whence the expression, virtutes colere.
The burden and fruits of the mysteries we celebrate must be made to overflow
into our daily conduct.
So it is with the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
Once we understand it in the light of liturgical tradition and of the
contemporary magisterium which comments upon that tradition, we see it does not
stop with Jesus' human heart. It plunges us into the depths of love within the
Trinity; it confronts every member of the Church with this mystery of faith. In
the eyes of the Father, each of them, and all together, constitute only one
heart in the Heart of Jesus.
That is why when St. Paul spoke of charity and its
manifestations—concrete practical ones, not sentimental—he would so often say
that he loved "in the heart of Jesus Christ, in visceribus lesu Christi."
We cannot love except in the Heart of Jesus Christ, for there is no one except
Jesus Christ who loves as it is needful to love.
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