Reflections on the Feast of the Sacred Heart

Two centuries ago, the Feast of the Sacred Heart was objected to liturgically, on the grounds that the meaning of the Feast was not clear. Today, it is being eclipsed rather than being objected to, on the grounds that it is too static a view of Christ. It was in difficulties then because it was new; now it is in difficulties because it is old.

In spite of these difficulties and objections, the liturgy of the Heart of Christ still enjoys its allotted place and definite status in the Church's year. The Invitatory for the solemnity makes it clear that it is specifically the Heart of Jesus that we are invited to worship: 'Come, let us adore the Heart of Jesus, wounded for our sins'. It is still the physical heart, but seen as the emblem of love, which is proposed to our worship. This liturgy is an echo of Good Friday, and it is a call to inwardness in worship. It fosters an awareness of the divine Person of our Redeemer, although its immediate object is his human heart pierced on the Cross.

The Prayers of the Mass

Collect:

Almighty God and Father,
We glory in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, your beloved Son,
as we call to mind the great things his love has done for us.
Fill us with the grace that flows in abundance from the heart of Jesus,
the source of heaven's gifts.

The whole history of devotion to the Sacred Heart has been one of urging the Church to return love for love. 'This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven… we love because God first loved us.' The fact that our Lord expects and exacts love over and above mere fidelity to his cause is clear from Scripture itself:

'Fortitude you have; you have borne up in my cause and never flagged. But I have this against you; you have lost your early love. Think from what a height you have fallen; repent, and do as you once did. Otherwise, if you do not repent, I shall come to you and remove your lamp from its place.'

How melancholy a thing it would be if we were less drawn to love Christ in our mature years than in our youth! What would be the use of all our work, all our endurance, if Christ were ultimately to come, not to take us to himself, but to remove our lampstand from its place!

In line with the prayer of the Mass (which is a pre Pius VI prayer, restored to the liturgy), CardinalNewman has blended theology and feeling in the following Meditation:

'My God, my Saviour, I adore Thy Sacred Heart, for that heart is the seat and source of all Thy tenderest human affections for us sinners… All Thy incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes, in one inseparably mingled stream, through thy Sacred Heart… I worship Thee then with all my best love, and awe, with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will.'

To return for a moment to the Collect of the Mass. The difference in emphasis between this prayer and that in use from the time of Pius XI, is startling. In the latter, everything led up to a final exhortation: we must not forget to do satisfaction in a worthy manner. In the present prayer, our contemplation of the 'great things Christ's love has done for us', - his Passion and the Eucharist - is prolonged into a prayer for still more grace. We shouldn't jump to the crude conclusion that 'Reparation is out'. First of all, because the earlier prayer is still available in the Missal (though not in the Liturgy of the Hours) as an alternative. But more important still, we touch here on the limits of a 'feast of devotion'.

The atmosphere of the present Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is bitter-sweet rather than melancholy; it is contemplative and trusting rather than penitential and expiatory. With St Bonaventure, in the Office of Readings, it invites us one and all:

'O soul devoted to God, whoever you may be, run to this source of life and light with eager longing… O water eternal and inaccessible, clear and sweet, flowing from the spring that is hidden from the eyes of all mortal men, the spring whose depths cannot be plumbed, whose height cannot be measured, whose shores cannot be charted, whose purity cannot be muddied.'

Some scripture readings for meditation, taken from the Lectionary for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

Deut 7:6-11
1Jn 4:7-16
Mt 11:25-30

Hos 11:1. 3-4. 8-9
Eph 3:8-12. 14-19
Jn 19:31-37

Ezek 34:11-16
Rom 5:5-11
Lk 15:3-7