Sacred Heart of Jesus

[cappie]

Jesus understands the way of the heart. Again and again what moved Jesus to work and to weep, to help and to heal, was a heart of compassion. At the very heart of Jesus’ good news was compassion, which literally means “to suffer together” with another person. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says, “and do not let them be afraid.”[viii] He says repeatedly, “Do not be afraid.” “Learn from me,” he says, “for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus understands the way of the heart. After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, two disciples were walking to Emmaus and Jesus mysteriously joins them and shares conversation with them. How do they describe their experience with Jesus? They recalled, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” This is the shared language of the heart.

In the late 17th century, a French nun had a vision of Jesus’ Heart. His heart was enwrapped in thorns and ablaze in flames; ascending from the top of Jesus’ heart was the cross. Though in earlier centuries, many people had reported mystical visions of Jesus’ heart, this particular image of Jesus’ heart – with flames, and thorns and a cross – literally caught fire. This became the image of devotion for The Sacred Heart of Jesus: the ring of thorns, the flames, the cross.

The flames are a symbol of love kindled. What is being burned by this fire of love: fear, despair, hopelessness, inadequacy, dread, sadness, grief, loneliness. The sacred heart of Jesus, on fire with love for you.

Then there’s the crown of thorns borne by our Savior. If we remember back to Jesus’ meeting with the Apostle Thomas following the resurrection, it was only after Thomas saw and touched the wounds on Jesus’ hands and in his side that Thomas could fully believe that this was Jesus, the crucified, resur­rected Jesus, the Savior. Jesus is the wounded healer. Jesus’ compassion for the suffering of humankind is not just historical; Jesus’ compassion is present now, his heart broken open for the world, and for you.

And then the image of the cross atop the Jesus’ heart: Jesus’ cross and your cross, the cross or crosses you have taken up in life, what has just killed you in life, and yet you live again.

For biblical Jews, the heart did not so much represent that extraordinary muscle that beats in our chests as much as the unity and singleness of human beings.

If the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is about anything it is about the symbol of the heart,  the heart is seen as the center and symbol of the deepest expressions of love.  The focus of devotion is based entirely upon the symbolism of the heart. It is the symbolism that imparts meaning and unity, and it is this symbolism that the artistic representation of the wounded heart of Jesus attempts to complete.

From a time that is only a vague memory in humanity’s history; people have resorted to symbolic expressions of things that they have found mysterious and inexplicable. The representation of the heart of Jesus is something of a sensible sign of Jesus’ senselessly limitless and entirely inexplicable love for humanity and the representation of a wounded heart is meant to recall the invisible wound of this love; the heart of God broken in our rejection of that love. Since in images of the Sacred Heart, the symbolic expression must dominate all else, anatomical accuracy is not sought anymore than it is sought in this icon. Any such accuracy would injure the devotion by rendering the symbolism less evident. Since the heart is above all else an emblem of love, the devotion is entirely to the love of Jesus.

So if we honor the Sacred Heart we in fact honor the love of Jesus for humanity through a symbol, a metaphor, because words fail when we attempt to give expression to what cannot be literally expressed. God’s love is everywhere manifested. In Jesus, the God-man, it is uniquely expressed in that his divine love and his human love are inseparable as are his divine and human natures.

I think that it is important to remember that Jesus had a human heart and that the human heart, in its fullest and most authentic expression, never lies far from the very heart of God. The Sacred Heart of Jesus draws us to those truths.