Solemnity of the Sacred Heart

Today’s Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is one that is particularly beloved by CUSANS.  It is even designated as a special day of prayer for all of our members.  My own devotion to the Sacred Heart is heightened by the fact that I am a member of the Franciscan Province of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In the year 2006, I was privileged to travel to Lisbon, Portugal, with one of the friars who had been here in Chicago studying English and Scripture. 

One of the sights that I saw in Lisbon was the very first church that was ever named for the Sacred Heart.  The Estrela Basilica (Portuguese: Basílica da Estrela), or Royal Basilica and Convent of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, is a basilica and ancient Carmelite convent in Lisbon, Portugal, built by order of Queen Maria I of Portugal, as a fulfilled promise for giving birth to a son (José, Prince of Brazil). The official name of the church is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Construction started in 1779 and the basilica was finished in 1790. 

The date of its construction reveals that this devotion is rather new in the panoply of Church History.  While I was a seminarian in Westmont, Illinois, I participated in the “Devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus” which we prayed once a month.  According to some reference books about devotions, it was that particular devotion which gave birth to devotion to the Sacred Heart which concentrated on the wound caused by the lance that was thrust through the heart of Jesus.  Today devotion to the Sacred Heart is one of the most popular devotions in the life of the Church.

The symbolic representation of the Sacred Heart pictures the heart of Jesus as a “furnace” of love, a heart that is on fire with love for us.  By dying for us, Jesus demonstrates just how much God loves us.  The heart of Jesus, pierced by a lance, brought forth blood and water, a fountain of grace for all who place their trust in Jesus.

The readings for this particular celebration (the C Cycle of the Lectionary) focus on Jesus, the shepherd who seeks out the lost.  Pictures of the Good Shepherd which depict him with a lamb slung across his shoulders are a somewhat romanticized and endearing viewpoint.  However, as some Scripture scholars point out, an Israeli shepherd would have sought out the lost sheep simply because the cost of that sheep would have come out of his pay if he could not produce at least the hide of a sheep which had been slaughtered by predators. This was the shepherd's livelihood. He could have lost his job. He could have been accused of stealing or selling the sheep. Shepherds were generally not trusted. So searching out the lost one was a matter of some urgency. While such an image dispels the romantic notion of the story, it also heightens the sense of necessity with which the story is invested. God NEEDS to search us out.  Like the other two parables of chapter fifteen of St. Luke’s Gospel, God is depicted as someone whose search for the lost (a sheep, a coin, or a young son) is motivated by necessity.  God is merciful, God is compassionate not because God wants to be merciful and compassionate but because it is God’s mercy and compassion for the sinner which makes God who God is.

I join with all the members of CUSA and all the friars of Sacred Heart Province in giving thanks for this rich image of God’s love.  Let us revel in the knowledge that God’s love for us is an inexhaustible furnace which blazes with such intensity that it will never die.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator