Sacred Heart of Jesus

A traditional rendition of the Sacred Heart

Today is the Feast day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!  We've all seen the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (see image to the right).  As a child, I always thought that must have been painful and, very practically, asked the question, how could Jesus be alive with his heart outside his body?  Now as an adult, I ask a different question: what's the point of the Sacred Heart?

For an answer, let's take a look at an excellent article by Fr. James Martin, SJ, on the Sacred Heart.  It really gets to the heart of this devotion.

For the Sacred Heart is nothing less than an image of the way that Jesus loves us: fully, lavishly, radically, completely, sacrificially. The Sacred Heart invites us to meditate on some of the most important questions in the spiritual life: In what ways did Jesus love his disciples and friends? How did he love strangers and outcasts? How was he able to love his enemies? How did he show his love for humanity? What would it mean to love like Jesus did? What would it mean for me to have a heart like his? How can my heart become more "sacred"? For in the end, the Sacred Heart is about understanding Jesus’s love for us and inviting us to love others as Jesus did.

To emphasize that point, the end of the article tells a story of a priest showing the image to schoolchildren.  The priest asks the students, "why do you think Jesus' heart is shown outside his body?" A girl responds, “because he loves us so much that he can’t keep it in!”


Read the rest of Fr. Martin's article for more information on the history and development of the Sacred Heart devotion. 

Br. Michael Moran's Sacred Heart