Download DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS, IS IT RELEVENT

DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS, IS IT RELEVANT IN
TODAY’S SOCIETY?
Introduction
As Good Shepherd Sisters, we received devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a
spiritual heritage from both St. John Eudes and St. Mary Euphrasia. Our Sister Maria
Droste also proclaimed the love of Christ, and down the years, numerous apostolic and
contemplative religious of the Good Shepherd have found nourishment in the devotion
for both their religious and missionary lives. But, in today’s world is this expression still
relevant? Why?
It has to be noted that the Church and the way it expresses its piety are situated in History
and in consequence, subject to change. Images can become “empty” or change their
significance. The heart is a very old symbol of life as the seat of the sentiments, joy,
pain … It is the expression of the very centre of the person. Karl Rahner speaks of a
primitive word – a word that expresses something very intimate, personal.
Given the pressing and existential questions at this latter end of the century, many people
feel that to talk about the Heart of Jesus seems very soft, too individual, and simply
“interior”. In a century in which there is a growing incomprehension of the existential
message of Christianity and the mortal dangers surrounding everyone, it is quite normal
that a devotion to the Heart of Jesus would not have the same relevance as in previous
centuries.
People today are confronted in many ways by their limitations. How are the power and
goodness of God compatible with all the suffering of creation?
The idea of the Heart of Jesus as a challenge to love and solidarity could be a possible
way forward towards a legitimate interpretation.
The official texts of the Church (GS and LG) refer to the Incarnation of Jesus where
devotion to the Heart of Jesus finds its root. The Heart of Jesus is the Centre of all
centres: in Jesus, God himself has a heart, i.e. a heart for all people. The human being, as
a creature of God is warmed by this knowledge. In the Heart of Jesus, the unity between
the divinity and humanity is most clearly shown. To talk about the Heart of Jesus is not
sentimental piety, but rather a fundamental, essential expression of the unity between
God and humanity that urgently demands fraternal love.
The heart as the centre of the intimacy and motivation of the man Jesus is beyond all
structures and dogmas – and what is the most important: love. It can perhaps, even today
– freed from the obsolete forms, be of a symbol of the hope and quintessence of the
person of Jesus Christ and his message.
To talk about the Heart of Jesus as a sign of hope for the world cannot not be a pious
analgesic: this hope does not dispense us from working painfully to make our earth
1
habitable for each and everyone, for each and everyone is willed by God and loved by
Him.
(A German lecturer, theologian, Dr. Claudia Kolletzki – on the occasion of the centenary
of the death of Bl. Maria Droste)
Biblical foundation
To talk about the Heart of Jesus, is to celebrate the love of God in the astonishing
mystery of the Incarnation: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son” (Jn 3:16). God was talking to his People in the language of love: “Ephraim, how
could I part with you? My heart recoils from it, my whole being trembles at the
thought”. (Hos.11:8-9). It is with a mother and father’s love that God wants to save his
people! This is even more true when “The Word was made flesh” (1Jn.1:14) God now
has “this Heart of flesh” (Ez. 36:26) that beats in Jesus’ breast: this Heart formed in
Mary’s womb, this Heart on which the beloved apostle leaned, this Heart pierced for us
on the Cross; this same Heart today living in the glory of the Risen Christ! …until,
knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter
fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19)
And you …how would you present devotion to the Sacred Heart today?
What other biblical texts would help you to understand the love of the Heart of Christ?
Do you use them in your prayer? How?
THROUGH THE YEARS HOW HAS DEVOTION TO THE HEART OF JESUS
BEEN PRESENTED BY JOHN EUDES, MARY EUPHRASIA AND MARIA
DROSTE?
1. St. John Eudes starts from the reality of the Incarnation:
“…the Heart of Jesus is the organ of the body hypostatically united t the Word, shaped
by the Holy Spirit from the blood of the Mother of love and pierced by a lance on the
Cross” – “It is his heart, at once humanly divine and divinely human.” (O.C. VIII, 263).
For St. John Eudes, the heart is the whole person of Jesus, under the sign of love; his
human sentiments, as we see them in the Gospel:
 when Jesus “moved to compassion, touched a leper” (Mk. 6:34)
 was indignant when faced with evil (Mk. 3:5 ; Jn. 2:15)
 was full of pity on seeing the crowd, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mk. 6:34)
 was touched by the tears of the widow of Naim (Lk. 7:13)
 trembled with emotion at the death of Lazarus (Jn.11:33) and at the approach of
his own death. (Mk.14:33-34)
St. John Eudes teaches us that the Heart of Jesus is given to us to be our heart: “Let us
offer him and give him our hearts, for He has given us his” (O.C. VIII, 338). “Live with
the life of this blessed Heart, have within you its sentiments; give yourselves without
ceasing to the spirit which animates it, so that it might lead you in all things, that its
2
charity would inflame you and above all that its zeal for the salvation of souls would
devour you.” (O.C. X, 75).
From John Eudes’ book, The Heart of Jesus, choose a prayer which, to your mind,
expresses devotion to the Heart of Jesus in a way adapted to our time.
Try to put the text in today’s language.
2. St. Mary Euphrasia
As a disciple of John Eudes, Mary Euphrasia had a great love for the Sacred Heart and
continually invited the Sisters to love and honour it. In the course of the Beatification
Process, Mother Mary of St. Peter de Coudenhove declared that Mary Euphrasia loved
this devotion, prayed to the Sacred Heart when things were difficult, wished the
Mistresses of the Classes to have confidence in it and recourse to it often. She made
retreats in honour of the Sacred Heart. She confided the missionaries to it and invited the
Sisters to learn the virtue of humility from the Heart of Jesus.
“With regard to holy things, she loved all the great catholic devotions, above all the
Sacred Heart.” (Ordinary Process p. 77)
“She said that [Mary Euphrasia Pelletier] … in prayer recommended her difficulties to
the Sacred Heart of Jesus. (Idem. P. 59)
“The Servant of God said to her daughters that the first thing a religious should do on
being appointed Mistress of the Class was to confide themselves to the Sacred Hearts of
Jesus and Mary and to have recourse to them often…(Idem. P. 444-445)
“In the book of the Acts of the Chapter of the Mother House, we find that five times she
made a retreat in honour of the Sacred Heart.” (Idem. P.445)
Mary Euphrasia wrote to the Sisters in Louisville thus: ‘I will seek you and find you every
day of my life in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.” (Idem. P. 461)
“Elle exhorted her religious to study humility at the school of Our Lord in his Sacred
Heart. (Idem. P. 564)
Sr. Emilie Barrion said in the same Ordinary Process:
“she established that each Friday some religious would be in retreat in honour of the
Sacred Heart.” (Idem. p.1478)
And Sr. Sophie Letocart adds:
“Each Friday she recited the honourable amends to the Sacred Heart.” (Idem. P. 182)
At the Good Shepherd, did Mary Euphrasia use the John Eudes texts to celebrate the feast
of the Sacred Heart: Yes? No? Why?
BLESSED MARIA DROSTE
In the 19th century, several men and women saw in the mysticism of this form of devotion
to the sacred heart, a way of protesting against the rationalist tendencies of the
modernism of their time. Added to this, in her family, Maria Droste was used to the
3
contemporary tradition of devotion to the sacred heart by means of images, devotions and
acts of consecration etc.
Maria Droste was a passionate disciple of the love of the sacred heart for every person.
She saw the heart of Jesus as a light which enlightens the world; like an ocean of love,
compassion and tenderness. She called herself: “the apostle of his heart” and she wanted
to draw everyone to the heart of jesus.
“FROM THE BRIGHTNESS OF THIS LIGHT, PEOPLES AND NATIONS WILL BE
ENLIGHTENED, AND THEY WILL BE WARMED BY ITS ARDOUR. LET US GIVE
HIM LOVE FOR LOVE, … BUT A GENEROUS LOVE, A DISINTERESTED LOVE:
AND THERE WE WILL FIND THE SOURCE OF OUR HAPPINESS AND OUR
PERSEVERANCE IN THE WAY OF PERFECTION” (LETTER OF 6.01.1899 TO POPE
LEO XIII)
DO YOU KNOW THE LETTER SENT ON 6TH JUNE 1899 BY MARIA DROSTE TO
POPE LEO XIII ABOUT THE CONSECRATION OF THE WORLD TO THE
SACRED HEART? CAN YOU FIND ANY ELEMENTS IN IT THAT WOULD BE
RELEVANT IN TODAY’S WORLD?
4