The most beautiful words that flow out of one’s lips and sometimes flow from one’s pen have mostly to do with emotions welling out of the human heart. Some heart-rending verses are also expressed when that heart full of love is bruised or broken. Interestingly, the emotions of the heart are not always between a man and a woman only. Sometimes even stronger bonds exist in other relations too, as between a mother and a child. St Augustine considered the heart as the moral and spiritual core of the human being. The Bible is full of references to the heart as the centre of both human and divine compassion. And that brings us to the Divine Heart.
The month of June in the Church is dedicated to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Since 16th century the Catholic piety has dedicated every month of the year to specific devotions. The month just gone by, for instance, is dedicated to Mother Mary. During the month of June, special prayers are offered by the faithfuls, among other things, to one particular aspect of Jesus’ being — His Heart. The recorded history of the saints tells us that St Gertrude the Great, a renowned mystic nun had in 13th century advanced her personal piety around a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She used to regularly pray: “Hail! O’ Sacred Heart of Jesus source of eternal life, infinite treasure of the Divinity, and burning furnace of divine love. Consume my heart with that burning fire with which Thine is ever inflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Thy love, and let my heart be so united with Thine, that our wills may be on. May Thy divine will be equally the standard and rule of all my desires and of all my actions. Amen.”
Similarly St Margaret Mary Alacoque was granted special revelations between years 1673-75 encouraging her to dwell in the Heart of Jesus. The devotion she developed consisted in the divine worship of the human heart of Christ, which is united to His divinity and which is a symbol of His love for us. The aim of devotion is to make Jesus king of our hearts by prompting them to return love to Him and to make reparation for our ingratitude to God. It is therefore natural that during worship our prayers to God flows from our hearts. These sometimes extend, as they truly must, in acts of love and charity towards our needy brothers and sisters. While we do require loving human hearts to genuinely relate to other human beings, deeper spirituality would entail finding a fine thread that would bind our hearts to the Sacred Heart of Love.
