Friday June 27 was the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. a major feast on the church calendar but not a major event in most parishes. Yet this Feast of the Sacred Heart and devotion to the Sacred Heart played a significant role in our church history. The devotion originated in the eighteenth century during a time when the Church was excessively focused on our unworthiness before God. A French nun named Margaret Mary received a vision of Christ pointing to his heart, burning with love for humanity. It was a kind of divine intervention. God broke through our dour faith, reminding us that God is love and that God’s love for us never wavers regardless of our sinfulness and our unworthiness. Part of the message Margaret Mary received was an encouragement to go to communion more often, especially on the first Friday of the month. Many people who came regularly to Mass always absented themselves from communion. Going to Mass AND communion on the First Friday was still a big deal when I was in Catholic School. Although we began each school day with Mass, most of us only went to Communion on First Friday. A three hour fast was still in effect, and going to Communion meant going without breakfast before school. On First Friday, though, the cafeteria turned out pans of buttered toast and milk, and there was time for all of us to have “breakfast” after Mass.

Like many popular devotions and practices, devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Nine First Fridays faded in the late 1960’s. We were invited to focus more on the Mass itself, which was now in English. With only an hour’s fast, going to communion at every Mass became normative and the significance of First Friday diminished. I bring this up, though, not to give a history lesson but to reflect on the significance o the Sacred Heart today.

One of the last “encyclicals” (a message for the whole church) that Pope Francis wrote was on the Sacred Heart (Dilexit Nos). He writes: “Some have questioned whether the symbol is still meaningful today. Yet living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart.” After pointing out that it is reflecting on Christ’s heart that we experience the deepest mystery of who God is, Pope Francis invites us to rediscover the importance of the heart in our own life and in the life of the world.

“From ancient times there has been an appreciation of the fact that human beings are not simply a sum of different skills, but a unity of body and soul with a coordinating center that provides a backdrop of meaning and direction to all that a person experiences.” He says that the heart is the “core that lies beneath all outward appearances, even beneath the superficial thoughts that can lead us astray . . . . The heart is also the locus of sincerity, where deceit and disguise have no place. It usually indicates our true intentions, what we really think, believe, and desire, the ‘secrets’ that we tell no one; in a word, the naked truth about ourselves. It is the part of us that is neither appearance or illusion, but is instead authentic, real, entirely ‘who we are.’ . . . Despite our every attempt to appear as something we are not, our heart is the ultimate judge, not of what we show or hide from others, but of who we truly are.” Francis says that in a very real sense, “I am my heart.” And the unfortunate part of modern life is that we fail “to make room for the heart.” We do not take time to get in touch with our deepest identity (that we are all beloved children of God), and, consequently we act out of own surface and selfish desires, which leads to division and discord.

If we look into our heart, we realize that we all want the same things—to know that we are loved and to love another. Thus, the heart is the “unifying center” not only of the human person but of the global family. “An authentic devotion to the heart of Christ not only leads us to the Father, but also sends us forth to our brothers and sisters.” When we “speak from the heart,” we are able to connect with the heart of another. We are no longer focused on our differences, but what binds us together. To quote the nineteenth century English writer and Catholic leader, John Henry Newman, “heart speaks to heart.” Our own encounter with the healing, forgiving, reconciling love of Jesus, becomes a gift that we share with the world. Pope Francis saw that true devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus can be a powerful tool for healing and reconciling people and nations—and, indeed, creation itself.

                                                       Fr. Joe