The Mercies of the Sacred Heart: Sermons for First Fridays - Part 1
Excerpt from the book The Mercies of the Sacred Heart
Blessed First Friday! I hope you have the opportunity to make it to Mass today and make reparation to the Sacred heart of Jesus. If not then consider making reparation by spending time praying before an image of the Sacred Heart and offering up prayers in reparation for the sins committed against our Lord’s Sacred Heart.
Today’s article considers the reasons why we should honor and reverence our Lord’s Sacred Heart. I hope whatever you are dealing with today, that you will turn in loving hope to our Lord’s precious and merciful Heart.
Yours in Jesus and Mary.
From the book The Mercies of the Sacred Heart: 12 Sermons for First Fridays by Very Reverend Alex MacDonald, D. D. (Joseph F. Wagner, 1904, pages 1-5).
The Devotion to the Sacred Heart
Synopsis: Every Catholic devotion is founded on some central truth of our religion. Devotion to Sacred Heart, founded on the doctrine of the Incarnation. Three things distinguished in all devotion: (a) The homage, (b) The object, (c) The motive. The first requires knowledge and moral goodness. Difficulty of awakening devotion towards purely sensible things. Sensible or material object required to act on the heart, (b) The most perfect object of devotion is the Sacred Heart. Reasons why the Heart of Christ was chosen for adoration: (i) Christ willed it. (2) Heart is great sustainer of life, (j) It is considered as symbol and seat of all real love, (c) Motive of this devotion is Charity. The Sacred Heart makes God s love more visible; helps man to realize this love more fully and urges him to greater gratitude; furnishes us with means of fulfilling precept of Charity, (d) Christ is our truest friend; hence all should go to Him for refuge, for strength, for salvation. Heed His invitation.
Catholic devotion is the loving homage paid to a sacred object as seen in the light of faith. It is, in its last analysis, the outgrowth and living expression of Catholic dogma. It has its seat in the heart and its root in the intellect. It grows out of divine truth, and is nurtured by divine love, as the flower is nurtured by the warm sunshine.
Now the truth out of which the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus grows is the central truth of the Christian religion, the Incarnation of the Son of God. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
The Word was made flesh this, I say, is the central truth of Christianity, and it is the source whence springs the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The Son of God became Man without ceasing to be God. He is true God and true Man in one Divine Person. Begotten of the Father before all ages, true God of true God, co-equal with the Father, in the fulness of time He took upon Himself our nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and was made man of her. He took to Himself a body and soul, and became as one of us in all save sin.
The body and soul that the Son of God thus assumed became, in the strictest and most real sense, His own body and His own soul. The human nature of Our Lord had no personality of its own. It subsisted, as theologians phrase it, in the personality of the Eternal Word. The body of the Virgin’s Son was truly the body of God the Son, and the soul of the Virgin’s Son was truly the soul of God the Son. The face that looked into the faces of men was the face of God; the lips that spoke as no man spoke before or since were the lips of God; the hands that healed the sick were the hands of God; the feet that were nailed to the cross were the feet of God; and the heart that was pierced with a lance was the heart of God. The loving homage that we pay to that Divine Heart is, therefore, a real profession of faith in the mystery of the Incarnation. The word Incarnate must needs have a heart of flesh, and this heart of flesh is worthy of divine worship because it is the Heart of God.
In devotion, or religious homage, we may distinguish three things: 1. The homage itself; 2. Its object; 3. Its motive. To put this in another way: we may consider the one who offers homage, that to which it is offered, and the reason that leads to its being offered.
As regards the first, it is only rational beings that are capable of devotion. Devotion supposes a knowledge of its object and a sense of the object’s moral worth. “As well can there be filial love without the fact of a father,” says Newman, “as devotion without the fact of a Supreme Being,” and, of course, the consciousness of that fact. It is only improperly, or by a figure of speech, that we attribute devotion to the lower animals, and speak, for instance, of a dog’s devotion to its master. The animal has, indeed, a sense of its master’s kindness, but it has no sense of his moral goodness. A very bad man may be very good to his dog, and so awaken in the brute a sort of devotion to his person not because he is good himself, but because he is good to the dog.
It is with true devotion as with true love, for the two are closely united. It is not so much the kindness received that awakens devotion as the consciousness that it was prompted by an unselfish motive and that back of the kindness there is moral worth. Man is thus capable of devotion because he can weigh motives, and is consciously influenced by motives, and can discern that which is morally good. And in the measure that one realizes the moral goodness and beauty of an object will one’s devotion to it be lively. If the object is purely spiritual, one of which we can form no sensible image, it does not awaken a lively devotion in the great mass of men. There are very few who practice devotion to the Blessed Trinity, or to the Holy Ghost, or even to the angels, because the Trinity is a mystery so far beyond the reach of the human mind, and the Holy Ghost is a pure spirit, and the angels are pure spirits, and few men can get beyond material and sensible things, or realize things of a purely spiritual nature.
On the other hand, devotion to the saints, to the Blessed Virgin, to our divine Lord, is common among all classes of the faithful. These are objects of devotion that can easily be brought home to all, be they ever so ignorant and unspiritual. And this was one main reason the Son of God became man, that He might bring Himself within the reach of His creatures, win His way to their hearts, and awaken devotion to His person.
Of all devotions that have some sensible or material thing for their object, the most perfect is the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The reason is, first, that the homage we pay to it is divine, it being the Heart of a Divine Person. Again, it is itself the most perfect object, and sets before us the highest and holiest and most perfect motive to inspire devotion. The Sacred Heart of our Saviour is the fountain of every grace and spiritual blessing. From it the saints have drawn. Out of it the Blessed Virgin has received the fulness of grace. And as the fountain is greater than the streamlets that flow from it, so is the Sacred Heart of Jesus incomparably greater and more perfect as an object fitted to stir our devotion than any other object of which we can form a sensible image.
It may be asked why the Heart of the Saviour should be chosen as a special object of devotion. First of all, because such is His own will as revealed to Blessed Margaret Mary. “Behold the Heart,” were His words to this privileged soul, “which hath so much loved men, which hath spared nothing, even to exhausting itself and consuming itself in order to give them testimony of its love; and in return I often receive only ingratitude, by the irreverence and the sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. What giveth Me most pain is that among them there are hearts consecrated to Me. Therefore, I ask of thee that the first Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi may be set apart as a particular feast to honor My Heart, by receiving Communion on that day and making a solemn act of reparation for the insults it hath received.”
Apart, however, from our Lord’s own desire, there are reasons that make His Heart peculiarly worthy of special devotion. In the first place, the heart is the source of man’s lifeblood. At every throb it sends the blood coursing through the veins to give new life and vigor to man. The Sacred Heart is thus the fountain of the Precious Blood, which is the price of our redemption.
Again, the heart of man is associated in our ideas with his moral character. We say of a man that he has a good heart, or a hard heart, or a corrupt heart. And as a hard heart repels us, and a corrupt heart excites our loathing, so a good heart wins our love and veneration. And if so, how much more should the Heart of our Saviour, the most tender and loving of all hearts, inspire us with devotion.
Lastly, by the consent of mankind, expressed in the received usage of every tongue, the heart is the seat and symbol of love. Hence God Himself says in Holy Writ: “My son, give me thy heart,” and, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart.”
This brings us to the motive for the devotion, which is charity, the purest and most perfect of all motives, as this virtue is the most perfect of all virtues. “Now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three,” says the apostle, “but the greatest of these is charity.” The Beloved Disciple tells us that “God is Love.” And it was to make known His love for men that God sent His Son into the world. For “God so loved the world as to send his only Son, that all who believed in him should not perish, but should have life everlasting.” From the first God loved man, whom He made in His own image and likeness, but not from the first was man so sensible of God’s love for him; not from the first could man fully realize the love of God for him; not from the first was that love made visible to man and almost palpable. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the human and the divine for the first time met in the unity of one Person and were blended in a most perfect love. It is a human as well as a divine love; it is a sensible love; it is a love of sympathy.
Thus, while the Sacred Heart is the object of our devotion, its love is the motive that prompts devotion. “I came,” He tells us Himself, “to cast a fire upon earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?” When Our Lord appeared to Blessed Margaret Mary, He showed her His Heart, surrounded, as it were, with flames. Our aim, then, in practicing this devotion, is to make some return of love for the love He has shown us. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is really devotion to the love of the Incarnate God.
This devotion furnishes us with a means of fulfilling the great precept of charity. It is a simple and easy way of fulfilling the precept, a way suited to our nature, for it sets vividly and sensibly before us the motive of perfect charity, which is the love of God for us made manifest in the wounded Heart of His Son. It sets before us, at the same time, the model of perfect charity, since “greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friend.”
Happy those who by their devotion win the love and friendship of this divine Heart! It will be, as He has promised, their sure refuge in life, and especially at the hour of death. The friendship of the great ones of this world is dearly bought, and when gained is often not worth having. Human friendship is uncertain and unstable. Friends here below may fall away and fail us when we need them most. Here is One whose friendship is of priceless worth, who will enrich us with every gift, who will stand by us even if all the world should forsake us, whose Heart is open to be our refuge when the storm of affliction sweeps over our souls.
Let us draw near to Him, then, and seek Him often in the sacrament of His love. “Come to me,” He tells us, “all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” Let us heed this sweet invitation, and in the day of trial, when our hearts are heavy, let us come and kneel before the altar where the Heart of our loving Saviour is ever pleading for us. Let us put Him in mind of His promise awaken Him with our prayers, as did the disciples on the storm tossed lake, that He may once more still the wild waves and bring to troubled souls a great calm.