The Sacred Heart of Jesus
I first saw
the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in France, I think. Soon I was to see
many of them; almost any Catholic church I went into would have one. Although I
perceived that image as somewhat weird (for an Eastern Orthodox), with a
three-dimensional heart sitting on the chest, I was drawn to it somehow.
An Eastern Orthodox
typically objects the devotion to the Sacred Heart on the grounds that a heart
is a part of the body and we are devoted to the whole Christ (to venerate a
bodily part is a kind of heresy some say). I must say the objection made a
sense to me, although not for the theological reason but because the heart of Jesus,
being venerated separately from Him, did not work for me psychologically. My
attitude changed when I read the words of Christ addressed to St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque (1647-1690, France) in a vision of Him with His heart being visible:
“Behold
the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting
and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive
from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and
by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in the Eucharist.”
Then I
understood that the Heart depicted outside of the body, pierced and squeezed by
the Crown of Thorns, with the Cross on the top of it aflame and with the rays
of light coming from it is simply a symbolic expression of the emotional
suffering of the Son of Man caused by His love for us and not just that – it
is an invitation to the painfully (for the human with a heart) real relationship
with Him. It is a symbolic expression of the Love of God Who suffers
because His Sacrifice, made out of His burning love for the humanity, has been
rejected, mocked, ignored or otherwise abused by most. It is an utmost
expression of the vulnerability of God, God Who can be vulnerable only
in Incarnation.[2]
Precisely
because in the Person of Christ both Man and God are vulnerable it is so
important for the statue of the Sacred Heart not to be sweetly sentimental, I
think. Far from conveying “sweetness”, it is supposed to convey the pain of the
Man and the pain of God Who has exhausted all means for winning the love of His
creatures and yet is still being denied by so many. There is nothing left; God
died so that men could live and nothing can be added to that fact. One
can detect an anger in the words of Christ to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque –
again, very understandable anger at the loss of the souls and possible
relationships – all that despite the bloody Sacrifice.
I would
like to highlight a very human aspect of the message given by the Son of Man to
the French mystic. It is entirely normal, for a human psyche, to love and to desire
reciprocal love; it is normal, when one loves someone, to wish for them all
possible good and to try to save them from a mortal danger; it is normal to be
beside oneself if one sees that the other is turning his back on the sacrifice
which is also the means of their salvation from the eternal death. Finally, it is
normal, for a normal man, to reveal his vulnerability, to risk, stating his
love and revealing his pain at the loss. Yes, Jesus as He is depicted on the image
of the Sacred Heart is risking to bring even more mockery and spite upon
Himself – if He is God how can He be like that? Isn’t God is supposed to be far
above, not “needing” anything, not heartbroken or at least not exposing Himself
like that?
