After covering so much ground so far discussing the Sacred Heart (CLICK HERE to read previous posts in this blog series), let’s start to crystallize some particularly important aspects of the Sacred Heart, so as to understand the significance of this devotion.
Since Jesus Christ is truly a man, like us in all things but sin (as Saint Paul writes in Hebrews), then this means that, like us, Jesus, by virtue of and in his humanity, has a rational intellect, a rational will, emotions, and a human body, since all are a part of the nature of man itself. And so he really did have thoughts come into his head, an imagination, a body that felt goosebumps when it was chilly or sweat when it was hot, and the emotions of joy, desire, anxiety, and the like. And he really did shed blood at eight days old at his circumcision, cry when his good friend Lazarus had died, feel the sorrow of rejection when Judas betrayed him with a kiss, and, ultimately, the pain of the crucifixion. For the purposes of our blog series here, this also means that, as a true man, with a true human nature, living a truly human life, Jesus Christ really does have a human heart. Which is what the Sacred Heart of Jesus is: it is the real human heart of Jesus Christ. So physically speaking, the Sacred Heart is an organ that pumps blood throughout the body, has four chambers, is roughly the size of a fist, and so forth. This heart of flesh of Jesus being what we call the “material object” of the Sacred Heart devotion.
Yet as a human heart, we know that the Sacred Heart also carries great significance beyond being just a physical organ. As we read in paragraph 2563 of the Catechism – “The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place ‘to which I withdraw.’ The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.” While the Sacred Heart is, physically speaking, the real human heart of Jesus Christ, there’s also this figurative meaning to the human heart, the Biblical view of the human heart being that it is the center of one’s life, core of one’s being, the depths of who one is as a person. We express this when we say things like “I love you with all of my heart”, which certainly does not mean “I love you with all of my aortas and ventricles”, but rather “I love you with everything I am, everything I have, everything I desire and dream and hope for. You are everything to me and I give you my all.” Likewise, when we speak of a “broken heart”, we’re not speaking of a broken bodily organ, but being let down, betrayed, turned against, rejected, as signified by the heart being “broken”. In a nutshell, the heart signifies everything of the person and his/her love. As such, it signifies the same for Jesus Christ, as well, as we will see in our next post!
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