Preview: 350th anniversary of the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

On Monday, May 19 we'll discuss the next great 2025 Anniversary on the Son Rise Morning: the 350th anniversary of the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary at Paray-le-Monial. The celebration of this anniversary began as a Jubilee on December 27, 2023, the anniversary of the first apparition and ends June 27, the date of the Solemnity of the feast of the Sacred Heart.

These apparitions at Paray-le-Monial are the source of modern devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (which earlier saints like St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bonaventure, and St. Gertrude the Great had also promoted): First Fridays, the Litany of the Sacred Heart, the Twelve Promises, the dedication of the month of June, Consecration, and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart on the third Friday after Pentecost. In my experience, formed as I was in Catholic schools from Kindergarten through high school, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was encouraged enthusiastically in the last century. 

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at the usual time at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

The great connection for me between this great feast/devotion and my interest in the history of the English Reformation and its aftermath is of course: Saint Claude de la Colombière, the Jesuit priest who helped Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque promote this devotion and served as her confessor in 1675 and 1676. According to this Vatican News website he was sent there to consult with her on the apparitions she'd been experiencing: 

After Father Colombière's arrival and her first conversations with him, Margaret Mary opened her spirit to him and told him of the many communications she believed she had received from the Lord. He assured her he accepted their authenticity and urged her to put in writing everything in their regard, and did all he could to orient and support her in carrying out the mission received. When, thanks to prayer and discernment, he became convinced that Christ wanted the spread of the devotion to his Heart, it is clear from Claude's spiritual notes that he pledged himself to this cause without reserve. In these notes it is also clear that, even before he became Margaret Mary's confessor, Claude's fidelity to the directives of St. Ignatius in the Exercises had brought him to the contemplation of the Heart of Christ as symbol of his love.

After his time at Paray-le-Monial he went to England in 1676. He was a chaplain at the Court of Saint James during the reign of King Charles II serving as a preacher for Mary of Modena, wife of James, the Duke of York. 

During his time in London, Saint Claude continued to correspond with Saint Margaret Mary. He preached in the chapel at Saint James and quietly worked to bring lapsed Catholics back to the Church at Court. As the Vatican News website notes:

And even if there were great dangers, he had the consolation of seeing many reconciled to it, so that after a year he said: "I could write a book about the mercy of God I've seen Him exercise since I arrived here!"

The intense pace of his work and the poor climate combined to undermine his health, and evidence of a serious pulmonary disease began to appear. Claude, however, made no changes in his work or life style.

Being in the household of the Duke and Duchess of York was probably the most dangerous place he could be once the machinations of the Popish Plot began. The whole point of the fictitious plot was for a Jesuit or Jesuit agent to assassinate Charles II so that his Catholic brother James--and his Catholic wife Mary of Modena--would succeed to the throne. 

So in 1678 he was arrested and held in the prison of the King's Bench for three weeks and his health declined precipitously. King Louis XIV negotiated his release but by the time he returned to Paray-le-Monial in the summer of 1681 he was very ill. He died on February 15, 1682.

In his homily for Saint Claude's canonization on May 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II referred to him as one of "the saints of Paray" and concluded:

For evangelization today the Heart of Christ must be recognized as the heart of the Church: it is he who calls us to conversion, to reconciliation. It is he who leads pure hearts and those hungering for justice along the way of the Beatitudes. It is he who achieves the warm communion of the members of the one Body. It is he who enables us to adhere to the Good News and to accept the promise of eternal life. It is he who sends us out on mission. The heart-to-heart with Jesus broadens the human heart on a global scale.

May the canonization of Claude La Colombiere be for the whole Church an appeal to live the consecration to the Heart of Christ, a consecration which is a self-giving that allows the charity of Christ to inspire us, pardon us and lead us in his ardent desire to open the ways of truth and life to all our brothers and sisters!

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us!

St. Claude de la Colombière, pray for us!

The Season of Novenas: Starting with the Holy Spirit

May and June seem to be prime Novena months. We start with the one Novena that the Catholic Church recommends to all for prayer: the Novena--nine days of prayer--between the Solemnity of the Ascension and Pentecost (Friday after Ascension Thursday to Saturday, the Vigil of Pentecost). EWTN's website describes the Novena to the Holy Spirit as:

 . . . the prototype of all novenas. It commemorates the nine days between the Ascension of Our Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost Sunday. During this time Our Lady and the twelve Apostles prayed in the upper room for the coming of the Paraclete.

After Pentecost, there are two other great Solemnities to prepare for: Corpus Christi (celebrated on Sunday, June 2) and the Sacred Heart of Jesus (celebrated on Friday, June 7), which will overlap. Add to that a Novena for Life, sponsored by the USCCB, leading up to the Feast of the Visitation: this is the season of Novenas indeed. 

And in my diocese of Wichita, Kansas, we're encouraged to pray a Novena from June 1 to 9 "for Father Kapaun’s cause, that meetings this summer in Rome may see him named Venerable". On the website for the Novena, we're told the source for these days of prayer:

While stationed in Japan before the outbreak of the Korean War, Chaplain Emil Kapaun gave a series of radio broadcasts based on the Eight Beatitudes to his troops. Two months later he and his men were sent to the defense of South Korea. Over the last year of his life, both on the front lines and facing inhumane captivity, Chaplain Kapaun’s actions showed his own deep understanding and fidelity to the Beatitudes. Aside from day one and a few additions, each of the reflections in this novena comes from these radio broadcasts.

A portion of the final two days of the broadcast were recorded on audio- the only surviving sound we have of Father Kapaun’s voice.

You may listen to Servant of God, Father Emil J. Kapaun's voice here.

There's also an update on the status of his cause. Today, May 23, is the anniversary of his death in 1951.

The practice of prayers for Nine Days or Nine Weeks, or Nine Months, of course, begins with the nine months between the Annunciation and the Nativity of Our Lord: from March 25 to December 25. There are also connections to prayers for the recently departed souls of loved ones. More on novenas here at the old Catholic Encyclopedia.

Corpus Christi, have mercy on us.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

St. Elizabeth, pray for us.

St. John the Baptist, pray for us.

Servant of God, Emil J. Kapaun, pray for us.

Image source (Public Domain): Father Emil Kapaun celebrating Mass using the hood of a jeep as his altar, October 7, 1950

Preview: Newman and the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Matt Swaim and I will continue our series of vignettes from Saint John Henry Newman's sermons and other works on Monday, June 13 with a discussion of Newman and Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern time. Please listen live on EWTN Radio.

Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus developed over the centuries. One of its earliest sources from the Fathers of the Church was contemplation of the piercing of Jesus's heart on the cross, the wound from which blood and water flowed. Those signs of sacred water and saving blood, of course, have long been seen as representing Baptism and Holy Communion. This EWTN transcription of an article from 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia provides some background on the development of this devotion.

The modern celebration of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and other devotions like First Fridays and Eucharistic Adoration on the Thursday before them, stem from the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 17th century in France. Pope Pius IX established the Feast of the Sacred Heart on the Friday after the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1856. Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 11, 1899.

As an Anglican, Newman knew little, probably, of this devotion, but as a Catholic, he certainly celebrated the Feast as Pope Pius IX had established just eleven years after his conversion. Since as a Cardinal he chose the motto of Cor ad Cor Loquitor, it makes sense that this devotion would mean something to him. (Note the two hearts above the one on his Cardinalate shield--one of them represents the Immaculate Heart Mary, the memorial following the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.)

There are two readily available documents showing Newman's devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and his celebration of the feast. The first is from his Meditations and Devotions. These meditations and devotions were published after his death, but according to his secretary at the Birmingham Oratory, Newman had intended to prepare a year-long devotional for the use of the boys at the Oratory School. You'll notice how personal and direct this prayer of adoration is, based on the doctrine of the Incarnation of Our Lord, the Second Person of the Trinity, as truly God and truly man.

1. O SACRED Heart of Jesus, I adore Thee in the oneness of the Personality of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Whatever belongs to the Person of Jesus, belongs therefore to God, and is to be worshipped with that one and the same worship which we pay to Jesus. He did not take on Him His human nature, as something distinct and separate from Himself, but as simply, absolutely, eternally His, so as to be included by us in the very thought of Him. I worship Thee, O Heart of Jesus, as being Jesus Himself, as being that Eternal Word in human nature which He took wholly and lives in wholly, and therefore in Thee. Thou art the Heart of the Most High made man. In worshipping Thee, I worship my Incarnate God, Emmanuel. I worship Thee, as bearing a part in that Passion which is my life, for Thou didst burst and break, through agony, in the garden of Gethsemani, and Thy precious contents trickled out, through the veins and pores of the skin, upon the earth. And again, Thou hadst been drained all but dry upon the Cross; and then, after death, Thou wast pierced by the lance, and gavest out the small remains of that inestimable treasure, which is our redemption.

2. My God, my Saviour, I adore Thy Sacred Heart, for that heart is the seat and source of all Thy {413} tenderest human affections for us sinners. It is the instrument and organ of Thy love. It did beat for us. It yearned over us. It ached for us, and for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us. It is the channel through which has come to us all Thy overflowing human affection, all Thy Divine Charity towards us. All Thy incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes, in one inseparably mingled stream, through that Sacred Heart. O most Sacred symbol and Sacrament of Love, divine and human, in its fulness, Thou didst save me by Thy divine strength, and Thy human affection, and then at length by that wonder-working blood, wherewith Thou didst overflow.

3. O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still. Now as then Thou savest, Desiderio desideravi—"With desire I have desired." I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe, with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will. O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me, O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace.

Then, in his Sermon Notes, for Newman had started to give more feverino type of sermons, not writing them through to be read, but preparing numbered lists of what he wanted to say, he offers an explanation of the practice of this devotion on the Feast of the Sacred Heart on June 6, 1875.

His second point introduces the doctrinal basis of this devotion: "Our Lord is One. He is the one God. He took on Him a manhood, a body and soul; that body from Mary. Still, He was one, not two—one, as each of us is one."

Newman makes a comparison with the way that we love a certain attribute of someone we love because we love him or her and how we can love the Heart of Jesus because will love Him:

 

Further, if I said I loved the face, or the smile, or liked to take the hand of my father or mother, it would be because I loved them. And so, when I speak of the separate portions of our Lord's human frame, I really am worshipping Him. So in the Blessed Sacrament we do not conceive of His Body and Blood as separate from Him.

During Eucharistic Adoration at a Holy Hour, or Forty Hours Devotion, or private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance in an Adoration Chapel, we not idolize the Host as a separate object: we adore Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in that Host or in that Tabernacle, veiled from sight.

Newman's last three points are:

8. What is the Heart the symbol of?—of His love, His affection for us, so that He suffered for us—the agony in the garden.

9. Moreover, of His love in the Holy Eucharist.

10. The Heart was the seat, first, of His love for us; secondly, of His many griefs and sorrows.

Trying to imagine what Father Newman was saying in developing these notes further is an interesting and humbling effort--I look forward to what Matt Swaim will draw from this exercise!--but we can see that Newman wanted to show his congregation how devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus helped them realize how much Jesus loved and loves them: He suffered and died for us; He comes to us in Holy Communion. Newman, for whom religious devotions were always based on the teachings of Jesus and His Church, made the connections between how we believe in Jesus and how we demonsrate our devotions to Him in prayer and worship of His Sacred Heart and in the Eucharist. 

The Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory collected and published these Sermon Notes in 1913 with some comments about Father Newman and later Cardinal Newman's delivery of them in the Introduction:

His manner of speaking was the same in the pulpit as on ordinary occasions; in fact, he was not preaching but conversing, very thoughtfully and earnestly, but still conversing. His voice, with its gentleness, the trueness of every note in it, its haunting tone of (if sadness be too strong a word) patient enduring and pity, has often been described by those who heard it at St. Mary's in the old Oxford days, and, judging from their descriptions, it seems to have been the same in old {viii} age as it was then. Probably the initial impression on one who heard it for the first time would be that it varied very little. This, however, was certainly not the case. Changes of expression or feeling were constantly coming over it, but so naturally and in such perfect unison with what was being said at the moment, that they were hardly noted at the time. It was only afterwards, if something had struck home and kept coming back to the mind, that one realised that it was not the words only, but something in the tone of the voice in which they were said, that haunted the memory.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image credit (public domain): Sacred Heart of Jesus, Portuguese painting from the 19th century.

Three Things about the Sacred Heart of Jesus

First, this prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Blessed John Henry Newman, from his Meditations and Devotions, which he was preparing for the students at the Oratory School in Birmingham:

O SACRED Heart of Jesus, I adore Thee in the oneness of the Personality of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Whatever belongs to the Person of Jesus, belongs therefore to God, and is to be worshipped with that one and the same worship which we pay to Jesus. He did not take on Him His human nature, as something distinct and separate from Himself, but as simply, absolutely, eternally His, so as to be included by us in the very thought of Him. I worship Thee, O Heart of Jesus, as being Jesus Himself, as being that Eternal Word in human nature which He took wholly and lives in wholly, and therefore in Thee. Thou art the Heart of the Most High made man. In worshipping Thee, I worship my Incarnate God, Emmanuel. I worship Thee, as bearing a part in that Passion which is my life, for Thou didst burst and break, through agony, in the garden of Gethsemani, and Thy precious contents trickled out, through the veins and pores of the skin, upon the earth. And again, Thou hadst been drained all but dry upon the Cross; and then, after death, Thou wast pierced by the lance, and gavest out the small remains of that inestimable treasure, which is our redemption.

My God, my Saviour, I adore Thy Sacred Heart, for that heart is the seat and source of all Thy tenderest human affections for us sinners. It is the instrument and organ of Thy love. It did beat for us. It yearned over us. It ached for us, and for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us. It is the channel through which has come to us all Thy overflowing human affection, all Thy Divine Charity towards us. All Thy incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes, in one inseparably mingled stream, through that Sacred Heart. O most Sacred symbol and Sacrament of Love, divine and human, in its fulness, Thou didst save me by Thy divine strength, and Thy human affection, and then at length by that wonder-working blood, wherewith Thou didst overflow.

O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still. Now as then Thou savest, Desiderio desideravi—"With desire I have desired." I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe, with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will. O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me, O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace.

Second, another Oratorian and convert to Catholicism, Father Edward Caswall, translated these two hymns for the feast of the Sacred Heart:

"To Christ, the Prince of Peace" a translation of "Summi Parentis Filio" (an anonymous work):

To Christ, the Prince of peace,
And Son of God most high,
The Father of the world to come,
We lift our joyful cry.

Deep in His heart for us
The wound of love He bore,
That love which He enkindles still
In hearts that Him adore.

O Jesu, Victim blest,
What else but love divine
Could Thee constrain to open thus
That sacred heart of Thine?

O wondrous Fount of love,
O Well of waters free,
O heavenly Flame, refining Fire,
O burning Charity!

Hide us in Thy dear heart,
Jesu, our Savior blest,
So shall we find Thy plenteous grace
And Heav’n’s eternal rest.

And the other, "All You Who Seek a Comfort Sure" a translation of another anonymous lyric, from the 18th century, "Quincumque certum quaeritis":

All ye who seek for sure relief
In trouble and distress,
Whatever sorrow vex the mind,
Or guilt the soul oppress:

Jesus, Who gave Himself for you,
Upon the Cross to die,
Opens to you His sacred heart:
O to that heart draw nigh.

Ye hear how kindly He invites;
Ye hear His words so blest:
"All ye that labour come to me,
And I will give you rest.'

O Jesus, joy of saints on high,
Thou hope of sinners here,
Attracted by those loving words,
To Thee I lift my prayer.

Wash Thou my wounds in that dear blood
Which forth from Thee doth flow;
New grace, new hope inspire; a new
And better heart bestow.

I may sing these hymns tonight as I attend Mass for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi here in Wichita, Kansas.

Third, there a connection between the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the English Reformation. In 15th century England, the Friday following the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi was dedicated to the Five Wounds of Christ. Devotion to the Five Wounds of Chris is kind of a medieval precursor of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Five Wounds are the piercing wounds to the hands, the feet, and side of Jesus on the cross. 

As Eamon Duffy demonstrated in The Stripping of the Altars, this was a very popular devotion to the Passion of Christ in England before the Reformation. Through prayers and meditations, the penitent recalled the suffering of Jesus on the cross and pleaded for the forgiveness of sins. 

During the English Reformation, it developed a powerful symbolism beyond the devotion: Pilgrims opposed to the dissolution of the monasteries carried banners depicting the Five Wounds; Blessed Margaret Pole was attainted of treason because an emblem of the Five Wounds was found in her belongings so that Henry's officials argued that she favored the Pilgrimage of Grace. During the Northern Rebellion, the banners flew again, an obvious reference to that earlier rebellion--and a statement to Elizabethan regime that, the Act of Uniformity notwithstanding, some in England still wanted the old time religion of Catholicism.

The connection between the devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Five Wounds of Jesus is surely most clearly seen in the piercing of His Heart by the Roman soldier: "But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out." (John: 19:34). The blood and water were interpreted (as in this example from St. John Chrysostom) from early on in the Church's history as symbolic of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and as the life and spirit of the Church, itself a Sacrament of God's Grace. You might notice that the banner of the Five Wounds makes that connection very clearly, with the Heart and the Chalice at the center instead of a pierced heart.

The Anglican Ordinariate continues the tradition of Votive Masses to the Five Wounds of Jesus in it Divine Worship Missal.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

England's Nero and the Sacred Heart of Jesus

From First Things, a review of a biography of Henry VIII, focusing on the author's knowledge and understanding of medieval Catholic piety and devotion:

Matusiak is neither Catholic nor especially anti-Catholic. He acknowledges the recent attacks by historians on St. Thomas More, but isn’t persuaded by them. He is a little bewildered by sixteenth-century Catholic piety, but paints a vivid picture of it. And he is perceptive on the king’s relationship to Catholic orthodoxy: “Henry sought throughout the 1540s to impose his own idiosyncratic, hybrid version of doctrine which contained elements both to satisfy and at the same time to frustrate all sides.”

But while I was enjoying this book, I was conscious of an absence, which became obvious only when we got to St. John Fisher’s martyrdom. It is not just that Matusiak characterises Fisher’s stance as an “overreaction”; that is understandable. A non-Catholic is unlikely to sympathize with Fisher’s view that to reject a single doctrine is to abandon the Faith. No, what really rings false is Matusiak’s portrait of the saint as “a hair-shirted, hard-praying, uncompromising flagellant … a scholar and ascetic worthy of beatification.” That’s not inaccurate, but Fisher was so much else besides.

He was, before his dramatic end, a bishop who traveled his diocese visiting the sick of every parish, sitting by the bedside of some suffering invalid for three or four hours at a time; who gave cash and a meal to the beggars crowding at his door each day, while denying himself not just comforts but normal amounts of food and sleep; whose near-contemporary biographer wrote, “To poor sick persons he was a physician, to the lame he was a staff, to poor widows an advocate, to orphans a tutor, and to poor travellers a host.” What Matusiak misses is the deepest thing in St. John Fisher—his love for God and for his neighbor.

Likewise, Matusiak draws an affectionate sketch of the strong-willed Catherine of Aragon, who defied “an assemblage of England’s great and mighty with consummate ease.” But we do not glimpse the Catherine who yearned, as she wrote in a late letter, for “the calm life of the blessed,” when she would see the God she adored.

Matusiak gives us a sense of sixteenth-century English Catholicism, in its awareness of the supernatural—“At this time when funerals were among the most frequent of church services, hell itself was never more than a failed heartbeat or horse’s stumble away”—and its variety of devotions. But he cannot explain to the reader why the removal of the traditional religion so enraged Northern England that around 40,000 people took up arms. The Northerners were, he says in an unusually flat passage, “conservative.”

A better clue to their motives would be found in the banners they were carrying. The army—or as they called themselves, pilgrims—marched behind huge images of the Five Wounds of Christ, including His wounded heart: an image that was a precursor of the later devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Ignatius Press has published an updated edition of Timothy O'Donnell's excellent Heart of the Redeemer, in which the author traces the history of this perennial devotion. Here at the end of the month of June, dedicated to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it's appropriate to remember how Catholics throughout the ages have loved the Lord in His Sacred Heart.

Stained Glass: Sacred Heart in Colwich

We drove out to Colwich, Kansas on Saturday to visit a fruit stand and then stopped in Sacred Heart Catholic Church for a visit to the Blessed Sacrament and morning prayer. We noted how the stained glass windows closer to the altar and sanctuary seemed to be older--definitely in a different style than the windows depicting the Beatitudes further back in the nave.

The Holy Family at work (detail):

The death of St. Joseph (patron saint of happy, holy deaths), also a detail:

This picture of St. Anne and the Blessed Virgin window shows the architectural structure around the image of Mary and her mother:

And this window dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary:

Three of the four windows at the front of the church had that green background and architectural frame--the St. Joseph window had a blue background and different architecture at the top, so must have been added or perhaps replaced an older window.

The beatitude windows were definitely added later with very different artwork and design.This one depicts one of the American Martyrs, perhaps St. Isaac Jogues, SJ with the beatitude, "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake".

These churches built by German immigrants always impress me and my husband--the artistry, the care, the love lavished upon the parish church shines through as surely as the sun through the stained glass windows. I could not find any history of the church or how the stained glass windows were procured or designed. We plan to visit several rural churches in the area this fall.

Blessed John Henry Newman on the Sacred Heart of Jesus

I listened to the podcast of the September 13, 2010 episode of Beyond Belief on BBC 4. The commentators, who included Sheridan Gilley, discussed Newman's upcoming beatification and his reputation as an intellectual and a "literary man". Since one of the other commentators was John Cornwell, author of Newman's Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint, he cited Newman's own reply when an admirer called him a saint:

I have nothing of a Saint about me as every one knows, and it is a severe (and salutary) mortification to be thought next door to one. I may have a high view of many things, but it is the consequence of education and of a peculiar cast of intellect—but this is very different from being what I admire. I have no tendency to be a saint—it is a sad thing to say. Saints are not literary men, they do not love the classics, they do not write Tales. I may be well enough in my way, but it is not the ‘high line.’ People ought to feel this, most people do. But those who are at a distance have fee-fa-fum notions about one. It is enough for me to black the saints’ shoes—if St. Philip uses blacking, in heaven.

Edward Short, a great Newman biographer, quoted that letter in an article for The Catholic World Report, and added the comment:

This confirms something Chesterton once said, in that glorious book of his on St. Thomas, “The holy man conceals his holiness; that is the one invariable rule.”

For all of Newman's intellectual brilliance and his literary genius, however, when we read his prayers and devotions, we find them to be simple, devout, and pious. Remember his advice on being perfect; St. Therese of Lisieux would agree with him, I think: 

IT is the saying of holy men that, if we wish to be perfect, we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well. A short road to perfection—short, not because easy, but because pertinent and intelligible. There are no short ways to perfection, but there are sure ones. . . .

We must bear in mind what is meant by perfection. It does not mean any extraordinary service, anything out of the way, or especially heroic—not all have the opportunity of heroic acts, of sufferings—but it means what the word perfection ordinarily means. By perfect we mean that which has no flaw in it, that which is complete, that which is consistent, that which is sound—we mean the opposite to imperfect. As we know well what imperfection in {286} religious service means, we know by the contrast what is meant by perfection.

He, then, is perfect who does the work of the day perfectly, and we need not go beyond this to seek for perfection. You need not go out of the round of the day.

I insist on this because I think it will simplify our views, and fix our exertions on a definite aim. If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first—Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.

And thus, when he writes about the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he demonstrates the same simplicity and personal devotion to the Person of Jesus: His Paschal Mystery and His Real Presence in the Eucharist, and the hope that Jesus will be present in him and anyone who prays this prayer.

O SACRED Heart of Jesus, I adore Thee in the oneness of the Personality of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Whatever belongs to the Person of Jesus, belongs therefore to God, and is to be worshipped with that one and the same worship which we pay to Jesus. He did not take on Him His human nature, as something distinct and separate from Himself, but as simply, absolutely, eternally His, so as to be included by us in the very thought of Him. I worship Thee, O Heart of Jesus, as being Jesus Himself, as being that Eternal Word in human nature which He took wholly and lives in wholly, and therefore in Thee. Thou art the Heart of the Most High made man. In worshipping Thee, I worship my Incarnate God, Emmanuel. I worship Thee, as bearing a part in that Passion which is my life, for Thou didst burst and break, through agony, in the garden of Gethsemani, and Thy precious contents trickled out, through the veins and pores of the skin, upon the earth. And again, Thou hadst been drained all but dry upon the Cross; and then, after death, Thou wast pierced by the lance, and gavest out the small remains of that inestimable treasure, which is our redemption.

My God, my Saviour, I adore Thy Sacred Heart, for that heart is the seat and source of all Thy {413} tenderest human affections for us sinners. It is the instrument and organ of Thy love. It did beat for us. It yearned over us. It ached for us, and for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us. It is the channel through which has come to us all Thy overflowing human affection, all Thy Divine Charity towards us. All Thy incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes, in one inseparably mingled stream, through that Sacred Heart. O most Sacred symbol and Sacrament of Love, divine and human, in its fulness, Thou didst save me by Thy divine strength, and Thy human affection, and then at length by that wonder-working blood, wherewith Thou didst overflow.

O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still. Now as then Thou savest, Desiderio desideravi—"With desire I have desired." I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe, with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will. O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me, O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace.

As Newman wrote in one of his Discourses: "No one can be a Catholic without a simple faith."

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Image credit: By Carolus - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, used under license.

Heart Speaks to Heart

Since he chose the motto Cor ad cor loquitor when named Cardinal, it would come as no surprise that Blessed John Henry Newman expressed devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From his Meditations and Devotions:

1. O SACRED Heart of Jesus, I adore Thee in the oneness of the Personality of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Whatever belongs to the Person of Jesus, belongs therefore to God, and is to be worshipped with that one and the same worship which we pay to Jesus. He did not take on Him His human nature, as something distinct and separate from Himself, but as simply, absolutely, eternally His, so as to be included by us in the very thought of Him. I worship Thee, O Heart of Jesus, as being Jesus Himself, as being that Eternal Word in human nature which He took wholly and lives in wholly, and therefore in Thee. Thou art the Heart of the Most High made man. In worshipping Thee, I worship my Incarnate God, Emmanuel. I worship Thee, as bearing a part in that Passion which is my life, for Thou didst burst and break, through agony, in the garden of Gethsemani, and Thy precious contents trickled out, through the veins and pores of the skin, upon the earth. And again, Thou hadst been drained all but dry upon the Cross; and then, after death, Thou wast pierced by the lance, and gavest out the small remains of that inestimable treasure, which is our redemption.

2. My God, my Saviour, I adore Thy Sacred Heart, for that heart is the seat and source of all Thy tenderest human affections for us sinners. It is the instrument and organ of Thy love. It did beat for us. It yearned over us. It ached for us, and for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us. It is the channel through which has come to us all Thy overflowing human affection, all Thy Divine Charity towards us. All Thy incomprehensible compassion for us, as God and Man, as our Creator and our Redeemer and Judge, has come to us, and comes, in one inseparably mingled stream, through that Sacred Heart. O most Sacred symbol and Sacrament of Love, divine and human, in its fulness, Thou didst save me by Thy divine strength, and Thy human affection, and then at length by that wonder-working blood, wherewith Thou didst overflow.

3. O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still. Now as then Thou savest, Desiderio desideravi—"With desire I have desired." I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe, with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will. O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me, O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace. Amen.

One of Newman's Oratorians, Father Edward Caswall, also translated two hymns to the Sacred Heart.

Two Translations by Edward Caswall for the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Yesterday we sang two hymns for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Sunday Mass (celebrating the External Feast rather than the Third Sunday after Pentecost in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite): both were translated by Edward Caswall, an Oxford Movement convert to "the Church of Rome" as one source tells it.

The first was "To Christ, the Prince of Peace" a translation of "Summi Parentis Filio", sung--with spirit--to the tune St. George by Henry J. Gauntlet:

To Christ, the Prince of peace,
And Son of God most high,
The Father of the world to come,
We lift our joyful cry.

Deep in His heart for us
The wound of love He bore,
That love which He enkindles still
In hearts that Him adore.

O Jesu, Victim blest,
What else but love divine
Could Thee constrain to open thus
That sacred heart of Thine?

O wondrous Fount of love,
O Well of waters free,
O heavenly Flame, refining Fire,
O burning Charity!

Hide us in Thy dear heart,
Jesu, our Savior blest,
So shall we find Thy plenteous grace
And Heav’n’s eternal rest.

The other was "All You Who Seek a Comfort Sure", sung to the tune St. Bernard:

1 All ye who seek for sure relief
In trouble and distress,
Whatever sorrow vex the mind,
Or guilt the soul oppress:

2 Jesus, Who gave Himself for you,
Upon the Cross to die,
Opens to you His sacred heart:
O to that heart draw nigh.

3 Ye hear how kindly He invites;
Ye hear His words so blest:
"All ye that labour come to me,
And I will give you rest.'

4 O Jesus, joy of saints on high,
Thou hope of sinners here,
Attracted by those loving words,
To Thee I lift my prayer.

5 Wash Thou my wounds in that dear blood
Which forth from Thee doth flow;
New grace, new hope inspire; a new
And better heart bestow.

According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, Father Edward Caswall was an

Oratorian and poet, b. 15 July 1814, at Yately, Hampshire, of which place his father, the Rev. R. C. Caswall, was vicar; d. at the Oratory, Birmingham, 2 January, 1878. He was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was Hulme exhibitioner. Before leaving Oxford he published, under the pseudonym of Scriblerus Redivivus, "The Art of Pluck", in imitation of Aristotle, a witty satire upon the ways of the careless college student, which still has a circulation. To the eighth edition, in 1843, he wrote a special preface of regret for certain passages, now excluded, which, at that later date, he had come to regard as irreverent. In 1838 he was ordained deacon, and in 1839 priest, in the Church of England. In 1840 he became perpetual curate of Stratford-sub-Castle in the diocese of his uncle, Dr. Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury. In 1846 he published "Sermons on the Seen and the Unseen", a volume of thoughtful discourses marked by the same tender and fervent piety found in his well-known hymns, and by a clear leaning to certain elements of Catholic doctrine. Soon afterwards, having come under the influence of Cardinal (then Dr.) Newman and the "Tracts for the Times", he resigned his curacy and, in January, 1847, was received into the Church by Cardinal Acton at Rome. In 1849 Caswall's wife, who had also become a Catholic, died suddenly of cholera, and early in 1850 he became an Oratorian. In 1852 he was ordained priest, and lived at the Oratory until his death. He was buried at Rednal, in the private cemetery of the congregation, near the grave of Cardinal Newman. Besides various manuals of devotion, several of which he translated from the French, his principal works are: "Lyra Catholica", a translation of all the Breviary and Missal hymns with some others (often reprinted; last edition, London, 1884); "The Masque of Mary and other Poems", original poetry, thoughtful, imaginative, tender, and full of zealous faith, a book which drew from Cardinal Newman, in return, a remarkable poem addressed to the author (reprinted several times; last edition, London, 1887); "The Catholic's Latin Instructor in the principal Church offices and devotions" (frequently reprinted; last edition, London, 1897).