Sacred Heart of Jesus: Where Humanity Meets Divine Love – The Fount of Living Waters

Faith / Spirituality

By Dr. Tiju Thomas –

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus stems from the fundamental fact that in Jesus we realize that God who gifts himself is essentially and necessarily the most Holy Trinity (i.e. the God who is love). The Biblical lesson is that Jesus is truly the source of ‘living waters’.(1) Furthermore, the Church teaches that Jesus is the Incarnation of the Second person of the Holy Trinity. The symbol of ‘Living waters’ stands for the reality of life itself (in its’ entirely and in its substance) which flows from God’s eternity and his Divine Love. We thus recognize that life stands on the mysterious and necessary foreground of a self-giving God, as taught by the Church. The Biblical revelation is that life – natural and supernatural – come together through the Holy Spirit who comes to us through Jesus.(2) We may thus recognize that ‘Living waters’, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from God the Father and flows through God the Son (made Incarnate in Jesus) is the source of everlasting life.

Thus one may say that Holy Spirit flows from Jesus’ Heart, thus making his Sacred Heart the mystical abode where Divine Love enters into union with humanity. Therefore the Catechism teaches that ‘living waters’ is one of the most beautiful symbols of the Holy Spirit.(3) Since the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the human heart with Divine Love, also the very substance of Divinity; the Church affirms that worship of the highest form (called Latria), reserved for God alone, is due to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who is the ‘fountain of water of life/living waters’.(4)

At this point, we may look at the Biblical principle: ‘God is Love’.(5) Also we may focus on the Biblical consolation that the thirsty person receives ‘living waters’; the ‘fountain of water of life’. (4) We have seen that the nature of God’s Love is that it is utterly self-giving. The Church proclaims this truth and elucidates it most specially between Good Friday and Easter, and she lives this reality most explicitly in the Holy Eucharist in every Holy Mass. The Easter is ultimately a celebration of the revelation that human failings, such as the one from Original sin and its consequences, cannot thwart God’s great plan for redemption of his wondrous creation.

We see that God in Jesus shows himself to be mysteriously humble and lowly, while also fulfilling a kingly and priestly role for all of humanity by conquering sin, death and suffering. It is thus in the Sacred Heart of Jesus that the omnipotence of God, his perfect justice and his merciful love come together to achieve redemptive action. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is thus the Divine Courtroom wherein Humanity with all its faults meets the merciful God most directly. Thankfully the faulty humankind finds a tangible and real companion in the Merciful God through Incarnation in Christ; therefore the Church fittingly calls him the Redeemer. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus thus Divine justice and Divine love come together and ‘materializes’ the kinship of God with man! It is God’s perfectly fitting and wise plan for redemption. One may even say that the Sacred Heart is the ultimate icon of the New Covenant (i.e. kinship and sacred agreement) between God and humankind.

This raises some rather interesting questions. It is clear that God’s Incarnation was God’s fitting plan for redemption of mankind. For exploring this further we will look at 3 facts together: (i) the Christological doctrine that Jesus is fully human and fully Divine, (ii) the kinship with mankind was willingly established by God through Incarnation, and (iii) Jesus post resurrection had a glorified body, with which he continued revealing himself to the apostles and thereafter to the Church.

Evidently Divine plan for salvation reveals that in God’s own mind, we are inseparably a body-soul composite. To be our kin, God ought to work with not just our spiritual self, but participate in our material reality. We may call this his ‘Divine economy’; for this is the way by which he chooses to manage his creation. He is our foreground and he is also a participant in our lives. He is the God who is transcendent and yet immanent.

Incarnation is thus God’s humility and solidarity, through which justice is upheld while also instantiating the saving fact that ‘God is love’.(6) We must recognize something rather crucial here – this revelation by God elevates and dignifies our body and reveals that body is truly an essential aspect to our complete and wholesome existence.

Having said all of the above, we maintain that it remains utterly mysterious that God chooses to be one among us – as the Emmanuel (meaning ‘God with us’). We accept it as a mystery of our faith which is revealed to us in the person of Christ. It also points mystically to the great truth that God who is Love chooses solidarity with us in a manner that is fitting to his nature and to ours. God is thus the parent, the teacher and the redeemer who is all things to all people. This nature of God allows us to understand the sentiment of St. Paul who says “To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some.” (7) St. Paul while educating us about the nature of love, teaches that love seeks oneness and union. It is in this context that Incarnation ought to be appreciated. Thus for God who is Love, Incarnation is wholly fitting; especially so since it ensures redemption for creation with whom he has established kinship through Jesus.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus, along with what the Church teaches about the mystery of Incarnation, shows God’s unbounded and complete Love, which is in fact possible only for and in Him. The Sacred Heart is thus both a symbol as well as a completely human and Divine emblem of Love in flesh and blood! This is akin to what we understand about Christ’s wounds.

We may recall what the encyclical Hauritius Aquas teaches – for human souls, the wound in Christ’s side and the marks left by the nails have been “the chief sign and symbol of that love” that ever more incisively shaped their life from within.(8) Likewise one may say that for human hearts in conformity and union with the Sacred Heart, there is a perpetual formation made possible through the operation of Divine Love.

Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary: So far we have looked at the Mystical theology associated with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and it’s relationship and consistence with some essential doctrines associated with Christology, Soteriology (study of salvation), Divine economy (management of creation by God), and Theological anthropology (theological doctrine pertaining to nature of human person). Now we will turn to the recent history associated with devotion of the faithful to the Sacred Heart. In the Church’s life, devotion, and inspired sense, the Immaculate heart of Mary has become inseparably united to and upheld by the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

While emphasizing the importance of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in 1956, Pope Pius XII emphasized the inner reality of Christ, which makes him the fountain of ‘living waters’.(8) The Pope then invites us to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Also his predecessor Pope Pius XI taught that “the spirit of expiation or reparation has always had the first and foremost place in the worship given to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus“.(9)

Evidently for Pope Pius XI, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the gateway to the ‘living waters’, which is a continuous source of cleansing of the heart and mind. This is in fact the pathway to everlasting life and the communion of saints. This communion with saints which would also mean partaking in the Divine nature is what the Catechism calls divinization.(10) We may thus say that through Christ, and thus through the Sacred Heart of Jesus we become partakers of Divine nature.

Partaking of the Divine nature is an extraordinary grace indeed since God alone is Divine by nature; we become divinized by adoption; i.e. by kinship that God establishes with us, through Jesus. This adoption opens up an extraordinary possibility – of seeing God (called Beatific vision). Partaking in Divine nature thus allows experience of God’s internal life in an everlasting manner. St Peter professes the same thing in 2 Peter 1:3-4:

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.“

Devotion to Sacred Heart gains gravity precisely because the partaking of Divine nature occurs metaphysically in the union of Divine and Human natures in the person of Jesus. It is in his heart, Jesus’ nous – i.e. his faculty of mind which is a receptacle of the Divine, that we may identify the mystical union with God. It is in conformity with his mind and his Sacred Heart that we are allowed to partake in Divine nature.

This extraordinary promise of the Sacred Heart can be seen as a Covenant (i.e. an agreement or a sacred promise) between Jesus and Mary, who as the Mother of Jesus becomes the Mother of all. This insight has deep and practical implications to the prayer life of the Church. Sacred Heart is after all the means by which we get to share in the spirit of God. It is this very spirit of God that came upon Mary (11) in a remarkable manner. God ordained and willed perfection in the way Mary had the Holy Spirit upon her, thus fittingly allowing for the conception of Jesus who is both completely human and completely Divine.

Given that Mary had the Holy Spirit upon her, she prefigures the Pentecost and thus the birth of the Church. She is hence the most essential human icon of the Church. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is thus in union with her Son, and hence she is consonant with the will of God, as is the Church. Just as the Immaculate Heart of Mary is upheld and united with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so also is the Church upheld by Christ. Mary hence represents the Church in its entirety. Hence she is greatest among the saints, which is only fitting since she is also the Mother of Christ. This is the reason why Pope John Paul II coined the phrase the ‘Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary’.(12)

Art and Symbolism of Sacred Heart: The symbolism of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Catholic art is rather rich. The essential elements however can be spoken of in a fairly succinct and straightforward manner. The Sacred Heart is often depicted with thorns, which represents the response of Jesus’ human heart to our sins, regrets and failings. The blood that flows from the Sacred Heart symbolizes God’s mercy revealed clearly through the Incarnation in Christ.

The love of God is represented by the fire/Flames of Love of the Sacred Heart. These are the flames that vanquish sin, fear and all else that prevents us from approaching the Sacred Heart. It is the fire, which is Divine Love that frees us from our sins, regrets, anxieties and wrong doings.

Practical implications and consolations: Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has practical implications. Sacred Heart is a pierced heart, but it is also the most beautiful heart since it is the source of salvation. This has implications to the way we look at our own pain and sufferings and that of others. It also has implications to the way we view our body (however wounded or disfigured) and that of others.

In meditating upon the Sacred Heart, we recognize that our own wounds and scars are no longer something that ought to be rejected. They ought to be understood and interpreted in keeping with what the Sacred Heart points us to. Our body – however it may be – remains a channel of Divine purpose and our body, created by God is wholly good. This is consonant with the fact that the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is a part of his body is not just a visual representation; it is a channel of his Divine Love for us, even when it is pierced with thorns and injured.

From the stand point of prayers of the faithful too, the Sacred Heart has implications. Latria stands for worship due only to God. “This worship (Latria) called forth by God, and given exclusively to Him as God, is designated by the Greek name latreia (Latinized, latria), for which the best translation that our language affords is the word Adoration. Adoration is different from other acts of worship, such as supplication, confession of sin, etc., inasmuch as it formally consists in self-abasement before the Infinite, and in devout recognition of His transcendent excellence.“(13)

The Church recommends Latria, as defined above, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus since it is substantially united to God. In other words, Latria is due to the Sacred Heart not because it is human; it is because in Christ there is a substantial union of the Divine with the human. Adoration of latria to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is thus principally directed to the Incarnate Word (i.e. the Incarnate Second person of the Holy Trinity). The Sacred Heart belongs as the Incarnate Word as one of His parts. (14)

Given all of the above, we may say that the Sacred Heart of Jesus thus never ceases to symbolize the threefold love with which Jesus Christ is bound to His heavenly Father and the entire human race. The Sacred Heart of Jesus shares in a most intimate way in the life of the Incarnate Word, and is thus an instrument of Divinity, which is uncreated Love that is shared by the Most Holy Trinity. Therefore, “in the carrying out of works of grace and divine omnipotence, His Heart, no less than the other members of His human nature is a symbol of that unbounded love“.(8) 

Dr. Tiju Thomas is an interdisciplinary engineering faculty at Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M). In addition  to his current scientific/technical engagements, he has an abiding interest in catechesis, and human formation of young  students and professionals. He enjoys devoting time to work with people and families who wish for some assistance in gaining a meaningful life direction. He believes that his Christian vocation includes both human formation and availability
to those who wish to see hope even through suffering. Dr. Thomas can be reached at [email protected]

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