The title, The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, along with the familiar image of Jesus with his heart bearing the crown of thorns and topped with a burning flame exposed on his chest, is one of the most popular in Catholic and even Anglican and Lutheran circles. In times past every Catholic home had an image or statue of the Sacred Heart in a prominent place, usually alongside an image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Churches and schools were dedicated to the Sacred Heart and are found in cities across the world, Sacre Coeur in Paris, being one of the most famous.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has a long history, but was really made prominent through the apparitions of Jesus to the cloistered nun, St. Margaret Mary in her Visitation convent in Paray le Moniale, France between 1673 and 1675. Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart, a Portuguese Sister of the Good Shepherd also fostered this devotion and begged Pope St. Leo the XIII to consecrate the world to the Sacred Heart, which he did in 1899.
The burning heart of Jesus visualizes the words of St. Paul in Romans 8:35, "What will separate us from the love of Christ?" Pope Pius XII called it the chief sign and symbol of that love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings without exception."
Bro. Rene
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