The Glories of the Sacred Heart

Book excerpt: "The Sacred Heart is, as Simeon prophesied of Jesus Himself, 'Signum cui contradicetur.' Like the title of His Blessed Mother, who is in very truth 'Mother of God, ' it has drawn to itself all the assaults of heresy. For it is a divine test of faith in the mystery of the Word made Flesh, 'ut revelentur ex multis cordibus cogitationes.' Those who have trusted with a yearning hope that the faith of Englishmen, in the Incarnation at least, was firm and clear were saddened and silenced when the pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial elicited from some of the highest sources of the established religion a profession of simple Nestorianism. It was then that the first fifty pages in this book were published. Having been out of print for some time, they are now reprinted, as the doctrinal foundation of all that follows. The devotion of the Sacred Heart has two aspects: the one as the centre of all dogma; the other as the source of the deepest devotion. In this latter aspect it reveals to us the personal love of our Divine Redeemer towards each and every one for whom He died. It is a manifestation of His pity, tenderness, compassion, and mercy to sinners and to penitents. Nevertheless, its chief characteristic and its dominant note is His disappointment at the returns we make to Him for His love, and above all, His divine displeasure at the faults and sins of those who are specially consecrated at His service. He seems to be sadly upbraiding us with the three doubting questions which He put to Peter, 'Lovest thou Me?' and to be looking upon us as He turned and looked on him, when he had thrice denied his Master. Into this part of the devotion of the Sacred Heart I have not ventured. It has already been treated so profusely by others, and by many of whom I have only to learn; it is in itself so deep and intimately related to the personal life and mind of each, that I have always felt it better to use but few suggestive words rather than to draw out devotional acts, which to the writer are no doubt spontaneous, natural, and real, but to the reader may be a burden like Saul's armour to David. In the following pages, therefore, I have intentionally confined myself to the dogmatic side of the devotion; and for the following reasons. I believe firmly that when divine truth is fully and duly apprehended it generates devotion; that one cause of shallowness in the spiritual life is a superficial apprehension of the dogma of the Incarnation; and that one divine purpose in the institution and diffusion of the devotion of the Sacred Heart, in these last times, is to reawaken in the minds of men the consciousness of their personal relation to a Divine Master. He has foretold the dimness and coldness of these latter days: 'The Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on the earth? (S. Luke xviii. 8.)' 'Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold (S. Matt. xxiv. 12).' In that day the disciples of the Sacred Heart at least will 'know whom they have believed.'"--