Fr. José Juan Sánchez Jácome / ACN.- Christian spirituality continues to be our best guide in the turbulent times we are living through. St. Francis de Sales said that “The safest path in spirituality is the little flowers that grow at the foot of the cross. Humility, simplicity, and gentleness of heart”.
After the month of May dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Christian spirituality offers us a month—June—entirely devoted to the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
This devotion consists in entering into the sentiments of Christ. It is not enough to speak of His love; we must allow ourselves to be shaped by it. In this way, we love what He loves and grieve over what wounds His heart. Christian reparation does not spring from anger, but from love; it does not mean looking at the world with contempt, but rather saying to the Lord: “I want to be with You. I want to console You. I want to love for those who do not love. I want to adore You for those who forget You”.
The devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary has practically formed the soul of our Christian communities. Seeing the fervor and affection of our Christian communities, as well as the way they have shaped their Christian faith, we could well apply to them the words of the Apostle Peter: “To those who have obtained a faith as precious as ours…” (2 Pet 1:1-7).
There are brothers and sisters who have great sensitivity and deeply enjoy the things of God. They have received such a precious faith that the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Eucharist are enough for them to feel embraced and protected, and to realize that the whole mystery of God is there. The key in this case is to aspire to this faith that is so precious and complete.
Among us, we can also become hardened, demanding, cold, and calculating in the faith. There are people in the Christian community who do not look favorably on these devotions and arrogantly judge the brothers and sisters who possess this precious faith, which they have based on the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
It is not just any devotion, for the first Christians already meditated upon and held great devotion to the Heart of Jesus. Recall that biblical expression about the Heart of Christ pierced by the soldier’s lance. From antiquity there was devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and certainly with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque it received an impulse that reached our grandparents, our parents, and the Christian communities from whom we are learning that there are brothers and sisters who can have a faith so precious and simple that it eventually captivates us as well.
What is this devotion about? It means not being indifferent to the love the Lord has shown us, becoming aware of how He has demonstrated His most holy love, and how He even accepted death on the cross to reveal to us all the love God has for us. The Sacred Heart of Jesus leads us to respond to the immense love of God.
People who have grown up with this spirituality are therefore patient, persevering, and charitable, and the seven qualities St. Peter speaks of in the text cited above can almost be applied to them. That precious faith they have received leads them to demonstrate it through concrete acts in their Christian life: they are people of good conduct, knowledge, self-control, patience, piety, brotherly love, and charity.
The spirituality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus insists on and deepens the unconditional love that God continues to offer us. God does not abandon His creation, nor does He retract or withdraw His love for humanity.
I would like to point out two characteristics of this spirituality. First, it is a spirituality of reparation. We have offended God so greatly that we need to repair His Sacred Heart, which is constantly despised and ignored. We must pray for those who do evil and ask forgiveness for those who do not ask forgiveness.
Jean Galot maintains that: “Reparation is not a mere act of compensatory justice, but an expression of love that seeks to heal the wounds caused by sin in the heart of God and in the fabric of humanity”.
It is a love that forgives and a gaze that always bears fruits of salvation. Those who looked upon the serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert were healed of their bites. Those who look upon the Heart of Christ are healed of their ailments and sins.
“The veil of Veronica is the symbol of the moving dialogue between Christ and the reparative soul. Veronica responded to Christ’s love with her reparation; a reparation especially admirable because it was made by a weak woman who did not fear the wrath of Christ’s enemies (…). Is the face of Jesus imprinted on my soul (…), as on Veronica’s veil?” (J. Ablewicz).
Second, God responds to the drama of hatred, loneliness, violence, and lack of love with a special manifestation of love. Because of the lack of love, many people are suffering, sunk in loneliness, hopelessness, and frustration. The lack of love also causes man to harden his heart and close himself off to goodness, fraternity, and social coexistence. Returning to love and experiencing being loved—especially those who come from sin, loneliness, hatred, and injustice—will restore their dignity.
We have not yet fully valued and promoted this spirituality, perhaps because we seek immediate results, because it is very difficult for us to offer ourselves for the good of others, and because we prefer more sophisticated things, even in the life of faith.
The idea of reparation—and the structure of some devotions—may seem outdated, monotonous, tiresome, cloying, and insignificant to us. What is in vogue today are innovative experiences, flashy spiritualities, and the sophistication of faith. It matters a great deal to feel good, to look good, to achieve gratifying experiences, and to immerse oneself in emotions that stimulate the senses.
There are many offers of these light spiritualities; there is a religious world increasingly permeated by the offerings of esotericism and the New Age. And within the Church these tendencies can also be fostered. People stop frequenting the Blessed Sacrament, the Virgin Mary, and the sacraments, and adopt sophisticated forms. They seek angels more than Jesus Christ, yoga more than the tabernacle, and novel techniques more than the slow and sacrificial way of the cross.
I have reflected deeply on what I am about to say, but I believe that the devil does not tempt us only to draw us away from God, but also to draw us closer to Him, yet in a mistaken way, so that we justify being very religious without centering our lives on God.
God’s response continues to be His mercy, symbolized by the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which fosters love where evil has extended its dominion and offers love where it has grown without it, where the lack of love has been suffered.
It is a spirituality that does not trivialize the faith, as modern spiritualities do. Fr. Gonzalo Fernández, a Claretian missionary, explains the love of the Sacred Heart in this particular way:
“The Heart of Christ is like the valve that circulates love throughout our world. Like every heart, His has: a systolic movement. The Heart of Christ concentrates and absorbs all the lack of love and suffering that exist on our earth. It is a compassionate heart that takes upon itself the contamination that poisons our self-acceptance, human relationships, and the building of another possible world. The Gospels portray a Jesus who approaches every person in need without placing any barriers.
A diastolic movement by which He puts God’s love into circulation through all the arteries of human beings. The Church Fathers saw in ‘the water and the blood’ that flowed from Christ’s side a symbolic allusion to the sacraments (baptism and the Eucharist), as expressions of that love of God for all humanity—a love that decontaminates us (baptism) and nourishes us (the Eucharist)”.
Where can we find Jesus? How can we find the Lord? Those who think they will find Him in elaborate Eastern meditation techniques or in courses of sophisticated spirituality are frustrated. The Lord reveals Himself where we least imagine: in the poor, in the sick, in the tense and ordinary moments of our lives. God must be welcomed in the most ordinary and unexpected reality of our lives.
The spirituality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus leads us to develop this sensitivity, to broaden our gaze, and to enlarge our heart in order to recognize the Lord in the concrete circumstances of life and to learn to love as He has loved us.