Reading an icon of the Heart of Jesus with Rahner

Teilhard was no theologian, and made no claims to be one.  Karl Rahner on the other hand was one of the most important and influential Catholic theologians of the twentieth century.  And as a Jesuit, like Teilhard, he had an intense devotion to the Sacred Heart.  And also like Teilhard his devotion to the Sacred Heart was grounded in Church teaching and tradition, but was not constrained by it.  Rahner also believed that the  Sacred Heart had a considerable relevance for the future: but that we had to go beyond the kind of  popular devotion  which was usually associated with the devotion.   Like Teilhard,  Rahner is a controversial figure, but also like Teilhard despite all his supposed departures from orthodoxy his devotion to the Sacred Heart is absolutely central to his Catholic faith and his Ignatian spirituality+.   Thus what he has to say about the Sacred Heart can provide a way of reading this icon. 

In his essay ‘ The theological meaning of the devotion to the  Heart of Jesus’ *, for example, Rahner describes the Sacred Heart as ‘the ultimate, adoring invocation of the one, all embracing ground of reality and the unity the multiplicity of our religious life’(131).   The term ‘Heart of Jesus’ names ‘the one and all-uniting Lord’ and ‘at the same time unifies and interiorises all the riches of him whom it names’(133).  As such it is a wholly indispensible description or symbol and ‘summa’ of  Christ as ‘God’s eternal word, sprung from the heart of the Father’ which has ‘sought out our own heart’ (135).  And because of this the words must be treated with ‘reverence’ and ‘sober moderation’ (133).   Like Teilhard, therefore, he does not think that the popular devotion  as it stood  at the time was the right direction for the future.   

The ‘Heart of Jesus’  for Rahner – as for Teilhard – is an utterly indispensible symbol, and for this reason both men were deeply concerned about the future of the devotion.   Rahner argues that:

'Apart  from this word of the ‘Heart of Jesus’, what word is there that both names the one and all-uniting Lord and at the same time unifies and interiorises all the riches of him whom it names? There is none; no other has rung out but this one(133).' 

And yet this word:

'.... has been taken up by the devout and prayed and whispered and shouted from the roof-tops(oh, yes, with a lack of discretion, often enough, that has been in horribly bad taste; but the self-offering of love cannot easily be made commensurable with taste and discretion).  And the Church has accepted it.  And she has said that she knows no such other word. Even if we were to say that this word is only one of many possible ones….only this word of the Lord’s Heart can (if any can) be the word for which we are seeking, and which, even though it is there, we are also capable of missing, ignoring and rejecting.’(134)

Because ‘heart’  it is an indispensible word, we have to be more thoughtful about what it means otherwise the devotion will fall victim to the  ‘lack of discretion and bad taste.’   Indeed, by the time of his death in 1984 the Sacred Heart had  become  increasingly ignored and rejected for the reasons that he suggests: a failure to explore the deeper meaning and mystery of the devotion. Rahner thought that given the profound mystery embodied in the symbol, we have to focus on the Sacred Heart as:

‘that place in which the mystery of man opens into the mystery of God’ and that which ‘ signifies the love that is unthinkable and selfless, the love that conquers in utter failure, that triumphs when it is  powerless, that gives life when it is killed: the  love that is God. ‘(134)

For Rahner rediscovering the Heart of Jesus in this sense was therefore the great task for our age: rediscovering it as the symbol of  the powerful love that gathers all things together. (135)   The danger was, however, that it had become an over-used concept and over-familiar image and as a result the devotion was losing its meaning by losing its mystery.  Because it is the summa of our faith, Rahner believed that the symbol should not be over used, but reserved for those times when we are ‘concerned with speaking of the inward man, the ‘hidden person of the heart’ in Christ’ (136).   In other words, the popular devotion to the Sacred Heart  - and especially its image - was actually serving to erode the real meaning of the devotion as embodying the  unutterable mystery of  the idea of the ‘heart’ of Jesus.   If we are to  make the Sacred Heart relevant for our age, and regain the power of the words -  then we have to come to see the Sacred Heart as:

'The name for that reality in which the nameless mystery, whom we call God, is present, not as mysteriously withholding  himself, but as pitying self-giving intimacy: present where we are, in the central source of our earthly being, the heart'.  (140)

 And consequently:

'It is only thus that this word of the Heart of  Christ can be saved from sinking to the level of so many other trite and commonplace religious words.  It is to be used sparingly.  But when we utter it, when we wish to bring together all the rest of what we say of God’s grace and compassion in  Christ and interiorise it and unite it within ourselves by speaking quietly and discreetly of the Heart of Jesus, then we must utter it in such a way that the bare word will be ‘understood’ in this higher sense, the sense in which we shall understand all the words of the faith only when the light of unclouded glory shines upon us.’ (143)

 I suppose, therefore, that this icon may be read as an image which is prompting the viewer to reflect on the Heart of Jesus in this ‘higher sense’ which Rahner is talking about.    It calls the viewer to focus not on the physical heart as in the ‘standard’ image, but as ‘that place in which the mystery of man opens into the mystery of God’ and to read it  less as a  symbol of  reparation but of the the love ‘that is unthinkable and selfless, the love that conquers in utter failure, that triumphs when it is  powerless, that gives life when it is killed: the  love that is God.’ 

In the conclusion to his essay on the ‘Devotion to the Sacred Heart Today’ ** Rahner gives us a way of reading our icon – appropriately enough in ‘Eastern’ terms:

'We look at the heart of the Lord and the question that is decisive for eternity fills our innermost being, our innermost heart and life: Do you love me? Do you love me in such a way that this love generates a blessed eternity, that it truly, powerfully and invincibly generates my everlasting life? This question is not answered because the answer would no longer be a secret; we could give it to ourselves. The question enters the mystery that has come near to us in the heart of the Lord. But when it enters this heart, because it is asked with faith, hope and love, that question is not answered but overpowered by the mystery that is love, by the unquestionable reality of the mystery of God…..It is impossible properly to teach devotion to the Sacred Heart. With confidence in the Church and the Spirit, we must try to approach its mystery. We must eventually, in the luminous and in the dark hours of life, try to pray: ‘Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me.’ We should perhaps try to practice a prayer like the Jesus prayer of the Russian pilgrim. We might venture to use this word like a mantra in Eastern style meditation. But over and above all that, we must experience in life that it is most improbable, most impossible, and so most evident that God, the incomprehensible, truly loves us and that in the heart of Jesus Christ this love has become irrevocable.' **

That is a powerful meditation and a powerful way of reading the icon.  The icon prompts us to reflect on what reply can we give to these questions:

Do you love me?
Do you love me in such a way that this love generates a blessed eternity, that it truly, powerfully and invincibly generates my everlasting life?

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 + See, for example his essay' 'Ignatian Spirituality and the Devotion to the Heart of Jesus' in in Mission and Grace, Volume III, Sheed and Ward/ Stagbooks, London 1966. pp176-210.

*References to essay contained in Mission and Grace, Volume III, Sheed and Ward/ Stagbooks, London 1966.

**Karl Rahner, ‘Devotion to the Sacred Heart Today’, Theological Investigations, vol. 23, pp 127-128)