Francis and the scarred heart

The Pope's reflections on the Feast of the Sacred Heart becomes clearer when we place them in the context of his words to priests the previous day: ( See here)


I think this is an important contribution to Francis's teaching on the Sacred Heart. Here are a few passages which strike me as especially relevant.  I have lost track of the number of times I have typed ' the scared heart of Jesus' rather than 'sacred'.   In this reflection Francis reminds us that the sacred heart is indeed a scarred heart.

 God keeps forgiving, even though he sees how hard it is for his grace to take root in the parched and rocky soil of our hearts.  He never stops sowing his mercy and his forgiveness.

 The Lord never tires of forgiving us; indeed, he renews the wineskins in which we receive that forgiveness.  He uses a new wineskin for the new wine of his mercy, not one that is patched or old.  That wineskin is mercy itself: his own mercy, which we experience and then show in helping others.  A heart that has known mercy is not old and patched, but new and re-created.  It is the heart for which David prayed: “A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 50:12). 

That heart, created anew, is a good vessel; it is no longer battered and leaky.  The liturgy echoes the heartfelt conviction of the Church in the beautiful prayer that follows the first reading of the Easter Vigil: “O God who wonderfully created the universe, then more wonderfully re-created it in the redemption”.  In this prayer, we affirm that the second creation is even more wondrous than the first.  Ours is a heart conscious of having been created anew thanks to the coalescence of its own poverty and God’s forgiveness; it is a “heart which has been shown mercy and shows mercy”.  It feels the balm of grace poured out upon its wounds and its sinfulness; it feels mercy assuaging its guilt, watering its aridity with love and rekindling its hope.  When, with the same grace, it then forgives other sinners and treats them with compassion, this mercy takes root in good soil, where water does not drain off but sinks in and gives life. 
The best practitioners of this mercy that rights wrongs are those who know that they themselves are forgiven and sent to help others.  We see this with addiction counsellors: those who have overcome their own addiction are usually those who can best understand, help and challenge others.  So too, the best confessors are usually themselves good penitents.  Almost all the great saints were great sinners or, like Saint Therese, knew that it was by sheer grace that they were not.

The real vessel of mercy, then, is the mercy which each of us received and which created in us a new heart.  This is the “new wineskin” to which Jesus referred (cf. Lk 5:37), the “healed sore”.
Here we enter more deeply into the mystery of the Son, Jesus, who is the Father’s mercy incarnate.  Here too we can find the definitive icon of the vessel of mercy in the wounds of the risen Lord.  Those wounds remind us that the traces of our sins, forgiven by God, never completely heal or disappear; they remain as scars.  Scars are sensitive; they do not hurt, yet they remind us of our old wounds.  God’s mercy is in those scars.  In the scars of the risen Christ, the marks of the wounds in his hands and feet but also in his pierced heart, we find the true meaning of sin and grace.  As we contemplate the wounded heart of the Lord, we see ourselves reflected in him.  His heart, and our own, are similar: both are wounded and risen.  But we know that his heart was pure love and was wounded because it willed to be so; our heart, on the other hand, was pure wound, which was healed because it allowed itself to be loved.

In the same reflection Francis also refers to another  dimension of the scarred heart of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin.  In particular he spoken about the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose shrined I have been privileged to visit twice.


  Ascending the stairway of the saints in our pursuit of vessels of mercy, we come at last to Our Lady.  She is the simple yet perfect vessel that both receives and bestows mercy.  Her free “yes” to grace is the very opposite of the sin that led to the downfall of the prodigal son.  Her mercy is very much her own, very much our own and very much that of the Church.  As she says in the Magnificat, she knows that God has looked with favour upon her humility and she recognizes that his mercy is from generation to generation.  Mary can see the working of this mercy and she feels “embraced”, together with all of Israel, by it.  She treasures in her heart the memory and promise of God’s infinite mercy for his people.  Hers is the Magnificat of a pure and overflowing heart that sees all of history and each individual person with a mother’s mercy.
            During the moments I was able to spend alone with Mary during my visit to Mexico, as I gazed at Our Lady, the Virgin of Guadalupe and I let her gaze at me, I prayed for you, dear priests, to be good pastors of souls.  In my address to the bishops, I mentioned that I have often reflected on the mystery of Mary’s gaze, its tenderness and its sweetness that give us the courage to open our hearts to God’s mercy.  I would now like to reflect with you on a few of the ways that Our Lady “gazes” especially at priests, since through us she wants to gaze at her people.
            Mary’s gaze makes us feel her maternal embrace.  She shows us that “the only power capable of winning human hearts is the tenderness of God.  What delights and attracts, humbles and overcomes, opens and unleashes is not the power of instruments or the force of the law, but rather the omnipotent weakness of divine love, which is the irresistible force of its gentleness and the irrevocable pledge of its mercy” (Address to the Mexican Bishops, 13 February 2016).  What people seek in the eyes of Mary is “a place of rest where people, still orphans and disinherited, may find a place of refuge, a home.”  And that has to do with the way she “gazes” – her eyes open up a space that is inviting, not at all like a tribunal or an office.  If at times people realize that their own gaze has become hardened, that they tend to look at people with annoyance or coldness, they can turn back to her in heartfelt humility.  For Our Lady can remove every “cataract” that prevents them from seeing Christ in people’s souls.  She can remove the myopia that fails to see the needs of others, which are the needs of the incarnate Lord, as well as the hyperopia that cannot see the details, “the small print”, where the truly important things are played out in the life of the Church and of the family.
            Another aspect of Mary’s gaze to do with weaving.  Mary gazes “by weaving”, by finding a way to bring good out of all the things that her people lay at her feet.  I told the Mexican bishops that, “in the mantle of the Mexican soul, with the thread of its mestizo features, God has woven in la Morenita the face by which he wishes to be known”.  A spiritual master teaches us that “whatever is said of Mary specially is said of the Church universally and of each soul individually” (cf. Isaac of Stella, Serm. 51: PL 194, 1863).  If we consider how God wove the face and figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe into Juan Diego’s cloak, we can prayerfully ponder how he is weaving our soul and the life of the whole Church. 
They say that it is impossible to see how the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was “painted”; it seems to have been somehow “imprinted”.  I like to think that the miracle was not only that the image was imprinted or painted, but that the entire cloak was re-created, transformed from top to bottom.  Each thread – those threads of maguey leaf that women had learned from childhood to weave for their finest garments – was transfigured in its place, and, interwoven with all the others, revealed the face of our Lady, her presence and her surroundings.  God’s mercy does the same thing.  It doesn’t “paint” us a pretty face, or airbrush the reality of who we are.  Rather, with the very threads of our poverty and sinfulness, interwoven with the Father’s love, it so weaves us that our soul is renewed and recovers its true image, the image of Jesus.  So be priests “capable of imitating this freedom of God, who chooses the humble in order to reveal the majesty of his countenance, priests capable of imitating God’s patience by weaving the new humanity which your country awaits with the fine thread of all those whom you encounter.  Don’t give into the temptation to go elsewhere, as if the love of God were not powerful enough to bring about change” (Address to the Mexican Bishops, 13 February 2016).
       
These thoughts of the Pope provide much food for thought in this month when we have a special care to remember the scarred and sacred heart of Jesus, and the pure and open heart of his blessed mother.

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

After a long absence, today draws me back to reflect on the icon and  Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Bridgend, South Wales. First built in the middle of the 19th Century, the present building was completed in 1998.    It was an appropriate church to celebrate the feast as the design of the building was inspired by the symbolism of the Pelican - a truly ancient Christian symbol of Christ.   The guide to the Church tells us that the 'interior shape  and design of the building , especially its support beams, convey  the sense of being within the heart of Christ'.  The Tabernacle  has splendid Pelican on the top and is engraved  with an image of the Pelican feeding its young.  Outside the church visitors are greeted by a large statue of the Sacred Heart, and there is, of course, one inside.  The symbol of the Pelican  has long since fallen out of popular favour - not least because we know that the Pelican does not feed its chicks with its own blood  when no other food could be had.  But for centuries the symbol of the Pelican as a a symbol of self-sacrificing love was widespread.  St Thomas, of course in   Adoro te devote says, for example:

Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine,
Me immundum munda tuo sanguine:
Cujus una stilla salvum facere
Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

And as I sat in this lovely church I reflected on the profound truths which this ancient symbol expresses and marvelled at the wisdom of the parish in commissioning such a design in the 1990s!  However, I was less clear about the relationship between the readings  at mass and the Sacred Heart.  However, it all became clearer when I read the text of Pope Francis's homily today.  Read here.  So during the day the Pelican and Francis's words have made me think about the meaning of the feast!  I'm still thinking.

The Pelican image is clearly one which has great affinity to that of the Sacred Heart, and the Blessed Sacrament.  This is apparent in so much imagery which links the Sacred Heart, the eucharist and the Pelican, and the church in Bridgend does this on an architectural scale, as a simple holy picture does it in a small and intimate way.  Perhaps we have lost this 'pelican' sense of the Sacred Heart as a symbol of God's totally self-sacrificing love.  To enter St Mary's is to be reminded of it in a wonderful way.  So, it was a perfect place to celebrate the feast.    But, the readings at mass did not seem to connect with this, but having read Pope Francis's homily,  the connections started to happen.

As we have noted elsewhere on this blog, since becoming Pope Francis has progressively unfolded his teaching on the Sacred Heart. His remarks at mass were directed at priests, but they clearly have an application to all the faithful.  In the homily he had this to say in just a few extracts:

..the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus invites us all to turn to the heart, the deepest root and foundation of every person, the focus of our affective life and, in a word, his or her very core....
The Heart of the Good Shepherd is not only the Heart that shows us mercy, but is itself mercy. There the Father’s love shines forth; there I know I am welcomed and understood as I am; there, with all my sins and limitations, I know the certainty that I am chosen and loved. Contemplating that heart, .. The Heart of the Good Shepherd tells us that his love is limitless; it is never exhausted and it never gives up. There we see his infinite and boundless self-giving; there we find the source of that faithful and meek love which sets free and makes others free; there we constantly discover anew that Jesus loves us “even to the end” (Jn 13:1), without ever being imposing....Contemplating the Heart of Christ, we are faced with the fundamental question of our priestly life: Where is my heart directed? Our ministry is often full of plans, projects and activities: from catechesis to liturgy, to works of charity, to pastoral and administrative commitments. Amid all these, we must still ask ourselves: What is my heart set on, where is it directed, what is the treasure that it seeks? For as Jesus says: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21).

Turning to the readings at mass, the Pope taught that:

            To help our hearts burn with the charity of Jesus the Good Shepherd, we can train ourselves to do three things suggested to us by today’s readings: seek out, include and rejoice.
            Seek out. The prophet Ezekiel reminds us that God himself goes out in search of his sheep (Ez 34:11, 16). As the Gospel says, he “goes out in search of the one who is lost” (Lk 15:4), without fear of the risks. Without delaying, he leaves the pasture and his regular workday. He does not put off the search. He does not think: “I have done enough for today; I’ll worry about it tomorrow”. Instead, he immediately sets to it; his heart is anxious until he finds that one lost sheep. Having found it, he forgets his weariness and puts the sheep on his shoulders, fully content.
            Such is a heart that seeks out – a heart that does not set aside times and spaces as private, a heart that is not jealous of its legitimate quiet time and never demands that it be left alone. A shepherd after the heart of God does not protect his own comfort zone; he is not worried about protecting his good name, but rather, without fearing criticism, he is disposed to take risks in seeking to imitate his Lord.
            A shepherd after the heart of God has a heart sufficiently free to set aside his own concerns. He does not live by calculating his gains or how long he has worked: he is not an accountant of the Spirit, but a Good Samaritan who seeks out those in need. .... Like every good Christian, and as an example for every Christian, he constantly goes out of himself. The epicentre of his heart is outside of himself. He is not drawn by his own “I”, but by the “Thou” of God and by the “we” of other men and women.
            Include. Christ loves and knows his sheep. He gives his life for them, and no one is a stranger to him (cf. Jn 10:11-14).  His flock is his family and his life. He is not a boss to feared by his flock, but a shepherd who walks alongside them and calls them by name (cf. Jn 10:3-4). He wants to gather the sheep that are not yet of his fold (cf. Jn 10:16).
            So it is also with the priest of Christ. He is anointed for his people, not to choose his own projects but to be close to the real men and women whom God has entrusted to him. No one is excluded from his heart, his prayers or his smile. With a father’s loving gaze and heart, he welcomes and includes everyone, and if at times he has to correct, it is to draw people closer. He stands apart from no one, but is always ready to dirty his hands. As a minister of the communion that he celebrates and lives, he does not await greetings and compliments from others, but is the first to reach out, rejecting gossip, judgements and malice. He listens patiently to the problems of his people and accompanies them, sowing God’s forgiveness with generous compassion. He does not scold those who wander off or lose their way, but is always ready to bring them back and to resolve difficulties and disagreements.
            Rejoice. God is “full of joy” (cf. Lk 15:5). His joy is born of forgiveness, of life risen and renewed, of prodigal children who breathe once more the sweet air of home. The joy of Jesus the Good Shepherd is not a joy for himself alone, but a joy for others and with others, the true joy of love. This is also the joy of the priest. He is changed by the mercy that he freely gives. In prayer he discovers God’s consolation and realizes that nothing is more powerful than his love. He thus experiences inner peace, and is happy to be a channel of mercy, to bring men and women closer to the Heart of God. Sadness for him is not the norm, but only a step along the way; harshness is foreign to him, because he is a shepherd after the meek Heart of God.
            Dear priests, in the Eucharistic celebration we rediscover each day our identity as shepherds. In every Mass, may we truly make our own the words of Christ: “This is my body, which is given up for you.”  This is the meaning of our life; with these words, in a real way we can daily renew the promises we made at our priestly ordination. I thank all of you for saying “yes” to giving your life in union with Jesus: for in this is found the pure source of our joy.

For me a few lines stand out and helped me to reflect on the feast of the Sacred Heart and the icon:  the first is that the Sacred Heart is a symbol of  "The epicentre of [our] heart [has to be ] outside of [ourselves]. We must be  drawn by not by our  selves , but by 'the “Thou” of God and by the “we” of other men and women.' The second is that we ought to focus more on the line 'This is my body given up for you.'  St Thomas refers to Christ as a Pelican, and it is this image which powerfully expresses the idea that to share the body and blood of Christ is to give up our hearts to God and to other people.

Heart hearts and hard times

The world is in one hell of a mess!  It is a real challenge to read a newspaper or watch TV or radio news without falling into a pit of despair.  The other day Pope Francis said something which made me think about the reasons behind the dire state of the world. It was in his homily on the story of Saul and David (see here) The Pope
prayed:

May the Lord grant us the grace of an open heart, of a heart open to the voice of the Spirit, which knows how to discern what should not change, because it is fundamental, from what should change in order to be able to receive the newness of the Spirit.

Hard hearts  or cold hearts or hearts  of stone are one of the the main concerns of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Modern men and  women have closed their hearts to God. Without hearts open to the love of God and lives open to the Holy Spirit there is little hope for humanity.

Pope Francis's words prompted me to think of stone and why scripture refers to hearts of stone.  And this in turn prompted me to think ( of all things) about those lines in the film the Godfather III. As I live near the coast I spend a fair amount of time looking into pebble filled pools, and the words of Cardinal Lamberto  sometimes comes to mind -  when he picks up a stone from a fountain and  says :
' Look at this stone. It has been lying in the water for a very long time, but the water has not penetrated it.” He gives the stone a sharp blow and splits it in two.  Showing it to  Don Michael he observes, “Look. Perfectly dry. The same thing has happened to men in Europe. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity, but Christ has not penetrated. Christ doesn’t breathe within them.” View here.


And that is the sadness of it all.  Like the stones in water, human beings in the West have been surrounded by the living waters of Christ, but they have not been penetrated by it.  Their hearts are dry, hard and closed.  Is it any wonder that the world is in such a mess? The devotion to the Sacred Heart is more important to the future of humanity than we can really understand. The only hope for our planet is that we can open our hearts and allow God's spirit to penetrate us and breathe fire into us.

The adoration of the Magi

In terms of pondering the Christmas story in our hearts, the adoration of the magi has long fascinated me. I think one of my favourite images is Giotto's depiction.  It is just the sheer simplicity.  All eyes are on Jesus, apart from a wayward camel and a young man who is having a job keeping the camels under control.  When I think about the scene I am prompted to remember the last time we read about the childhood of Jesus - when he is lost and then found in the temple.  Both the adoration of the magi and the finding of Jesus are about how we make assumptions and suppositions.  Mary and Joseph assume that Jesus is with each other, and assume that he is still a child, when he is actually about his father's business.  The wise men assume that the star is leading them to the scene of a great event in a palace: the birth of a King.  They get some of it right, and clearly they have done all the calculations and have followed the star.   Just as Mary says to the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation 'how can this be?', so the wise men must also have been thinking as they approached the stable 'how can this be?' This is not what they expected.  They assumed it would be rather more than a humble little shack. The boy trying to calm the camels down seems to be saying: 'I have no idea what is going on here, either.'  Jesus will spend the rest of his life on earth challenging assumptions and human reasoning.   The wise men must, on the one hand, have felt immensely clever.  They travelled all that way on the basis of some complex astronomical calculation -  but on the other hand, what was supposed to be there under the star was  just not there. They were expecting majesty and they got humility.   Reason got them there alright, but in Giotto's picture we see the moment when they realise that reason and worldly wisdom  was not going to take them any further.  Reason has its limits: all they could now do was open their hearts and adore.  Mary had done the same 9 months earlier.  She could not understand how it could be so, but was prepared to open her heart to the Holy Spirt.




As for me, I think I am more  like the camel boy than the wise men : I find it difficult to respond to the way in which God challenges my assumptions and expectations. Like the boy and the camels I am not wise enough to abandon my assumptions and open my eyes and heart and just simply adore. This year I will try to be less like my alter ego,  the camel boy!

First Friday 2016

December is always a really busy time for us.  Christmas came and went in a blur.  What is so sad, however, is how so many people just take down on the decorations and put the Christmas tree out and declare Christmas over.  But if Christmas is 'over ' by New Year you never really celebrated it in the first place.  Christmas is not just for Christmas, it is for the whole year!  We keep a little carving of the Holy family by the clock just to remind us of this. The first mass and the first Friday of the month were celebrated together this year - the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. As always Mary shows us the way to Jesus. Luke's Gospel,  which was read at mass, reminds us what we must do in the next 12 months: we have to 'ponder all these things in our heart'.  We have a print of  'La Vergine che legge' - the reading virgin - by  Antonio Vivarini (1440-1480) which helps us to remember to ponder the mystery of Christmas in our hearts.  In this year of mercy we pray that the Mater Misericordiae  - our  Mother of Mercy - will help us to keep the fire of Christmas burning in our hearts long after the tree has been re-cycled.

The solemnity of Christ the King, 2015

Yesterday was the feast of Christ the King- a feast that is closely related in many ways to the Sacred Heart. As this blog has observed before,  the icon draws our thoughts and prayers to the significance of Christ as the universal king.  And this is what the icon depicts so well.  I am reminded of Pope Francis’s words on the Feast day in 2013 which strike me  when I look  the icon:

the beginning: Jesus Christ, the Lord. God has given him the fullness, the totality, so that in him all things might be reconciled (cf. Col 1:12-20). He is the Lord of creation, he is the Lord of reconciliation. This image enables to see that Jesus is the centre of creation; and so the attitude demanded of us as true believers is that of recognizing and accepting in our lives the centrality of Jesus Christ, in our thoughts, in our words and in our works. And so our thoughts will be Christian thoughts, thoughts of Christ. Our works will be Christian works, works of Christ; and our words will be Christian words, words of Christ. But when this centre is lost, when it is replaced by something else, only harm can result for everything around us and for ourselves…Besides being the centre of creation and the centre of reconciliation, Christ is the centre of the people of God. Christ is the centre of the history of humanity and also the centre of the history of every individual. ( here)


 If Christ is the centre of history, then he is also at the centre of the social, economic and political order as well as the cosmic order!  For this reason this icon of The Sacred Heart as  Christ Omega  and  the Universal King, has, over the years, has become more and more a window into that great ‘secret’ of the Church, ‘ Catholic Social Teaching’ - CST.  Yesterday it  brought me back to think of the themes and principles of CST as telling us about what the of  Kingship of Christ involves in a practical sense.

It is not a coincidence that the two popes who laid the foundations of CST, Pope Leo XIII and Pius XI  are also closely associated with the Sacred Heart.  For both pontiffs the devotion to the Sacred heart and  Christ the King  were part of their strategy to develop a social Catholicism  whose purpose it was to challenge the secularisation taking place in the modern era. Both believed that economic and political orders based on individualism or collectivism were as morally deficient as one another.  Both believed that the Church had to illuminate the political, economic and social problems and policies of the day by the light of the Gospel.

Their social teaching was therefore inextricably linked to their promotion of the Sacred Heart and Christ the King.  We should listen very carefully to their critique of the modern capitalism – whether of the liberal democratic or state-capitalist varieties.  Thank God, no-one really believes in communism any more, but the appeal of statism and collectivism  and self-love and greed is still alive and well.  Again, it is not a coincidence that the great Pope of the Sacred Heart, St. John Paul, also contributed significantly to CST in 3 major encyclicals. When we seek to promote the social teaching of the Church we should pray to the Sacred Heart.


Christ the King has an urgent relevance to the state of the world today. So on this feast day we would do well to reflect on this relationship between CST and the Sacred Heart  and Christ the King. Images of Christ the King frequently show the relationship between the two – as does this icon. The images of the Sacred Heart and Christ the King  became popular during the same period (1990- 1930s)when key  principles of CST were being developed.  And that was for a good reason: both were images which were about challenging secularisation and the marginalisation of Christianity in the public square: as such they should be read (I believe) as images  that invite us to reflect upon the richness of CST and the profound relevance of this teaching to our understanding of our political, social and economic problems and policies. Pope Francis has, of course, recently added to this by showing ( in Laudato Si) how the teaching of the church is also relevant to current environmental problems and policies

Leo’s teaching on the Sacred Heart  in 1899 ( Annum Sacrum )  which  consecrated the whole world to the heart of Christ, and which united the devotion to the Kingship of Christ,  followed  his encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891. And in criticising the immoral and individualistic forms of capitalism as well as socialistic collectivism  he emphasises that both capitalism and socialism are as bad as one another in blocking the way to living a virtuous life.  Of course, the greatest of these virtues which were being destroyed was caritas – love.   And he observes of this  virtue that : ‘Charity, as a virtue, pertains to the Church; for virtue it is not, unless it be drawn from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ (30).

Pius XI’s establishment of the Feast of Christ the King ( Quas Primas )   (1925)  and later his encyclical on the Sacred Heart in 1928 ( Miserentissimus Redemptor)  preceded his great social encyclical in 1931 ( Quadresimo Anno)  that celebrated forty years since the publication of Rerum  Novarum.  Following Quadressimo Anno, he emphasised once again the importance of the Sacred Heart to the problems addressed in Quadressimo Anno.  In Miserentissimus Redemptor hr  teaches that the debotion to the Sacred Heart is ' totius religious summa'.  In Caritate Compulsi (1932) Pius said that the devotion to the Sacred Heart  was the 'extraordinary remedy for the extraordinary needs of our time'.

  To understand the Feast of Christ the King as a statement of Catholic Social Teaching we need to place it in the context of hi encyclical Ubi Arcano  (On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ|) written in the aftermath of the  first world war, in 1922. In this encyclical  published a just few years prior to the Pius XI reflects on the dire consequences of abandoning  the Kingdom Of Christ, in favour of the kingdoms of this world.

 The inordinate desire for pleasure, concupiscence of the flesh, sows the fatal seeds of division not only among families but likewise among states; the inordinate desire for possessions, concupiscence of the eyes, inevitably turns into class warfare and into social egotism; the inordinate desire to rule or to domineer over others, pride of life, soon becomes mere party or factional rivalries, manifesting itself in constant displays of conflicting ambitions and ending in open rebellion, in the crime of lese majeste, and even in national parricide.  These unsuppressed desires, this inordinate love of the things of the world, are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable and even justifiable because, forsooth, they were performed for reasons of state or of the public good, or out of love for country. Patriotism - the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept within the bounds of the law of Christ - becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life, that, in the last analysis, it is "justice which exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable." (Proverbs xiv, 34) ( Ubi Arcano,  ) 


The process of secularization and the marginalization of Christianity that had been the subject of  several Leo’s encyclicals  - including that on the Sacred Heart - had continued apace and Pius felt the need to re-state once again the Kingship of Jesus over all creation.  A few years later he was to institute the feast of Christ the King in  Quas Primas.   In this he stresses how the Feast was related to previous  responses to the anti- Christian culture of the modern world.  It worth citing the Quas Primas at some length to make this point clear.

23. The festivals that have been introduced into the liturgy in more recent years have had a similar origin, and have been attended with similar results. When reverence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament had grown cold, the feast of Corpus Christi was instituted, so that by means of solemn processions and prayer of eight days' duration, men might be brought once more to render public homage to Christ. So, too, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.

24. If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, … has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God's religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. …We lamented these in the Encyclical Ubi arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his right.

25. Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.

26. The way has been happily and providentially prepared for the celebration of this feast ever since the end of the last century. It is well known that this cult has been the subject of learned disquisitions in many books published in every part of the world, written in many different languages. The kingship and empire of Christ have been recognized in the pious custom, practiced by many families, of dedicating themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; not only families have performed this act of dedication, but nations, too, and kingdoms. In fact, the whole of the human race was at the instance of Pope Leo XIII, in the Holy Year 1900, consecrated to the Divine Heart. It should be remarked also that much has been done for the recognition of Christ's authority over society by the frequent Eucharistic Congresses which are held in our age. These give an opportunity to the people of each diocese, district or nation, and to the whole world of coming together to venerate and adore Christ the King hidden under the Sacramental species.


So the deep and profound relationship between the Sacred Heart and the Kingship of Christ is clear enough for the teaching of these two great Popes.  For both the Kingship of Christ will be brought about through the Sacred Heart.   A few years after Quas Primas, Pius published his Miserentissimus Remdemptor  which focused on the importance of the devotion to the Sacred Heart for bringing about the Kingship of Christ.   The message of the encyclical was to underpin the later social encyclical, Quadressimo Anno in 1932.  The Sacred Heart was needed to remind humanity that we were living in a disordered world. The world was turning away from the love of God and was becoming more and more centred on the love of the self.  The challenge was to restore the relationship between humanity and God: it needed to make reparation and re-order itself.  And that is what the devotion to the Sacred Heart involved: humanity had to repair its relationship with God.   The Devotion to the Sacred Heart was the great means by which this process of repairing our relationship with God could take place.

In this context we now better understand Pius XI’s contribution to building on the social teaching of Leo XIII.  Christ is King of all things – and that includes the realms of politics and economics.  Economic ‘laws’ may describe how self-interested, homo economicus behaves, but the laws of Christ show how human beings should behave.  The Kingship of Christ is a feast which is about reminding us to get things in the right order.  First, we have to set ourselves to seeking to realise God's law and order, and then having put this fist, we will nor be enslaved to material possessions and power.  What Jesus came to show was the world was  made for us to enjoy - like the wine at the marriage feast at Cana - but ( and  here is the big BUT) we must not make the things of this world the centre of our lives.  We have to order our lives in a way that always seeks to seek God first. As CST shows, private property is a good not a bad, BUT we must - as individuals and as societies - be possessed by our possessions. Vices are always dis-ordered forms of good. We have to eat,  and we ought to enjoy good food.  But, we must not be gluttonous and let food consume us.

The laws of God’s kingdom are the laws which tell us how we ought be should behave, the ends we should seek if we are not to fall prey to forces of materialism, individualism,  collectivism and nationalism.  The Feast was established to mind us who is really in charge of  the universe and that we should not presume to think that human beings can exist outside the moral and natural law of His kingdom. The image of Christ the King therefore serves to remind us that human beings have  telos – a end to which they should aim. We should not enthrone the  powers of this world in our hearts – whether they be greed and envy and the rest of the vices or whether they are Kings and dictators and plutocrats.  We should aim to become one with Christ: it He who is King of our hearts, and it is He who is the way, the truth and the life. The theme of the Quas Primas  is clear enough.  Contrary to those that argue that the Church should keep out of the public square, Pius states, that yes, His Kingdom is a ‘spiritual kingdom concerned with spiritual things’, but:

It would be a grave error…to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power. (17)

The feast of Christ the King was instituted to make this very clear. The Church has a place in the public square, and must use its voice to remind people of the social, political and economic implications of the gospel.  Above all the feast of the Christ the King was instituted to say that human existence had a purpose, and end to which it must strive.  It may fail and miss the mark, but there is a mark: the heart of Christ. Politics and economics was about means, but it was also about ends.  The feast of Christ the King was there to remind humanity what that end was, and what that end ought to be.  Christ is King of all creation: the alpha and the omega. As King he came into the world to show the way to enable humanity to learn from him how to live and to what end.  He humbled himself and suffered and died so as to save mankind.   And because he did this for all mankind it meant that, as Quas Primas shows, he is King of all creatures, and his gospel is therefore for all humanity – indeed all creation.  And that means all public as well as all private life (19) !   It also means that His rule extends to the public consequences of private life.  The feast was therefore to ‘draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them’ (25).

In 1931 Pius was to celebrate the publication of Rerum Novarum and add significantly to CST in Quadressimo Anno. In the encyclical he calls Rerum Novarum a ‘magna charta’ upon which should guide social, economic and political life.  He endorses Leo’s vigorous attack on the moral defects of both capitalism and socialism, and argues that modern society is being hurled against the twin rocks of individualism and  humanity was suffering as a result.  The following year, 1932,  he returned to the Sacred Heart again in Caritate Christi.  Once again he argues that the dis-order in the world can only be repaired through the Sacred Heart.  It was he said, 'the extraordinary remedy for the extraordinary needs of our time'. It is Caritate Christi, written in the midst of a great economic depression and political ferment, that we see the relationship between the Sacred Heart, the Kingship of Christ and  Catholic Social Teaching most clearly expounded.  In Quadressimo Anno he had warned about the dangers of excessive individualism and egotistical and godless  capitalism, as well as atheistic communism and nationalism, a year on it had all continued to get worse.  .    The source of all this misery was evident:

indeed, the root itself from which this most unhappy state of things arises is yet more to be lamented; for if that judgment of the Holy Spirit, proclaimed by the Apostle St. Paul, "the desire of money is the root of all evils," was always in close agreement with the facts, this is more than ever true at the present time. For is not that avidity for perishable goods which was justly and rightly mocked, even by a heathen poet as the execrable hunger of gold, "auri sacra fames"; is not that sordid seeking for each one's own benefit, which is very often the only motive by which bonds between either individuals or societies are instituted; and, lastly, is not this cupidity, by whatsoever name or style it is called, the chief reason why we now see, to our sorrow, that mankind is brought to its present critical condition? For it is from this that come the first shoots of a mutual suspicion which saps the strength of any human commerce; hence come the sparks of an envy which accounts the goods of others a loss to itself; hence comes that sordid and excessive self-love which orders and subordinates all things to its own advantage, and not only neglects but tramples upon the advantage of others; and, lastly, hence come the iniquitous disturbance of affairs and the unequal division of "possessions, as a result of which the wealth of nations is heaped up in the hands of a very few private men, who - as We warned you last year, in Our Encyclical Letter Quadressimo anno - control the trade of the whole world at their will, thereby doing immense harm to the people.

The root of the evils of the day - in its various forms of  irreligious capitalism, atheistic communism and aggressive nationalism - was, as always 'excessive love of self'  and 'the insatiable greed for earthly goods'.

the enemies of all order, whether they be called Communists or by some other name, exaggerating the very grave straits of the economic crisis, in this great perturbation of morals, with extreme audacity, direct all their efforts to one end, seeking to cast away every bridle from their necks, and breaking the bonds of all law both human and divine, wage an atrocious war against all religion and against God Himself; in this it is their purpose to uproot utterly all knowledge and sense of religion from the minds of men, even from the tenderest age, for they know well that if once the Divine law and knowledge were blotted out from the minds of men there would now be nothing that they could not arrogate to themselves. And thus we now see with our own eyes - what we have not read of as happening anywhere before - impious men, agitated by unspeakable fury, shamelessly liking up a banner against God and against all religion throughout the whole world.


Caritate Christi argues that is only when human beings turn-away from the love of self and the love of material goods and, in prayer and reparation, and begin to understand the deep order in creation revealed in the Kingship of Christ at the Heart of the Saviour that we can repair the damage and destruction being wrought by those who wish to destroy Christianity and especially the Catholic Church.

In Quadressimo Anno Pius hoped that all those who struggled to promote the social teaching of the Church would be ‘enkindled with the fire of the heart of Christ’.

 As we recall the work of Pius XI in exposing the defects of individualistic and collectivist systems in the early 20th century we must pray that all who battle against these disordered ideologies in their various forms and seek to proclaim the Kingship of Christ  in the 21st century may be ‘enkindled with the fire of the heart of Christ.’  The Sacred Heart is still 'the extraordinary remedy for the extraordinary needs of our time'!

Pogliaghi's Sacred Heart, Milan

I spent a few days in ( a very hot) Milan recently and managed to find some time to do a little tourism.  Fortunately,  I was based at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart - founded in 1921.  And so, I was able to attend mass on the first Friday of July in the Cappella del Sacro Cuore in the university. It is very beautiful, and I would encourage anyone who can to pay a visit.  High above the altar  is a remarkable painting by - I later discovered on my return to the UK - Lodovico Pogliaghi (1857-1950)  (Read about him here) . It is rather like a 3D image, and  I could not decide if it is a painting or a statue! But I think it is a painting. Underneath on the wall there is a famous line from St. Thomas Aquinas's great hymn:   ADORO TE DEVOTE LATENS DEITAS” (“I adore you devoutly, hidden God”)

Teilhard and Gemelli's images of the Sacred Heart

The painting was commissioned by the founder of the university, the Franciscan, Padre Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959- read about him  here) .  It was originally located in the the building in Via Sant' Agnese and was installed in the present chapel on its completion in 1932.  Copies of the image may be found in rooms in the university.  As an image it was - like Teilhard's Pinta picture - used for holy cards.


It appears to have been painting executed around the same kind of period - early 1920s - as the Pinta image (Here) that Teilhard loved so much. Walking around churches close to the chapel the sense of it being a radical break from the traditional image becomes apparent. Next door, for example, in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, there is a chapel to the Sacred Heart, with a traditional image, and a little further away in Santa Maria delle Grazie  there is also a pretty standard representation.  So the image in the painting in the Cappella del Sacro Cuore  is quite a departure from the norm.  As in Pinta's image the focus on on the glowing love of God. As the light catches the 'golden glow' the image is quite stunning and the eye is drawn into a contemplation of the God who is hidden in the eucharist.  This is the Sacred Heart we adore, hence the words on the wall beneath: ' ADORO TE DEVOTE LATENS DEITAS'.  No doubt this is to prompt the students and faculty to remember their Aquinas! The next lines are, of course: 'Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas; Tib se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit'  As we contemplate and adore the hidden God revealed in the heart of Jesus, we place our hearts before Him: 'Tib se cor meum totum subjicit'.

The artist was  ( in all probability) working to a brief from Fr. Gemelli, and I think what we have here is a very Franciscan - if not intensely Franciscan -  and very modern image of the Sacred Heart.   It recalls (perhaps) Francis's Letter to all the friars: 

Let the whole of mankind tremble, the whole world shake and the heavens exult,  when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest.  O admirable heights and sublime lowliness! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity!  That the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself  that for our salvation He hides Himself under the forms of bread! Look, brothers, at the humility of God and pour out your hearts before Him!  Humble yourselves, as well, that you may be exalted by Him.  Therefore, hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves  so that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally.  ( Here.) 


The painting in the chapel is also is strongly suggestive (to me) of St. Bonaventure ( a great friend of St Thomas Aquinas) whose prayers and writings show the deep Franciscan love for the Heart of Jesus. As Bonaventure prayed:

'From the burning heart of Jesus flows his blood, hot with love.  Jesus showed us from the cross his faithful heart, glowing with love....' (cited in T. O'Donnell, Heart of the Redeemer, Ignatius Press, 1989 p 101)  


The Franciscans have contributed immensely to our understanding of the Sacred Heart ( I always think of Francis and Bonaventure when I look at the seraphim in the icon!) - and it is not a coincidence that St Margaret Mary recounts that St. Francis was her guide. He is depicted in the mural at Paray le Monial.  Teilhard too had a special regard for St. Francis.

There is another aspect of the image which is interesting: it is the image which shows the aesthetic preference of a another priest -scientist.  Fr. Gemelli was a physician and scientist who, like Teilhard sought to reconcile Christian faith with modern science.  Gemelli actually proposed Teilhard (and Henri Breuil) for membership of the  Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but this was opposed due to Teilhard's supposed 'Darwinist' tendencies.  It is interesting that both priest-scientists should have seen the Sacred Heart in the same way: the Pinta image and Pogliaghi's image are remarkably similar! For both men, whose lives were dedicated to reconciling science and their Christianity, the Heart of Jesus was the great symbol which inspired their religious and scientific lives.

As I read and talk about Laudato Si, it seems to me that the work of Gemelli and Teilhard to reconcile faith and reason in the modern world was not in vain!

One final thought which later occurred to me (!!?) was the entrance to the chapel.  As you enter you see an important quote over the door: Nitium sapientiae timor Domini. “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom”. (Psalm 111, 10, Sirach, 1, 1)

All too often when we think about science and knowledge we default to Bacon - 'knowledge is power'.  Here at the Catholic University in Milan they remind students and faculty that wisdom begins when we fear the Lord. Wisdom begins when we realise in all humility the limits of human understanding, and the infinite knowledge and wisdom of God. Knowledge may be power  BUT wisdom is about humility. As we remember this, we also recall that in the  Litany of the Sacred Heart,  in which the humble and gentle heart of Jesus is described as the the treasury of all wisdom and knowledge.

Cor Iesu, in quo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae, miserere nobis.


As you reflect on the symbol of the Sacred Heart in this beautiful chapel, it is well to remember that the love of God is indeed the alpha and omega of all wisdom.