THE
P RTAL
June 2016
Page 19
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
Fr Julian Green has been thinking about the Sacred Heart of Jesus
When I
applied to the Archdiocese of Birmingham to begin seminary formation, twenty-six year
ago, I had interviews with four clergymen. One of these was Canon Sean McTernan, at that time
Parish Priest of St Theresa’s in Perry Barr. Although he was a kindly man, whom I grew to admire and love,
and whose death earlier this year saddened me greatly, I found him somewhat abrupt in that interview. I
remember one question he asked me was “What are your favourite devotions?”
On the spur of the moment I said “the
Sacred Heart of Jesus”. Quite why I said
that, I am not quite sure, for
it was not really the case.
However, those words came
to be prophetic, through my
experience of seminary in
Valladolid, Spain.
If you go anywhere in
Spain, you will easily find
images of the Sacred Heart,
not only in churches but
on street corners and
in prominent places. In
Valladolid, the first church
that I visited, and one I
would often visit, was the
Basilica of the Great Promise,
not far from the English
College, and next door to the
former Scots’ College.
The ‘Great Promise’, made by our Lord to
an eighteenth century Jesuit priest, Bernard Francis
de Hoyos, was “I will reign in Spain and with more
veneration than in other places”. The Basilica church
houses an image of the Sacred Heart, arms outstretched
in blessing, which dominates the full height of the
sanctuary of the Church.
The connection of the Sacred Heart to the Jesuit
Order originates from the revelations made to St
Margaret Mary in Paray-le-Monial, and to the fact that
the Lord desired that the propagation of the devotion
be entrusted through her confessor, St Claude de la
Colombière, to the Jesuits.
It is in Spain, however, that the connection between
the spiritual method of St Ignatius of Loyola and the
devotion to the Heart of Jesus influenced popular
spirituality. Indeed, in Spain – because of the
predominance of the Jesuits – people do not refer to
going on retreat, but to going on spiritual exercises.
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For those of us in these northern climes,
with our very practical approach to
religion, it is sometimes
difficult to go beyond the
externals, and to achieve
a ‘knowledge of the
heart’. Coming from this
background myself, it took
me some time to understand
the Spanish spirituality of
the Heart of Jesus.
Once I did, helped by
some very Ignatian (but not
Jesuit) priests, it became a
truly transforming period
for me. It is not the physical
heart of the Lord which is
important here. Rather, it is
the heart as the symbol for
all that is most intimate and
personal to us.
Devotion to the Heart of Jesus relies on a truly
orthodox understanding of Jesus who is both God and
Man, two integral natures, but only one person. He is
“true God from true God” but is also truly Man with
a humanity like ours, “in all things but sin”. His Heart,
his inner self, his soul, is fully human, so I can have
that cor ad cor, heart to heart knowledge of him. In
knowing his human heart, we enter into a knowledge
of the divine love with which that Heart beats.
Thus, he draws us into the inner life of love at the
heart of the Trinity. When we read the Gospel we can
read it as a narrative, telling us what our Lord said
and did. But if we look to the next layer, and seek to
discern what is in the Heart of the Lord (his thoughts,
emotions, desires, sufferings, joys…), then we can
know that the Lord, who relates to me today in my
prayer, has the same intimate attitude towards me.
This can be a tremendous source of prayer for us, and
the way in which we can give true veneration to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus.