Note: The official Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is always celebrated during the Octave of Corpus Christi in June. However, we believe that a reflection on this great feast and devotion in light of the Scripture readings for the day is fruitful any day of the year.

On the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we are given Scripture readings¹ that repeatedly show Christ’s love for us as a Divine Shepherd who loves his scattered, and often injured, sheep.

When Jesus appeared, his Sacred Heart in flames in his chest, to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque while she prayed before the Blessed Sacrament in the Visitation Convent in Paray-le-Monial, France in the 17th century, he told her,

“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love.”2

Even a short reflection on the Scripture readings for this feast seems to highlight a connection between the grief of the Good Shepherd who only wants to love, unite, and protect his sheep and the grief of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which has suffered and died and consumed itself for these same lost sheep who have no gratitude for the priceless gift they have been given.

And yet what is this gift? This burning, flaming heart of Christ, held out to each of us, as if each of us were the only sheep in the Shepherd’s flock? As if the other ninety-nine didn’t even exist.

It’s evident by the Scriptures alone that it is a great gift, given and sealed with many comforting promises. The Divine Shepherd who walks with us through Psalm 23 assures us that we want for nothing with his love. He grants us rest, repose, and gives us courage in the dark valley where evil abounds. He anoints our heads with oil, and “our cup overflows.” In the first reading from Ezekiel, God assures us,

“The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly” (Ezekiel 34: 16).

And yet Jesus tells us that in return most souls ignore the gift of his love and his vigilant care. They show him only coldness, contempt, and ingratitude. His heart that has consumed itself for love of you –a heart that has been tortured, and at one point stopped beating, for love of you. How can anyone treat this heart with contempt?

I think there is in the broken, human heart a deep discomfort and uneasiness with this depth of love. A heart that is guarded, hard, cold, and distracted is a heart that never suffers, because it cannot bleed. And because it cannot catch aflame. Its capacity to give or receive love may be shallow, but to sacrifice and suffer, it often need not.

A contempt for love

Christ reveals to us a different, much more painful kind of love. It is a love that doesn’t hold back, that isn’t afraid to burn, and that doesn’t cease to burn just because the Beloved, you and me, spurn it. It is uncomfortable to confront the reality that the Sacred Heart of Jesus has already endured torture and death for us. We didn’t have to ask for or deserve it. We don’t have to accept or acknowledge it. It simply, eternally, is: burning and consumed for love of us. It is a Divine gift so overwhelming in its Truth that contempt can actually be our reaction.

But what does this depth of unrequited love look like?

There have been many images inspired by the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus since the first apparitions to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 1670s. This rather mysterious image was discovered in an old European church in the late 1700s. The painter is unknown. At the bottom is the Latin phrase Sic Deus Dilexit Mundum:

“For God so loved the world” (John 3:16).

It is the image of a deeply suffering Christ, with his Sacred Heart on fire for love of souls. I can imagine the painter reading Jesus’ words to Margaret Mary:

“in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love”

and bringing to life in brushstrokes the Divine Face behind them.

A brief contemplation of this image brought a thought to the forefront of my mind:

If I loved like him, I would suffer too.

Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, the gift of your love is an invitation to also suffer and sacrifice. To love and be spurned. To love and know tears. To love and be consumed by it and know that only the Divine Shepherd, also consumed by love, truly understands the cost. It is a dangerous love, and it will end in death. But what is beyond that death and the tears and the crown of thorns? A resurrection.

For all of us still on this side of death, walking through our own dark valleys, the mysterious resurrection does not often seem worth the cost of the love that is asked of us: the same love that burns in the Sacred Heart for us. For now, we can taste only small drops of that eternal joy that will make the high cost of all-consuming love worth every moment and day and year of pain.

And yet the Gospel antiphon says “Take my yoke upon you, says the Lord, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (John 10:14). May we be granted the courage by the Good Shepherd, who walks with us through dark valleys, to take his yoke upon ourselves. And may we trust in the mystery that assures us “besides restful waters he leads me; he refreshes my soul” even when the suffering of love cannot be avoided. Even when it burns and consumes us and gratitude for our sacrifice is not to be found.

So is there no place for comfort or compassion until we die?

Resting on the chest of Christ

St. Margaret Mary recounted that during one of her visions,

“He made me rest for a long time on His divine breast, where He discovered to me the wonders of His love and the inexplicable secrets of His Sacred Heart.”3

This is not a new image. We read in the 13th chapter of John’s Gospel that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” also reclined against the chest of Christ at the Last Supper.

St. Margaret Mary tells us, as has always been true, that the “secrets” of love and suffering and sacrifice that cannot be explained here and confound all human understanding, are found in rest on the chest of the One who first loved and suffered and sacrificed. But will we take the time to rest with him, enough to begin to probe the depths of the mystery of Divine love?

Will we accept this gift?

On the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and all days before and beyond, may we ask that the Good Shepherd find and lead us scattered sheep back to him when we are afraid or indifferent to his Sacred Heart, and that we be given the courage to let the burning flames of his heart inflame and consume our hearts with the same immortal fire.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you!

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How to practice the devotion

• Pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

• Pray the Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with free Sacred Heart-themed images to download for your phone background!

• Learn about and begin the nine First Fridays devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“I promise you, in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the first Friday for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance; they shall not die in my dis grace nor without receiving the sacraments; my divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in that last moment.” -Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, source

Learn more about the history of the Sacred Heart of Jesus devotion.

All Bible verses have been taken from the USCCB Bible, New American Bible Revised Edition.