The Message of Devotion to the Sacred Heart: Jesus Christ is Lord! And Must Be Lord of Man’s Heart and of Society’s Soul!
The heart is the symbol of the deepest dimension of man, the inmost center of his manhood where only the rays of God’s light and strength can penetrate.
Here is where his deepest intuitions occur; his most profound reasonings take place; the sentiments towards the true, the good and the beautiful or towards the untrue, the evil and the hideous; and it here that his life-changing decisions are born.
If the heart were to be identified with any of man’s faculties, it would be that of the determination or will.
Thus when we adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ we adore the symbol of His human will, which, during His life on earth united itself perfectly to the divine will.
Thus, the will of Our Lord is sheer perfection: united to utter truth, pure goodness, deathless loyalty and unwavering strength of willpower.
How could we not adore this Heart?
The Society of Ignatians fosters devotion to the Sacred Heart as a devotion that is allegiance to the Heroic Sacred Heart.
“Allegiance” etymologically derives from the old French liege and refers to the chivalric code of loyalty between a liege-man and his lord.
It involved a devovere, an act of self-dedication or consecration by vow in which a man recognized the rights to honor and duty of the lord.
But it was also a mutual bond for it also vowed the lord’s support and dedication for his liege man.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart is one of the private devotions in the Church, each of which is revealed by God for the sake of guiding Catholics to salvation at a crisis moment in history.
Historically, God revealed the devotion to the Sacred Heart as the vaccination to the socio-cultural-political revolution that had already manifested itself most visibly in the rise of Protestantism and Jansenism but which would rear its head again in 1717, 1789, and 1968 with the outcome of the Dictatorship of Relativism in which we now live.
Hence, devotion to the Sacred Heart is, by the divine intention, no mere private, sentimental form of piety. Rather it is a form of self-dedication to Our Lord Jesus Christ by true and faithful Catholics who live the Faith, who act out the Faith in both private and public life – in other words, who refuse to bow to the principle demand of the Revolution which is that Catholics imprison the Faith within the walls of their minds, homes, and churches, ending all efforts to convert individuals and nations to Christ the Lord.
Thus, devotion to the Sacred Heart is the devotion par excellence of all who live in the epoch of the “Dictatorship of Relativism”, the latest stage of the Revolution, and who are thus counter-revolutionaries.
And, as such, it is the devotion to the heroic Sacred Heart.
For two reasons. Firstly because heroism, as the supreme degree of excellence in virtue, characterizes His Heart, and must characterize our living. Secondly, because heroism involves not merely action and militancy but also the ability to suffer, to resist assault and onslaught.