'We see who Jesus is if we see him at prayer'
"In the pierced heart of the Crucified, God's own heart is opened up;
here we see who God is and what he is like. Heaven is no longer locked up.
God has stepped out of his hiddenness. That is why St John sums up both the
meaning of the Cross and the nature of the new worship of God in the
mysterious promise made through the prophet Zechariah (cf. 12:10). 'They
shall look on him whom they have pierced' (Jn 19.37)".1
Pope Benedict XVI: Theologian of the Heart of Christ
In July of 1985, 1 was standing in the bookstore of the Abbey of
Sainte-Cécile of Solesmes in France when, by a wonderful providence of God, I
met the Benedictine scholar, Mother Elisabeth de Solms. The encounter remains
unforgettable. I had long studied and used her admirable translation of the
Life and Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as her Christian Bible,2 a series of
volumes setting the commentaries of the Church Fathers line by line alongside
the Scriptures.
The simplicity of so great a woman was a marvel. She engaged me in
conversation, asking if I had read the works of Cardinal Ratzinger. I
admitted that I was familiar with certain writings of his, surely not with
everything published. "Read him", she said. "You will see. God
will make of him a great gift to his Church". That was 20 years ago.
I began reading Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. I devoured, in particular, his
writings on the sacred liturgy in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. I
discovered, among other things in the writings of Cardinal Ratzinger,
elements of a theology of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In Pope Benedict XVI God has given the Church a shepherd who has contemplated
the pierced Heart of the Crucified and already written of it, notably in
Behold The Pierced One and, more recently, in The Spirit of the Liturgy.
Cardinal Ratzinger's writings on the Sacred Heart are warm and luminous. Fire
and light are characteristic of a theology forged in experience.
Theologians who do not persevere in a humble prayer of amazement and
adoration fall inevitably into one of two syndromes. Either they generate
heat without shedding any light, or they shine a cold light, one that fails
to warm the heart. The true theologian at once warms the heart and illumines
the mind.
Recall the words of Jesus concerning John the Baptist: "He was a burning
and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his
light" (Jn 5:35). In our new Holy Father, God has given the Church
"a burning and shining lamp" (Jn 5:35). Those already familiar with
his writings and liturgical preaching know what I mean.
Theology itself is a difficult word. Theology of the Sacred Heart thrusts us
into deep waters. The Song of Songs assures us that "many waters cannot
quench love, neither can floods drown it" (8:7).
Theology is more than a mere flood of words. All words oblige us, in some
way, to wrestle with meaning. Words are the vehicle of meaning. Words wait to
be unlocked. The words we use in talking about God, or in talking to God, can
be unlocked only in prayer.
Before we can reflect on a theology of the Sacred Heart, we have to ask
ourselves this question: "What do we mean by theology?".
The Greek etymology of the word discloses both God (theós) and word (lógos).
Lógos, in turn, has a huge richness: it can mean word, but it also signifies
meaning, message, poem and even hymn.
When we speak of theology we mean not one thing but at least three: word from
God; word to God; and word about God. All theology, and therefore a theology
of the Sacred Heart, is more adequately understood in terms of: God's
self-revealing word addressed to us; the doxological word of Christ and of
the Church addressed to God; and the healing word of the Church addressed to
the world.
Sacred Heart: God's Word addressed to us
Theology is, first of all, God's word addressed to us. Apply this immediately
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pierced Heart of the Crucified is God
speaking a word to us, a word carved out in the flesh of Jesus' side by the soldier's
lance. It is the love of God laid bare for all to see: "God stepping out
of his hiddenness".4
When we speak of a theology of the Sacred Heart, we mean this first of all:
not our discourse about love, but the love of God revealed first to us, the
poem of love that issues forth from the Heart of God. This is exactly what St
John, whom the Eastern tradition calls, "The Theologian", says in
his First Letter: "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he
loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins" (I Jn 4:10).
The difficulty here is that, in order to receive this word inscribed in the
flesh of the Word (cf. Jn 1:14), we have first to stop in front of it, to
linger there and to look long at the wound made by love. "They shall
look on him whom they have pierced" (Jn 19:37). To contemplate is to
look, not with a passing glance, but with the gaze of one utterly
conquered by love. Jeremiah says, "You have seduced me, O Lord, and I
was seduced; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed" (20:7).
The call to be an adorer and an apostle of the Sacred Heart is addressed to
every Christian. The apostle is, in essence, the bearer of a word, one sent
forth and entrusted with a message. The message that the apostle carries into
the world is the one he has learned by looking long with the eyes of
adoration at the pierced Heart of the Crucified.
The word of Crucified Love is hard to pronounce — not with our lips but with
our lives. Adoration is the school wherein one learns how to say the Sacred
Heart. It is in adoration that the apostle receives the word of the pierced
Heart that, in turn, becomes his life's message.
Adoration and apostleship together model a spirituality accessible to all
Christians: the word received in adoration is communicated in the dynamism of
one sent forth with something to say.
Sacred Heart: Our word addressed to God
Theology is, in the second place, our word addressed to God. Applying this
also to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we see that all we could possibly want to
say to God has already been uttered and is being said eternally through the
"mouth" of Christ's glorious pierced Heart in heaven. It is through
the Sacred Heart that the Blood of Christ speaks "more graciously than
the blood of Abel" (Heb 12:24).
The Letter to the Hebrews puts it this way: "Christ is able for all time
to save those who draw near to God through him, since he lives for ever to
make intercession for them" (7:25). Christ exercises his priesthood of
intercession in "the inner sanctuary behind the veil" (Heb 6:19) by
presenting to the Father the glorious wounds in his hands, his feet and his
side. The wound in the side of Christ, "great high priest over the house
of God" (Heb 10:21), speaks to the Father on our behalf. It is our word
addressed to God.
At the core of devotion to the Sacred Heart is a passing-over into the prayer
of Christ to the Father, a long apprenticeship to silence by which we begin
to let the Heart of Christ speak in us and for us to the Father.
The mystics of the Sacred Heart, in particular St Gertrude and St Mechthilde,
speak of offering the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the Father. This means
allowing the Sacred Heart to speak for us, to pray in us, to pray through us,
taking comfort in what Scripture says, "that we have not a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect
has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15).
This suggests a simple way of praying, one accessible to all: "Lord
Jesus, I come to be silent in your presence, trusting that your Heart will
speak for me, knowing that all I could ever want to say, that all I would
ever need to say, is spoken eternally to the Father by your Sacred
Heart".
In this way, everything that prayer can or should express — adoration,
praise, thanksgiving, supplication and reparation — finds its most perfect
expression.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart, thus understood, is a manifestation in the
Church of the Holy Spirit, "helping us in our weakness; for we do not
know how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8:26).5 The Sacred Heart is, in the
life of the Church, the organ by which "the Spirit intercedes for the
saints according to the will of God" (Rom 8:27).
Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: "We see who Jesus is if we see him at prayer.
The Christian confession of faith comes from participating in the prayer of
Jesus, from being drawn into his prayer and being privileged to behold it; it
interprets the experience of Jesus' prayer, and its interpretation of Jesus
is correct because it springs from a sharing in what is most personal and
intimate to him".6
This is the prayer of the Sacred Heart, the prayer that filled the days and
nights of Jesus' earthly life, the prayer that suffused his sufferings and
ascended from the Cross at the hour of his death, the prayer that with him
descended into the depths of the earth, the prayer that continues
uninterrupted in the glory of his risen and ascended life, the prayer that is
ceaseless in the Sacrament of the Altar.
Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that "by entering into Jesus' solitude",
and "only by participating in what is most personal to him, his
communication with the Father, can one see what this most personal reality
is; only thus can one penetrate to his identity".7 The Sacred
Heart represents and invites us into what is most personal to Jesus: his
communication with the Father.
In words that today sound almost prophetic, Cardinal Ratzinger concluded that
"the person who has beheld Jesus' intimacy with his Father and has come
to understand him from within is called to be a 'rock' of the Church. The
Church arises out of participation in the prayer
of Jesus (cf. Lk 9:18-20; Mt 16:13-20)".8
Prayer of the Sacred Heart in the New Testament
The Letter to the Hebrews tells us exactly what was the prayer of the Heart of
Christ at the moment he took flesh in the Virgin's womb: "When Christ
came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you
have taken no pleasure'. Then I said, 'Behold, I have come to do your will, O
God', as it is written of me in the scroll of the book'" (Heb 10:5-7).
This is the first prayer of the Heart of Jesus, "substantially united to
the Word of God".9
The prayer of the Heart of Christ revealed in the Letter to the Hebrews
resonates throughout the Fourth Gospel. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: "We
could say that the Fourth Gospel draws us into that intimacy which Jesus
reserved for those who were his friends" ( ibid., 22). The Gospel of the
Beloved Disciple belongs, in a special sense, to the friends of the Heart of
Jesus.
The liturgy gives us the Gospel of St John on every Sunday and weekday during
Paschaltide. Holy Thursday's Gospel of Jesus washing his disciples' feet at
the Last Supper (cf. Jn 13:1-5) becomes Good Friday's Gospel of the Heart
from which flowed blood and water: "They shall look on him whom they
have pierced" (cf. Jn 19:34-37).
By continuing to read the Fourth Gospel on Easter Sunday (Jn 20:1-9) and for
the 50 days following, the liturgy guides us into the prayer of the Heart of
Christ.
The Second Sunday of Easter, that of Divine Mercy, invites us in a particular
way to the contemplation of the Sacred Heart. In the Gospel (Jn 20:19-31),
the Risen Christ stands before Thomas, inviting him to touch his wounded
side. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: "All of us are Thomas, unbelieving; but
like him, all of us can touch the exposed Heart of Jesus and... behold the
Logos himself. So, with our hands and eyes fixed upon this Heart, we can attain
to the confession of faith: 'My Lord and my God!'".10
The liturgical lectionary's repartition of the Fourth Gospel is integral to
the mystical pedagogy of the Church. When the liturgical Solemnity of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus arrives on the Friday following the Second Sunday after
Pentecost, it finds us already prepared, ready and full of desire to pass
fully into the prayer of the Sacred Heart.
For Cardinal Ratzinger, "the entire Gospel testimony is unanimous that
Jesus' words and deeds flowed from his most intimate communion with the
Father; that he continually went 'into the hills' to pray in solitude after
the burden of the day (cf., Mk 1:35; 6:46; 14:35, 39)".11 He notes that
"Luke, of all the Evangelists, lays stress on this feature. He shows
that the essential events of Jesus' activity proceeded from the core of his
personality and that this core was his dialogue with the Father".12
Prayer of the Sacred Heart in the Psalms
The psalms also express and communicate the prayer of the Heart of Christ.
The Psalter is for the Church a "sacrament" of the prayer of the
Heart of Christ to the Father, revealing that prayer and making it present in
her.
Jesus intoned two psalms from the Cross, leaving it to his Church to continue
them: Psalm 21 in Matthew 21:46, and Psalm 30 in Luke 23:46.
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"' (Mt
27:46). The Church, imaged in the Mother of Jesus, the beloved disciple and
the other holy women at the foot of the Cross (cf. Jn 19:25), prays the psalm
through to the end to discover in its triumphant final verses (cf. Ps
21:22-31) the promise of a banquet for the afflicted and the hope of the
resurrection: "The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; and those who
seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live for ever" (Ps
21:26).
Psalm 30 gives the verse, "Into your hands I commit my spirit" (Ps
30:5). Praying it from the Cross at the hour of his death, Jesus adds a
single word, a word that rises out of the depths of his Heart and utterly
transforms the psalmist's prayer into one by which the Son entrusts
everything to the Father. "Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said,
'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!'. And having said this he
breathed his last" (Lk 23:46).
"Jesus died praying.... Although the Evangelists' accounts of the last
words of Jesus differ in details, they agree on the fundamental fact that
Jesus died praying. He fashioned his death into an act of prayer, an act of
worship.... The last words of Jesus were an expression of his devotion to the
Father.... His cry was not uttered to anyone, anywhere, but to Him, since it
was of his innermost essence to be in a dialogue relationship with the
Father".13
Prayer of the Sacred Heart in the Liturgy
The prayer of the Heart of Christ at the hour of his sacrifice passes
entirely into the heart of the Church, where it is prolonged and actualized
"from the rising of the sun to its setting" (Mal 1:11) in the
Liturgy of the Hours and in the mystery of the Eucharist.
Cardinal Ratzinger asks if, after the once-for-all Pasch of Jesus, anything
more is needed. "After the tearing of the Temple curtain and the opening
up of the heart of God in the pierced heart of the Crucified, do we still
need sacred space, sacred time, mediating symbols? Yes, we do need them,
precisely so that, through the 'image', through the sign, we learn to see the
openness of heaven. We need them to give us the capacity to know the mystery
of God in the pierced heart of the Crucified".14
It is through the liturgy, first and above all, that we pass over into the
prayer of the Sacred Heart, the word to the Father forever inscribed in his
pierced side.
Sacred Heart: the Church's Word to the World
Theology is, finally, a word about God addressed to the world, a word about
God addressed to anyone who will listen. The Sacred Heart, pierced in death,
becomes a word of life for the world.
"Death, which by its very nature is the end, the destruction of every
communication, is changed by Jesus into an act of self-communication; and
this is man's redemption, for it signifies the triumph of love over death. We
can put the same thing another way: death, which puts an end to words and to
meaning, itself becomes a word, becomes the place where meaning communicates
itself".15
This means that after the mouth of Jesus fell silent in death, there remained
the open side and the pierced Heart that speaks of nothing but love, the
ultimate and everlasting word about God.
In the final analysis, one "impelled by the charity of Christ" (cf.
II Cor 5:14) will have but one message, that of the pierced Heart revealing
the love of the Father and "drawing all to himself" (cf. Jn 12:32).
One who has contemplated the message carved in the flesh of Jesus' side by
the soldier's lance and learned to read it in adoration has but one language
in which to speak to the world: the language of the heart.
It is learned not in conferences or classrooms or books, but in silence and
in the contemplation of the Pierced One. It is learned especially in the
presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
The language of the heart encompasses a thousand local dialects, a million
accents. Devotion to the Sacred Heart impels the Christian to an inventive
charity, a charity ready to explore every dark and treacherous place in
search of the lost sheep.
"Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the
poor and maimed and blind and lame" (Lk 14:21). "The great gesture
of embrace emanating from the Crucified has not yet reached its goal; it has
only just begun."16
Word from God, Word to God, Word for the World
Word of God addressed to us, word addressed to God, word of the Church
addressed to the world: herein lies one approach to a theology of the Sacred
Heart. The liturgy remains its primary articulation. Together with the
Liturgy of the Hours for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, the 12 biblical
texts provided for the Mass — a First Reading; Psalm, Second Reading and
Gospel for each of the three years A, B and C — become a fundamental
resource, an inexhaustible treasure waiting to be mined for every one called
to hear, to pray and to offer the healing word that is the pierced Heart.
The Sacred Heart is the Heart of God laid bare for man: word from God. It is
a human Heart lifted high on the Cross: word to God. It is the Heart of the
Church open to all who seek, to all who thirst, to every lost sheep waiting
to be found and carried home: word for the world.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the full and irrevocable message of the Father
to us. It is everything we ever could or should need to say to the Father. It
is all we have to say to one another and to the world.
Pope Benedict XVI, writing in 1981 as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, challenges
us to nothing less: "In the Heart of Jesus, the center of Christianity
is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and
revolutionary in the New Covenant. This Heart calls to our heart. It invites
us to step forth out of the futile attempt of self-preservation and, by
joining in the task of love, by handing ourselves over to him and with him,
to discover the fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone
sustains the world".17
NOTES
1 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John
Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), p. 48.
2 Mére Elisabeth de Solms, La vie et la règle de
saint Benoît (Paris: Téqui, 1984); Bible Chrétienne (Québec: Editions Anne
Sigier et Desclée, 1988).
3 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Behold The Pierced
One, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986).
4 Card. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p.
48.
5 Cf. Litany of the Sacred Heart.
6 Card. Ratzinger, Behold The Pierced One, p.
19.
7 Ibid., p. 19.
8 Ibid.
9 Cf. Litany of the Sacred Heart.
10 Card. Ratzinger, Behold The Pierced One, p.
54.
11 Ibid., p. 17.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., pp. 22-24.
14 Card. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy,
p. 61.
15 Card. Ratzinger, Behold The Pierced One, p.
25.
16 Card. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy,
p. 50.
17 Card. Ratzinger, Behold The Pierced One, p.
69.
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Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
25 May 2005, page 10
L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See.
In 1899 Pope Leo XIII approved this Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for public use. This litany is actually a synthesis of several other litanies dating back to the 17th century. Father Croiset composed a litany in 1691 from which 17 invocations were used by Venerable Anne Madeleine Remuzat when she composed her litany in 1718 at Marseille. She joined an additional 10 invocations to those of Father Croiset, for a total of 27 invocations. Six more invocations written by Sister Madeleine Joly of Dijon in 1686 were added by the Sacred Congregation for Rites when it was approved for public use in 1899. This makes a total of 33 invocations, one for each year of life of our Lord Jesus Christ. A partial indulgence is attached to this litany.
The Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost,
have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, united substantially with the word of God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, of infinite majesty, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, holy temple of God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, tabernacle of the Most High, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, house of God and gate of heaven, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, glowing furnace of charity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, vessel of justice and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of goodness and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abyss of all virtues, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, most worthy of all praise, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, king and center of all hearts, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, have
mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Divinity, have mercy
on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom the Father is well pleased, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, of whose fullness we have all received, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, desire of the everlasting hills, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, patient and rich in mercy, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, rich to all who invoke Thee, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, fount of life and holiness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, propitiation for our sins, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, saturated with revilings, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, crushed for our iniquities, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, made obedient unto death, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of all consolation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, our life and resurrection, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, our peace and reconciliation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, victim for our sins, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, salvation of those who hope in Thee, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, hope of those who die in Thee, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, delight of all saints, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O
Lord,
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
V. Jesus, meek and humble of Heart.
R. Make our hearts like unto Thine.
Let us pray
Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the Heart of Thy well-beloved Son and
upon the acts of praise and satisfaction which He renders unto Thee in the
name of sinners; and do Thou, in Thy great goodness, grant pardon to them who
seek Thy mercy, in the name of the same Thy Son, Jesus Christ, who liveth and
reigneth with Thee, world without end.
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