Spirituality of the Sacred Heart: Part 1

P. Ottavio De Bertolis S.J.

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjHJ8FT7YUk ]

English translation of the edited and reformatted Italian transcript.

1. Introduction

With this video, we want to begin a series of reflections that will allow you to dedicate yourselves to the Spiritual Exercises, taking the Sacred Heart as your point of reference.

We want to speak about the spirituality of the Heart of Christ and, keeping our gaze fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, suggest a way and an order for entering into this journey. In this first video, I will offer some preliminary considerations.

2. Spirituality, Not Merely Devotion

Regarding the spirituality of the Heart of Christ, I would first observe that, at least in Italian, it is more accurate to speak of spirituality than of devotion. In ordinary language, a devotion can mean something beautiful but not indispensable: one may be devoted to the guardian angels or to Saint Rita.

When we speak of the Heart of Christ, however, we do not mean a devotion like the cherry on the cake, that is, an addition that makes the whole more beautiful but that, in the end, could also be absent. The Heart of Christ is a spirituality, not a simple devotion.

It is not, therefore, a matter of imposing on ourselves a particular prayer or particular practices, although these undoubtedly exist. Rather, it is a matter of assuming a spirituality. A spirituality is like a lens: it is a way of reading and seeing the whole Christian experience in all its forms of expression. It concerns worship, that is, the liturgy; the understanding of faith, which we can call theology; and Christian life as lived, which we can call diakonia.

The spirituality of the Heart of Christ therefore has as its object the whole of Christian life, the whole mystery of Christ, the paschal mystery. It is not a matter of taking on a small commitment in order to honor one particular aspect of Christian life, but of living the whole of Christian life in a particular way.

3. The Heart of Christ in the Liturgy

When we speak of the spirituality of the Heart of Christ in the liturgy, we must recognize that it finds its root and its summit in worship. The worship of Christ is not exhausted by certain pious practices, which do indeed exist and which we may naturally cultivate. Yet to understand these practices apart from the entire experience of Christian worship, from the Mass and the Divine Office, would be extremely impoverishing.

Every time we read the psalms, celebrate the sacrifice, and participate in the public worship of the Church, we are introduced into the mystery of the Heart of Christ. It is a matter of reading the whole of revelation in the light of its one center and end: the Heart of Christ.

This, after all, is precisely the experience of the disciples at Easter. The Risen Lord explains to them everything in the Psalms, the Law, and the Prophets that refers to him. Christ is the key that opens and explains all Scripture; all Scripture finds its meaning in him.

Therefore, whenever we approach Christian worship, we do so with this magnifying lens: we read the whole liturgy from the Heart of Christ. It is not only a matter of saying certain prayers or performing gestures of devotion, even though these exist and we would be wrong to neglect what tradition has handed down to us. It is a matter of placing them within a broader meaning.

4. Theology: Giving a Reason for Hope

The spirituality of the Heart of Christ also concerns the understanding of the Scriptures, that is, theology: putting the whole Christian mystery into words. As you know, theology is a word already present in Plato; in Greek, logos means both word and reason. Every time we seek and express the reasons for our faith, putting them into words, we are doing theology.

This task concerns scholars first of all, but, in the end, it concerns each one of us. According to the First Letter of Peter, every believer is called to be always ready to give a reason for the hope that is within him. The verb used refers to apologia, that is, to giving an account. Every believer is called to witness, and the witness of faith is also a giving of reasons for faith.

The spirituality of the Heart of Christ therefore sinks its roots into worship and expands into the understanding of faith. Some will be theologians by profession; perhaps we are not. Nevertheless, each one is called to give an account, to put into words, and to bear witness, in comprehensible language, to what he or she lives and experiences in worship.

Faith and worship are not only a mysterious, personal, or, in a certain sense, incommunicable dimension, as may happen in the mystical life. If that were so, we would be led into a form of solipsism, closed within our own experience. Faith is not only an inner emotion; it is also an understanding that expands in the mind and can be shared. Reason and speech are, in fact, what human beings have in common.

5. Diakonia: Encountering the Wounds of the Lord

The experience of the Heart of Christ is not confined to formal worship, nor even to theology alone. It is strengthened in the whole of Christian life, that is, in diakonia.

The experience of the Lord’s wounds and of an intimate knowledge of him takes place in the silence of prayer, in self-giving, and in reflective understanding of his Word; but it also takes place in contact with the poor, in the many “poor Christs,” in those whose sufferings Jesus has assumed and of whom he wished to become part.

The wounds of the Lord are also the wounds of so many of our brothers and sisters who experience abandonment and the very passion of the Lord. For this reason, we speak of the spirituality of the Heart of Christ, and not merely of devotion: we mean a broader and more comprehensive way of living the whole Christian life.

6. The Heart as a Symbolic Word

When we speak of the Heart of Christ, we will see that the word heart is deeply symbolic. It is documented in Scripture, both in the Old and in the New Testament: we may think of Pharaoh’s hardened heart, or of the promise, “I will give you a new heart; I will remove from you the heart of stone.”

We modern people are accustomed to a scientific reading of words; for us, the heart is first of all the muscle in our chest. In Scripture, however, words are profoundly symbolic. Their meaning is richer and broader than a merely material reading.

The spirituality of the Heart of Christ is grafted onto a deeply symbolic word. It begins from a material reality, such as the chest of Jesus, the wounded side, and the open side of the Lord, but from there it unfolds in many ways. These videos would like to show how the Heart of Jesus Christ is a unifying center of the main strands that, in the Old and New Testaments, speak to us of revelation. From here many meanings present in the whole of revelation set out, and to this point all the pages of Scripture lead.

7. The Heart of Christ and Revelation

To speak of the spirituality of the Heart of Christ means to be radically grafted into revelation. We are at the center of the Christian mystery: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, making himself visible. But the Word is also the word that God has entrusted to us, what we call the Bible.

It is interesting to observe that, in the great patristic and scholastic reflection of the first millennium, we do not find references to the Heart of Christ as we understand it today. This spirituality, like every human expression, has changed across cultures and in the diversity of places. It would be interesting to see how, in different ways and forms, people have always spoken of the same mystery: Christ and his Heart.

Our present way of speaking has been greatly influenced by modern devotion and, in particular, by Saint Margaret Mary and her driving role beginning in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, before and after her, the Spirit has never failed to assist the Church, recalling that everything Jesus has handed down and taught us is condensed in his Heart and from it springs forth and expands.

Saint Augustine offers a very beautiful expression: the Heart of Christ is Scripture. Scripture is the heart, that is, the revelation of Jesus Christ. All the pages of Scripture, from the first line of Genesis to the last of the Apocalypse, speak of Jesus Christ, because he is the Word.

The first point to observe, then, is this: the spirituality of the Heart of Christ is above all a spirituality centered on public revelation, that is, on Scripture, on the Old and New Testaments.

8. Private Revelations and Ecclesial Memory

Naturally, the so-called private revelations also exist. They have always occurred in the history of the Church. Mystics who have personal experiences of the Lord can, in a certain sense, be called prophets: men and women moved by the Spirit, entrusted with making known to the Christian people an aspect of the mystery that, at that moment, risked being forgotten.

It would be interesting to consider the contribution of Saint Margaret Mary. She was a woman, a mystic, and this spirituality is almost entirely marked by a feminine mediation: a fact that should not be underestimated. Her contribution occurs in a particularly dramatic moment for the Church, marked by Jansenism.

It was not necessarily a formally defined heresy; nevertheless, in practice, the Christian people, or at least large areas of the Church, seemed to have forgotten the fundamental proclamation of Saint John: God is love. God is not first of all law or duty.

In the seventeenth century, theology and pastoral practice were being rethought according to the cultural categories of the time. Ethical systems and theologies developed more geometrico, in which God could appear as a cold and calculating being: you have done good, I reward you; you have done evil, I punish you.

At a time when the Church risked forgetting the mercy of the Lord, even certain Jansenist crucifixes were sculpted or painted with Christ’s arms drawn close, not opened wide, almost as if to indicate that few are saved. Jansenism exalted certain aspects of the Augustinian doctrine of grace, but it ended by obscuring the love of God and familiarity with the sacraments.

Today it may seem normal to receive Communion every day; therefore, the nine First Fridays of the month do not appear to be a particular effort. But at that time almost no one received Communion. We know this also from the reports of pastoral visitations.

Beyond these historical aspects, what I would like to insist on is this: the spirituality of the Heart of Christ is grounded in Scripture, not in private revelations as such. We want to recover and restate this spirituality, to which we are so attached, in the most correct way: by beginning from Scripture.

9. Scripture Opened by the Side of the Lord

Saint Thomas too, in the great scholastic tradition, uses a very beautiful expression: all Scripture was opened in the piercing of the Lord’s side. The Heart of Jesus becomes the theological place in which the true meaning of the Scriptures is opened.

This is profoundly true, and in the coming videos we hope to show at least some aspect of it. After this first look at the spirituality of the Heart of Christ, we can now ask what the Spiritual Exercises are, at least those Spiritual Exercises that would like to have an Ignatian style.

We will not necessarily follow the four weeks of Saint Ignatius, but the style is intended to be the one indicated by Ignatius in the Exercises.

10. The Spiritual Exercises: Purpose and Method

The Spiritual Exercises are not simply, as unfortunately sometimes happens, a period of Eucharistic adoration, prayers, and other similar practices. All this is good; however, it must be remembered that, according to Saint Ignatius, the Spiritual Exercises are all the ways of preparing and disposing the soul to free itself from all disordered affections and, once it is freed, to seek and find the divine will in ordering one’s life for the salvation of the soul.

This means that the purpose of the Spiritual Exercises, in themselves, is not prayer as such. The Spiritual Exercises are not catechesis: they presuppose that people have already received catechesis. Nor do they coincide with the exercises of piety to which we are accustomed, such as adoration, the Rosary, or the canonical hours. They presuppose people already familiar with these kinds of practices.

The difficulty of the Spiritual Exercises lies elsewhere: they ask us to question ourselves. We can pray; but at times prayer, instead of drawing us out of ourselves so as to enter into the mystery of God, can become armor that confirms us in the things of which we are already convinced. It can become a kind of hammer that drives deeper the nails of our certainties.

To make the Spiritual Exercises, even in a mediated way through these videos, means seeking to find the will of God in ordering one’s life for the salvation of the soul. It is a matter of God’s will, not ours.

11. Sin and Disordered Affections

We can be drawn away from the will of God not only by sin. I presume that you who are listening to me do not deliberately wish to commit sin. Certainly, we are sinners and we become aware of it; but, by the grace of God, we often become aware of it afterwards.

What can prevent us from understanding, inwardly sensing, and fully carrying out the will of God is not only sin. Sin has at least this good aspect: when we recognize it, we know that it is sin. More difficult is recognizing disordered affections.

Disordered affections go beyond simple sin. The question is: where is your heart? Sometimes our heart is attached even to good things. Here lies the difficulty: good things can prevent us from a greater service and a greater praise of God our Lord; they can prevent us from a greater conformity to Christ, obedient to the will of the Father.

Perhaps it is easier to realize this at a certain age. Looking back, one recognizes that many times this happened without one’s being aware of it. And yet, even when one is not guilty because one does not understand, evil remains evil. The bonds that tie the heart are real, even when they are not the bonds of sin: they are the bonds of disordered affections.

The risk is confusing God’s will with our own. In this way, instead of serving God, we save ourselves, perhaps in the name of God. This matter concerns us very closely. The sinner who is converted passes from sin to the life of grace; in a certain sense, the road is clearer. For those who, for years or perhaps always, have sought to serve God our Lord, discernment can become more difficult.

We all have a history, habits, and practices that are good and holy. Precisely because they are good and holy, we may say to ourselves, “What there is to know, I already know; what there is to do, I already do.” Here we can deceive ourselves, because Deus semper maior: God is always greater.

12. Entering the Depths of Ourselves

The experience of the Spiritual Exercises is difficult not only because of certain characteristics that are sometimes emphasized, such as the silence to be observed. The true difficulty is looking within, going down beyond superficial awareness, and entering the depths of ourselves.

In one word, what is difficult for everyone is to question oneself. But this is precisely what Scripture calls listening.

13. Listening: Going Out from Oneself

Listening does not simply mean hearing. We hear many things, but listening is another reality. We have all had the experience of speaking with someone and leaving disappointed, because we realized that the person already knew, before we had even spoken, what he or she was going to say to us. It is a frustrating experience.

In order to listen, one must go out from oneself. Truly listening is not simple: it is not simple to listen to one’s neighbor while leaving behind our prejudices, our pre-understandings, and our mental habits; nor is it simple to listen to the voice of the Lord.

The psalm says, “Today, if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts.” Once again the word heart returns, understood as the center of the person, of intellect and will. Do not harden your heart means: do not remain imprisoned in your mental habits. Not because they are necessarily bad, but because the Lord may ask of us a greater service.

Deus semper maior: God is always greater. There is no greater service than the one that involves forgetfulness of self, even of one’s own good ways of thinking, in order to assume the way of thinking of Jesus Christ. It is not a matter of adopting the thought of the preacher or of another person, but of listening to Jesus Christ speaking to the conscience.

14. Concluding Prayer: The Shema in the Heart of Jesus

As a prayer for this time, I suggest first of all some verses from Deuteronomy, which you know well and which we also recite at Saturday evening Compline: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is the one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Only in the Heart of Jesus have these verses become fully true. He is the only man, the only son of Israel, of whom it can be said that he loved the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength.

He is the fullness from which we have all received. He gives us the Holy Spirit so that we too, like him, may love his Father and our Father, his God and our God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Jesus gives us his Spirit so that we may listen with him and listen deeply. The time of the Exercises is a time of listening. It is a time in which we do not place our satisfaction in the forms that listening and the fulfillment of God’s will have already taken in us, but listen to what the Lord will still say.

The psalm comes to mind: “I will listen to what God, the Lord, says: he announces peace for his people, for his faithful ones, for those who return to him with all their heart.” Christ is our peace. Peace is the gift of Easter; it does not simply mean the absence of war, but the fullness of every gift.

Heart of Jesus, from whose fullness we have all received: today we wish to contemplate this particular nuance of fullness, the listening from which love is born. May the Lord give us his grace so that, in some way, we may continue his life within ourselves.

Saint Leo the Great states that it is just as heretical to deny the divinity of Christ as to deny his humanity. Let us therefore contemplate Jesus Christ, the man Jesus, son of Israel, who listens; the one who three times a day repeats the Shema Israel and who, in his Heart, listens to the will of God and places his delight in it.