Who’s in hell?

The solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a good day to think about last things. No?

Most reasonable Catholics would agree that we don’t hear too much about the 4 last things. For some this is a good thing; for me I lament the absence. But why do we always have to avoid the last things that are a natural part of the Divine Plan? Are we THAT afraid of God? Are we THAT skeptical about the promises of Jesus? Do we really lack hope? Perhaps we are too comfortable in being self-contained to care.

You know what the 4 last things are: death judgment, heaven and hell.  Preachers, Catholic school curricula and CCD programs and parents don’t often address the 4 last things in their respective venues. Why? Likely because there’s a perceptible allergy against an honest look at the human condition and the supreme justice and mercy of God. Also, about the fact that we can and often do, turn our backs on God and His promises. We’d rather think of “good things” or “nice things” about ourselves and others than sin and the possible ugly. OK. I don’t relish looking at my ugly side either. At the same time I want an honest assessment of my soul and to live in a reasonable hope of what may or may not come of my relationship with God. At last I knew, the only person conceived without sin is the Mary, the Mother of God. Plus, I would hate to think I am going to heaven (or purgatory) when I really merited hell.
In case you need a fast primer on the 4 last things, see these links. I’d also suggest closely reading Avery Cardinal Dulles’ essay “The Population of Hell,” found in Church and Society unless you can get it for free on the First Things website (but I’d recommend buying the book for all the other excellent essays!).

Not long ago a friend sent me a blog where the blogger talked about a recent homily of Canterbury’s Rowan Williams where he wonders if Henry VII is in hell. Good question. What do you think? The Archbishop’s homily can be read here.

The act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Sacred Heart.jpg

Christians are consecrated, that is, set apart from other things or ways of life for God –the Father, Son and Holy Spirit– through the sacraments of Initiation. Our entire life as a Christian is based on our reception of and living out of our Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist.

As with any act of consecration we make a personal commitment to be in relationship with the Lord; it is begging the Lord to reign in our heart; the act of consecration means putting the ego aside in order to enter into personal relationship with Christ. Coming to Christ is coming to our eternal destiny.

Making the consecration takes me to infinite love of Jesus.

At a sacramental level we concretely re-consecrate ourselves to the Lord each time we worthily receive Holy Communion and by making a good confession. One way of keeping this reality in front of us is by attending to making the first Friday devotions.

Before the image of the Sacred Heart, make the consecration to the Sacred Heart given by Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque:

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, to You I consecrate and offer up my person and my life, my actions, trials and sufferings, that my entire being may henceforth only be employed in loving, honoring and glorifying You. This is my irrevocable will, to belong entirely to You, and to do all for Your love, renouncing with my whole heart all that can displease You.

I take You, O Sacred Heart, for the sole object of my love, the protection of my life, the pledge of my salvation, the remedy of my frailty and inconstancy, the reparation for all the defects of my life, and my secure refuge at the hour of my death. Be You O merciful Heart, my justification before God Your Father, and screen me from His anger which I have so justly merited. I fear all from my own weakness and malice but placing my entire confidence in You, O Heart of Love. I hope from Your infinite Goodness. Annihilate in me all that can displease or resist You. Imprint Your pure love so deeply in my heart that I may never forget You or be separated from You.

I beseech You, through Your infinite Goodness, grant that my name be engraved upon Your Heart, for in this I place all my happiness and all my glory, to live and to die as one of Your devoted servants. Amen.

Priesthood: “First of all, authentically human,” Fr Carron suggests

Father Julián Carrón, published the following commentary on priesthood in the  L’Osservatore Romano (June 9, 2010), at conclusion of the Year of Priest.

I will never forget the impact of a question at a spiritual retreat with some priests in Latin America. I had just finished saying that often our faith lacks the human, when a priest approached me and said that when he was in seminary, they taught him that it was better to hide his concrete humanity, not to have it in sight “because it disturbed the journey of faith.” This episode made me more aware of how Christianity can be reduced and of the state of confusion in which we are called to live our priestly vocation. Once someone asked Fr. Giussani his advice for a young priest, “That he be above all a man,” he answered, to the surprise of those present. We find ourselves at the polar opposite of the advice given the seminarian: on the one hand, to look away from one’s humanity, and on the other, a gaze full of fondness for oneself.

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So then, what is decisive for our faith and our vocation? What do we need? Fr. Giussani repeatedly indicated that “the forgetfulness of the ‘I’,” the absence of authentic interest for one’s own person is the “supreme obstacle to our human journey” (Alla ricerca del volto umano, Rizzoli, Milano 1995, p. 9). Instead, true love for oneself, true affection for oneself is what leads us to rediscover our constituent exigencies, our original needs in their nakedness and vastness, so as to see ourselves as relationship with the Mystery, entreaty for the
infinite, structural expectant awaiting. Only people so “wounded” by reality, so seriously engaged with their own humanity can open themselves totally to the encounter with the Lord. Fr. Giussani affirms, “In fact, Christ offers Himself as the answer to what “I” am and only an attentive and also tender and passionate awareness of myself can throw me wide open and dispose me to acknowledge, admire, thank, and live Christ. Without this awareness, even that of Jesus Christ becomes a mere name” (At the Origin of the Christian Claim, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal 1998, p. 4).

“There is no response more absurd than that to a question one hasn’t asked” wrote Reinhold Niebuhr. This also applies to us when we uncritically submit to the influence of the culture in which we are immersed, which seems to favor the reduction of humanity to our biological, psychological and sociological antecedents. But if humanity is truly reduced to this, what is our task as priests? What use are we? What is the sense of our vocation? How can we resist a flight from reality, taking refuge in spiritualism or formalism, seeking alternatives that make life bearable? Or wouldn’t it be better, obeying the cultural climate, to become social assistants, psychologists, cultural operators or politicians? As Benedict XVI reminded us in Lisbon, “Often we are anxiously preoccupied with the social, cultural and political consequences of the faith, taking for granted that faith is present, which unfortunately is less and less realistic. Perhaps we have placed an excessive trust in ecclesial structures and programs, in the distribution of powers and functions; but what will happen if salt loses its flavor?” (Homily at Holy Mass at Terriero do Paco of Lisbon, May 11, 2010).

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Therefore, everything depends on the perception, first of all for us, of what humanity is and what truly corresponds to our infinite desire. The decision with which we live our vocation therefore derives from the decision with which we live our being men. Only within an authentically human vibration can we know Christ and let ourselves be fascinated by Him, to the point of giving Him our lives to make Him known to others. “Why does the faith still absolutely have a chance of success?” then Cardinal Ratzinger asked himself, and answered, “I would say because it finds correspondence in the nature of man. […]  In man there is an inextinguishable nostalgic aspiration toward the infinite. None of the answers sought is sufficient; only the God who has made Himself finite, to lacerate our finiteness and lead it in the breadth of His infinity, is able to meet the questions of our being. Therefore today as well, Christian faith will return to find humanity” (Fede, Verità, Tolleranza [Faith, Truth, Tolerance] Cantagalli, Siena 2003, pp. 142-143).

This certainty that Benedict XVI testifies to continually even in the face of all the evil we bring upon ourselves or cause others – just think of the pedophilia issue – invites us on a journey to rediscover and deepen our understanding of the reasonableness of the faith: “Our faith is well-founded, but this faith needs to come alive in each of us […]: only Christ can fully satisfy the profound longing of every human heart and give answers to its most pressing questions about suffering, injustice and evil, concerning death and life hereafter” (Homily at Holy Mass at Terriero do Paco di Lisbon, May 11, 2010). Only if we experience the truth of Christ in our life will we have the courage to communicate it and the audacity to challenge the hearts of the people we meet. In this way, the priesthood will continue to be an adventure for each of us and thus the opportunity to testify to our fellow women and men the answer that only Christ is for the “mystery of our being” (G. Leopardi). Thank you.

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Father Julián Carrón is a priest of the Archdiocese of Madrid and he is the President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation centered in Milan, Italy. He was appointed by Benedict XVI to be among the experts at the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God and he is a consultant on the Pontifical Council of the Laity.


Christ abides with us forever in the Eucharist

Just as Holy Thursday and then Corpus Christi focuses our attention on the beauty of Christ’s fulfillment of His promise to remain with us –in the Holy Eucharist– so every Thursday ought to be a day of special prayer (time spent in adoration, Mass, confession of sins, reflection using the works of “eucharistic saints”). And this is the point of this blog: sharing in Communio lived with Christ in the Church among all people. But to the point here, I think any time spent with the Blessed Sacrament “touches eternity, highlighting the relationship between the Eucharistic banquet (the Mass) and the eschatological banquet in the Father’s Kingdom (heaven)” (GIRM 281).

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In many places where adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was been done “traditionally” on Fridays, the devotion has now been moved to Thursdays to be in greater connection with the Holy Thursday event of the Paschal Mystery of the Lord.
My advice for today: try to spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament, attend Mass, go to confession, pray for the Church.

Consider what Saint Thomas Aquinas has to say about the Body and Blood of Christ from one of his sermons:
Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation. He shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us forever, he left his body as food and blood as drink for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine.
O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value?

Basil M. Schott, OFM, Ruthenian metropolitan archbishop RIP

BM Schott.jpgAfter struggling with Leukemia Metropolitan Basil Myron Schott, OFM, died this morning. He was 71. I have fond memories of meeting the archbishop and always found him to be a kind and holy man.

Since 2002, Archbishop Basil was the head of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church in the USA.

May his memory be eternal.
The funeral arrangements for His Eminence, Metropolitan Basil, Schott funeral arrangements.pdf.
A glimpse into the Metropolitan’s life here and here.
A Pittsburgh Tribune Obit is posted here.

Pius XII’s previously unpublished letter to FDR

The Zenit.org news agency gave its readers a previously
unpublished letter sent by Pope Pius XII to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
on Aug. 30, 1943, after the Allied Forces bombed Rome. The letter surfaced from the archives of the Knights of Columbus given that it has worked in Rome since 1920. The KofC has recently opened a retrospective exhibit of its work for the Church and humanity in Rome. An unexpected gifts. Why? Because the letter to Roosevelt shows that Pope Pius did advocate for the needs of the defenseless in a dark period of history and that neither Italy nor the Church were free to freely act. Also, the exhibit shows the kind solicitude the KofC has had and continues to have for the work of Christ and the Church.

Your Excellency,

Recent
events have naturally focused the world’s attention for the moment on Italy, and
much has been said and written on what policy she would or should now follow
for her own best interests. Too many, we fear, take for granted that she is
entirely free to follow the policy of her choice; and we have wished to express
to Your Excellency our conviction that this is far from true. Of her desire for
peace and to be done with the war, there can be no doubt; but in the presence
of formidable forces opposing the actuation or even the official declaration of
that desire she finds herself shackled and quite without the necessary means of
defending herself.

If under such circumstances Italy is to be forced still to
bear devastating blows against which she is practically defenseless, we hope
and pray that the military leader will find it possible to spare innocent civil
populations and in particular churches and religious institutions the ravages
of war. Already, we must recount with deep sorrow and regret, these figure very
prominently among the ruins of Italy’s most populous and important cities.

But
the message of assurance addressed to us by Your Excellency sustains our hope,
even in the face of bitter experience, that God’s temples and the homes erected
by Christian charity for the poor and sick and abandoned members of Christ’s
flock may survive the terrible onslaught. May God in His merciful pity and love
hearken to the universal cry of his children and let them hear once more the
voice of Christ say: Peace!

We are happy of this occasion to renew the
expression of our sincere good wishes to Your Excellency.

From the Vatican,
August 30, 1943

Pius PP XII

The Cross offers unlimited hope, Pope teaches


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The Pope’s homily on the role of the Cross in our theology was a good reminder of who are as a people of faith: merciful, loving, and hope-filled. Sin and death don’t have the last word in life. It is sad that we don’t remember this more often, clergy and laity alike. This homily made me reflect back on an experience I had a few weeks back when I was told a priest in this particular parish preached that Catholics are “Easter people” and not a “Good Friday people.” Sorely misguided. On June 5th in Cyprus Pope Benedict celebrated the Votive Mass of the Holy Cross (praying
the various votive Masses is a good and noble tradition when there is no
specific liturgical memorial that particular day) when he acknowledged the work of
devoted priests, brothers, sisters catechists and the lay movements in preaching and teaching the Truth. In the
face of difficult and sometimes evil situations the Pope encouraged his
congregation (and us) to base their (our) lives on the Cross. For Christians, the cross is not
a failure but the symbol –the reality– of mercy, forgiveness, faith, hope and joy. And it is
the goal of priests and religious to conform their lives to their Cross because
it is at the foot of the Cross that we know the full power of the Trinity’s
love for us. Plus, the Pope reminds us that we are not the center of the faith, Christ is: it is His wisdom and salvation we communicate to others, not our own.

Here are excerpts from the Pope’s homily:

Beguiled by the serpent, Adam had foresaken his filial trust in
God and sinned by biting into the fruit of the one tree in the garden that was
forbidden to him. In consequence of that sin, suffering and death came into the
world. The tragic effects of sin, suffering and death were all too evident in
the history of Adam’s descendants. We see this in our first reading today, with
its echoes of the Fall and its prefiguring of Christ’s redemption.

As a
punishment for their sin, the people of Israel, languishing in the desert, were
bitten by serpents and could only be saved from death by looking upon the
emblem that Moses raised up, foreshadowing the Cross that would put an end to
sin and death once and for all. We see clearly that man cannot save himself
from the consequences of his sin. He cannot save himself from death. Only God
can release him from his moral and physical enslavement. And because he loved
the world so much, he sent his only-begotten Son, not to condemn the world – as
justice seemed to demand – but so that through him the world might be saved. God’s
only-begotten Son had to be lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the desert, so that all who looked upon him with faith might have life.

Descent from the Cross BAntelami.jpg

The
wood of the Cross became the vehicle for our redemption, just as the tree from
which it was fashioned had occasioned the Fall of our first parents. Suffering
and death, which had been a consequence of sin, were to become the very means
by which sin was vanquished. The innocent Lamb was slain on the altar of the
Cross, and yet from the immolation of the victim new life burst forth: the
power of evil was destroyed by the power of self-sacrificing love.

The Cross,
then, is something far greater and more mysterious than it at first appears. It
is indeed an instrument of torture, suffering and defeat, but at the same time
it expresses the complete transformation, the definitive reversal of these
evils: that is what makes it the most eloquent symbol of hope that the world
has ever seen. It speaks to all who suffer – the oppressed, the sick, the poor,
the outcast, the victims of violence – and it offers them hope that God can
transform their suffering into joy, their isolation into communion, their death
into life. It offers unlimited hope to our fallen world.

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That is why the world
needs the Cross. The Cross is not just a private symbol of devotion, it is not
just a badge of membership of a certain group within society, and in its
deepest meaning it has nothing to do with the imposition of a creed or a
philosophy by force. It speaks of hope, it speaks of love, it speaks of the
victory of non-violence over oppression, it speaks of God raising up the lowly,
empowering the weak, conquering division, and overcoming hatred with love. A
world without the Cross would be a world without hope, a world in which torture
and brutality would go unchecked, the weak would be exploited and greed would
have the final word. Man’s inhumanity to man would be manifested in ever more
horrific ways, and there would be no end to the vicious cycle of violence. Only
the Cross puts an end to it. While no earthly power can save us from the
consequences of our sins, and no earthly power can defeat injustice at its
source, nevertheless the saving intervention of our loving God has transformed
the reality of sin and death into its opposite. That is what we celebrate when
we glory in the Cross of our Redeemer. Rightly does Saint Andrew of Crete
describe the Cross as “more noble, more precious than anything on earth […] for
in it and through it and for it all the riches of our salvation were stored
away and restored to us” (Oratio X; PG 97, 1018-1019).

Dear brother priests,
dear religious, dear catechists, the message of the Cross has been entrusted to
us, so that we can offer hope to the world. When we proclaim Christ crucified
we are proclaiming not ourselves, but him. We are not offering our own wisdom
to the world, nor are we claiming any merit of our own, but we are acting as
channels for his wisdom, his love, his saving merits. We know that we are
merely earthenware vessels, and yet, astonishingly, we have been chosen to be
heralds of the saving truth that the world needs to hear. Let us never cease to
marvel at the extraordinary grace that has been given to us, let us never cease
to acknowledge our unworthiness, but at the same time let us always strive to
become less unworthy of our noble calling, lest through our faults and failings
we weaken the credibility of our witness.

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In this Year for Priests, let me
address a special word to the priests present today, and to those who are
preparing for ordination. Reflect on the words spoken to a newly ordained
priest as the Bishop presents him with the chalice and paten: “Understand what
you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the
Lord’s Cross”. As we proclaim the Cross of Christ, let us always strive to
imitate the selfless love of the one who offered himself for us on the altar of
the Cross, the one who is both priest and victim, the one in whose person we
speak and act when we exercise the ministry that we have received. As we
reflect on our shortcomings, individually and collectively, let us humbly
acknowledge that we have merited the punishment that he, the innocent Lamb,
suffered on our behalf. And if, in accordance with what we have deserved, we
should have some share in Christ’s sufferings, let us rejoice because we will
enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed.

Watch the YouTube clip on the teaching of Pope Benedict on the Cross

Saint Ephrem the Syrian

saint-ephrem2.gifIt is indeed fitting to honor the blessed deacon of
Edessa for his desire that the preaching of the divine word and the training of
his disciples rest on the purity of Sacred Scripture. He also acquired honor as
a Christian musician and poet. He was so accomplished in both arts that he was
called the “lyre of the Holy Spirit.” From this, Venerable Brothers,
you can learn what arts promote the knowledge of sacred things. Ephrem lived
among people whose nature was attracted by the sweetness of poetry and music.
The heretics of the second century after Christ used these same allurements to
skillfully disseminate their errors. Therefore Ephrem, like youthful David
killing the giant Goliath with his own sword, opposed art with art and clothed
Catholic doctrine in melody and rhythm. These he diligently taught to boys and
girls, so that eventually all the people learned them. In this fashion he not
only renewed the education of the faithful in Christian doctrine and supported
their piety with the spirit of the sacred liturgy, but also happily kept
creeping heresy at bay.


The artistry introduced by Blessed Ephrem added dignity
to sacred matters as Theodoretus stresses. The metric rhythm, which our saint
popularized, was widely propagated both among the Greeks and the Latins. Indeed
does it seem probable that the liturgical antiphonary with its songs and
processions, introduced at Constantinople in the works of Chrysostom and at
Milan by Ambrose (whence it spread throughout all of Italy), was the work of
some other author? For the “custom of Eastern rhythm” deeply moved
the catechumen Augustine in northern Italy; Gregory the Great improved it and
we use it in a more advanced form. Critics acknowledge that that “same
Eastern rhythm” had it origins in Ephrem’s Syrian antiphonary.

It is no
wonder then that many of the Fathers of the Church stress the authority of St.
Ephrem. Nyssenus says of his writings, “Studying the Old and New
Scriptures most thoroughly, he interpreted them accurately, word for word; and
what was hidden and concealed, from the very creation of the world to the last
book of grace, he illumined with commentaries, using the light of the
Spirit.” And Chrysostom: “The great Ephrem is scourge of the
slothful, consoler of the afflicted, educator, instructor and exhorter of
youth, mirror of monks, leader of penitents, goad and sting of heretics,
reservoir of virtues, and the home and lodging of the Holy Spirit.” Certainly
nothing greater can be said in praise of a man who, however, seemed so small in
his own eyes that he claimed to be the least of all and a most vile sinner”
(12-14).

Pope Benedict XV

Principi
Apostolorum Petro (On St. Ephrem the Syrian), 5 October 1920

The Sacred Heart of Jesus: What does the Church teach?

It bears reading and knowing what the Church advocates with regard to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Why? Because we are meant to be in relationship with God through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. We live in relation (communio) to Jesus –as Savior, brother, Redeemer, lover– through whom we see the face of God. In The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy tells us:

The Roman Pontiffs have frequently averted to the scriptural basis of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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Jesus, who is one with the Father (cf. John 10, 30), invites his disciples to live in close communion with him, to model their lives
on him and on his teaching. He, in turn, reveals himself as “meek and
humble of heart” (Mt 11, 29). It can be said that, in a certain sense,
devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a cultic form of the prophetic and evangelic gaze of all Christians on him who was pierced (cf. John 19, 37; Zac 12, 10), the gaze of all Christians on the side of Christ, transfixed by a lance, and from which flowed blood and water (cf. John 19, 34), symbols of the “wondrous sacrament of the Church.”

The Gospel of St. John recounts the showing of the Lord’s hands and his side to the disciples (cf. John 20: 20), and of his invitation to Thomas to put his hand into his side (cf. John 20: 27). This event has also had a notable influence on the origin and development of the Church’s devotion to the Sacred Heart.

These and other texts present Christ as the paschal Lamb, victorious and slain (cf. Apoc 5,6). They were objects of much reflection by the Fathers who unveiled their doctrinal richness. They invited the faithful to penetrate the mysteries of Christ by contemplating the wound opened in his side. Augustine writes: “Access is possible: Christ is the door. It was opened for you when his side was opened by the lance. Remember what flowed out from his side: thus, choose where you want to enter Christ. From the side of Christ as he hung dying upon the Cross there flowed out blood and water, when it was pierced by a lance. Your purification
is in that water, your redemption is in that blood” (ed. emphasis).

Devotion to the Sacred Heart was particularly strong during the middle ages. Many renowned for the learning and holiness developed and encouraged the devotion, among them St. Bernard (+1153), St. Bonaventure (+ 1274), the mystic St. Lutgarda (+1246), St Mathilda of Marburg (+ 1282), the sainted sisters Mathilda (+ 1299) and Gertrude (+ 1302) of the monastery of Helfta, and Ludolf of Saxony (+1380). These perceived in the Sacred Heart a “refuge” in which to recover, the seat of mercy, the encounter with him who is the source of the Lord’s infinite love, the fount from which flows the Holy Spirit, the promised land, and true paradise.

In the modern period devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus underwent new developments. At a time when Jansenism proclaimed the rigours of divine justice, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus served as a useful antidote and aroused in the faithful a love for Our Lord and a trust in his infinite mercy symbolized by his Heart. St. Francis de Sales (+ 1622) adopted humility, gentleness (cf. Mt 11, 29) and tender loving mercy, all aspects of the Sacred Heart, as a model for his life and apostolate. The Lord frequently manifested the abundant mercy of his Heart to St. Margaret Mary (+ 1690); St. John Eudes (+ 1680) promoted the liturgical cult of the Sacred Heart, while St. Claude la Colombière (+ 1682) and St. John Bosco (+ 1888) and other saints
were avid promoters of devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus are numerous. Some have been explicitly approved and frequently recommended by the Apostolic See. Among these, mention should be made of the
following:

  • personal consecration, described by Pius XI as “undoubtedly the principal devotional practice used in relation to the Sacred Heart”;
  • family consecration to the Sacred Heart, in which the family, by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony already participating in the mystery of the unity and love of Christ for the Church, is dedicated to Christ so that he might
    reign in the hearts of all its members;
  • the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, approved for the whole Church in 1891, which is evidently biblical in
    character and to which many indulgences have been attached;
  • the act of reparation, a prayer with which the faithful, mindful of the infinite goodness of Christ, implore mercy for the offences committed in so many ways against his Sacred Heart;
  • the pious practice of the first Fridays of the month which derives from the “great promises” made by Jesus to St. Margaret Mary.

At a time when sacramental communion was very rare among the faithful, the first Friday devotion contributed significantly to a renewed use of the Sacraments of Penance and of the Holy Eucharist. In our own times, the devotion to the first Fridays, even if practised correctly, may not always lead to the desired spiritual fruits. Hence, the faithful require constant instruction so
that any reduction of the practice to mere credulity, is avoided and an active faith encouraged so that the faithful may undertake their commitment to the Gospel correctly in their lives. They should also be reminded of the absolute preeminence of Sunday, the “primordial feast”, which should be marked by the full participation of the faithful at the celebration of the Holy Mass.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is a wonderful historical expression of the Church’s piety for Christ, her Spouse and Lord: it calls for a fundamental attitude of conversion and reparation, of love and gratitude, apostolic commitment and dedication to Christ and his saving work. For these reasons, the devotion is recommended and its renewal encouraged by the Holy See and by the
Bishops. Such renewal touches on the devotion’s linguistic and iconographic expressions; on consciousness of its biblical origins and its connection with the great mysteries of the faith; on affirming the primacy of the love of God and neighbour as the essential content of the devotion itself.

Popular piety tends to associate a devotion with its iconographic expression. This is a normal and positive phenomenon. Inconveniences can sometimes arise: iconographic expressions that no longer respond to the artistic taste of the people can sometimes lead to a diminished appreciation of the devotion’s object, independently of its theological basis and its historico-salvific content.

This can sometimes arise with devotion to the Sacred Heart: perhaps certain over sentimental images which are incapable of giving expression to the devotion’s robust theological content or which do not encourage the faithful to approach the mystery of the Sacred Heart of our Saviour.

Recent time have seen the development of images representing the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the moment of crucifixion which is the highest expression of the love of Christ. The Sacred Heart is Christ crucified, his side pierced by the lance, with blood and
water flowing from it (cf, John 19, 34). (167-173).