SACRED HEART, OUR REFUGE

Georges Desvalliers, 1905   (France, d. 1950) *

O most holy HEART OF JESUS, fountain of every blessing, I adore You, I love You.

O Jesus, we know You are gentle and that You gave Your Heart for us. It was crowned with thorns through our sins.

Through Your most Sacred Heart, make us all love one another. Cause hatred to disappear among men. Come into each heart.  Be patient and persistent with us. O Jesus, make our hearts open to You, in remembering the Passion You have suffered for us.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, Your are our refuge, our strength, our hope, and our salvation. You are the inexhaustible source of light, of perseverance, peace, and consolation.

Have mercy on us, O Heart of Jesus, and on all that we recommend to You according to Your mercy. We abandon ourselves to You with the confidence and conviction that You will never abandon us either in time or eternity. 

Amen

I love this art work, as it does not convey the insipid piety of so many depictions of the Sacred Heart. Here we have raw emotion, Jesus literally tearing His Heart out for us. What more can we say?

* From 1905 on, Georges Desvallières’ return to the Christian faith was progressively confirmed by his own personal reflections, and brought about a radical change in his life. He perceived Christ Incarnate sharing the sufferings of humanity. Perhaps he was iinfluenced by Léon Bloy or perhaps the simple piety of the faithful in the silence of a church, that brought about his conversion?

He painted more and more religious subjects in the framework of his family, and of his daily life. He became a Dominican Tertiary in 1926, while his daughter Sabine was to become, a Poor Clare nun at Mazamet, taking the name of Sœur Marie de la Grâce.