SACRED HEART

 

Wednesday,  Pope Francis  encouraged busy Catholics to say the “Jesus Prayer” throughout the day.

This short prayer is at the heart of Eastern Christianity’s mystical tradition, and is a perfect way to celebrate the feast of the SACRED HEART of JESUS.

 The classical form of the Jesus Prayer is,  "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

The actual words of this short prayers can vary:

 "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."

 "Lord Jesus, have mercy."

 Or simply  repeating  the name of Jesus.

 The history of the Jesus Prayer goes back to the early sixth century, with Diadochos, who taught that repetition of the prayer leads to inner stillness.

Even earlier John Cassian recommended this type of prayer. In the fourth century Egypt, in Nitria, short "arrow" prayers were practiced.

 Abba Macarius of Egypt said there is no need to waste time with words. It is enough to hold out your hands and say, "Lord, according to your desire and your wisdom, have mercy."

The Holy Father  said to repeat the words out loud, saying that it was a prayer “that, little by little, adapts itself to the rhythm of breath and extends throughout the day.”

 “Indeed, the breath never stops, not even while we sleep; and prayer is the breath of life,” he said.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart  of Jesus, (Sacratissimum Cor Iesu in Latin) is one of the most widely practiced and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the Heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". 

The devotion is especially concerned with what the Church deems to be the long-suffering love and compassion of the Heart of Christ towards humanity. The popularization of this devotion in its modern form is derived from a  nun from France, St Margaret Mary Alacoque, who said she learned the devotion from Jesus during a series of apparitions to her between 1673 and 1675.

Later, in the 19th century, there were mystical revelations of another Catholic nun in Portugal, Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart Droste zu Vischering, a religious of the Good Shepherd, who requested in the name of Christ that Pope Leo XIII consecrate the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

Predecessors to the modern devotion arose unmistakably in the Middle Ages in various facets of Catholic mysticism, particularly with that mystic Benedictine saint, Gertrude the Great.

This great feast is an extension of the new feast of Divine Mercy, for it is His life-giving gift of His mercy and love which flows from His Sacred Heart

  Sacred  Heart images by artist  Jose Luis Castrillo-  Spain