Do you want a powerful new help for preserving Catholic morals in your family and restoring them in your culture? Then turn to a powerful old devotion-devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Most Catholics have heard of the "Sacred Heart," but few today know what the devotion means or where it comes from. Take this quick quiz to test your own knowledge of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart:

1. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is
a. an optional form of piety like any other
b. a required form of adoration

2. Devotion to the Sacred Heart originated from
a. private revelations given to St. Margaret Mary in France (1673-1675)
b. centuries of private devotion to the glorious wounds of our Savior
c. the writings of the early Church Fathers on the Incarnation of God's Son
d. Divine Revelation
e. all of the above

The answers are b and e. Surprised? This devotion is no ordinary form of piety. The Church obligates Christians to adore the infinite love of Jesus Christ through the image of His wounded Heart. You may also be surprised to learn that this powerful devotion goes all the way back through Christian history to the Church Fathers and Divine Revelation itself. It did not originate with the private revelations given to St. Margaret Mary, although these certainly helped popularize and shape this ancient devotion.

While in recent times devotion to the Sacred Heart has been downplayed as unnecessary and outdated, or even ridiculed as superstitious and sentimental, every Pope since Clement XIII (1765) has exhorted Catholics to adore Jesus in His Sacred Heart. This devotion is beautifully explained in Pope Pius XII's encyclical, On Devotion to the Sacred Heart [Haurietis Aquas], written in 1956.

But why adore Jesus through the image of His heart? The heart is rich in symbolism. It is the universal sign of love. All cultures have used the heart as the natural expression of love because the heart is very sensitive to human emotions. Anger, fear, and sexual desire immediately affect the heart beat. Thus, the heart is considered the seat of human emo-tions and the natural symbol of the will.

Not only a symbol of love, the heart is also the natural symbol of life. The heart is a vital organ that pumps life-giving blood to the rest of the body. This is important to keep in mind because in devotion to the Sacred Heart we meditate on the life-giving aspect of Di-vine Love.

Not surprisingly, God Himself uses the symbol of the heart extensively in the Scriptures. In the Old Testament, God commands the Israelites to love Him with all their hearts (Dt 6:5). God speaks of His heart being overwhelmed with pity (Hos 11:8). He tells of the time that He will give hearts of flesh to His children to replace their hearts of stone (Ez 36:26).

In the New Testament, with the Incarnation of Jesus, God Himself assumes a complete human nature. God can now refer to His heart in a real sense, unlike the O.T. where all the references to the heart of God are obviously metaphorical. In the Garden of Gethsemani, when Jesus said, "my heart is nearly broken with sorrow" (Mt 26:38), it was a real human heart that was breaking. It was a real human heart that was pierced on Calvary (Jn 19:34) to become the fountain of sacra-mental life:

From His wounded side flowed blood and water, the fountain of sacramental life in the Church. To his open heart the Savior invites all men, to draw water in joy from the springs of salvation (preface, Mass of the Sacred Heart).

No Christian questions the propriety of worshipping the Love of God, which is the essence of this devotion. However, some Christians have questioned worshipping the human heart of Jesus. We must remember that Jesus is both God and man. We worship the whole Jesus: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The human heart of Jesus is united to the Divine Person of Jesus and must be worshipped by believing Christians. As Pius XII put it, "His heart, as the noblest part of human nature, is hypostatically united to the Person of the divine Word and must therefore be adored in the same way in which the Church adores the Person of the Incarnate Son of God" (Haurietis Aquas). The human heart of Jesus is the heart of the divine Incarnate Word.

Is it proper to focus on one part of Christ's humanity? As humans, we learn by looking at things one aspect at a time. In our relationships, we often concentrate on one part of the person's body that has special meaning to us: gratefully shaking the hand of the doctor that saved our life, or framing a picture of our child's face. All Christians agree that it is acceptable to focus on Christ's wounds as we worship Him because through these wounds, He redeemed us. Likewise, we focus on the heart of Jesus as we worship Him because His human heart symbolizes the infinite love of our Savior. "There is nothing, then, which forbids us to adore the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, since it participates in and is the natural and most expressive symbol of that inexhaustible love with which our divine Redeemer still loves mankind" (Haurietis Aquas).

While the essence of this devotion comes from Divine Revelation, the form of the devotion practiced today is due in large part to the revelations given to St. Margaret Mary (1673-75). These revelations helped combat the new and sinister heresy of Jansenism (1640's) which presented God as cruel and unforgiving. Jansenism was a Catholic version of Calvinism which held that Christ died only for a select few. Jansenists taught that the majority of men were preordained to hell. They opposed the growing devotion to the Sacred Heart on the grounds that it overemphasized God's love and mercy.

The Popes repeatedly condemned Jansenism, especially by defending the ancient practice of adoring Christ's Sacred Heart (see papal bull Auctorem Fidei). The Church was aided by the growing popularity of St. Margaret Mary's devotion to Christ's merciful heart, burning with infinite love for all men. As this devotion became more widespread, it helped refute Jansenism's view of a pitiless God in the hearts and minds of the people.

Consider the rich doctrinal symbolism contained in the image of the Sacred Heart as given to St. Margaret Mary:

* Revealed Heart - God's infinite love for all men. "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8). The quality of God most often mentioned in the Bible is His mercy towards men, which flows from His boundless love.
* Fire - burning intensity of God's love: "our God is a consuming fire" (Heb 12:29).
* Cross - love of God that led him to Calvary for the sake of all sinners.
* Thorns - the inseparable connection, in this life, between love and suffering; between love and Calvary. It also reminds us of the suffering caused when love is not returned or when love is deliberately offended.
* Rays - flood of saving graces streaming from God's loving sacrifice on Calvary.
* Wound - pierced heart that became the fountain of divine life. From Christ's wounded heart poured all the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. We are reminded of the inseparable connection between love and life. Just as the heart of a person pumps life-giving blood to all the members of his body; so the Divine Heart of Our Lord pumps life-giving blood to all the members of His mystical body, the Church.

The devotion given to St. Margaret Mary was a special remedy for evil times that are characterized by obstinacy (one of the twelve promises of the Sacred Heart is: "I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts"). Home enthronements, the First Friday and Thursday night Holy Hour devotions are also powerful means of reparation for all the neglect and offenses shown to Christ, especially in the Eucharist (lack of faith in the Real Presence, sacrilegious communions, and even black masses).

To deny devotion to the Sacred Heart is to deny the humanity of Christ. When we de-emphasize Christ's humanity, we see a corresponding de-emphasis of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ's flesh and blood presence. Lack of devotion to the Sacred Heart is paralleled by a lack of devotion to the Eucharist. "The purpose of this devotion ... is to recall to our minds 'that supreme act of the Eucharist to remain in our midst to the end of time'" (Haurietis Aquas). If we wish to restore adoration for the Eucharist, we must restore adoration for the Sacred Heart. For the Sacred Heart of Christ is a Eucharistic heart.

As Pius XII wrote in Haureitis Aquas: "In the face of so many evils which today more than ever disturb individuals, homes, nations and the whole world, where, venerable brothers, is a remedy to be sought? Is there a devotion more excellent than that to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, one which is more in accord with the real nature of the Catholic faith or which better meets the needs of the Church and the human race today? What act of religion is nobler, more suitable, sweeter and more conducive to salvation, since this devotion is wholly directed to the love of God Himself?"

Jesus taught that our greatest obligation is to adore God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Devotion to the Sacred Heart directs us to God's infinite love for us and leads us to adore Him, to thank Him, and to spend our lives imitating Him. No wonder recent Popes have called this devotion, "a perfect profession of the Christian religion."

Jim Burnham is a Catholic evangelist. He graduated in 1989 as valedictorian from Hillsdale College with a degree in philosophy. Jim and his wife, Lisa, have a two year-old son, Luke, and are the proud parents of a new baby son, Christian Andrew, born March 2, 1995.

Jim is the author of "Beginning Apologetics," a how-to manual for defending the Catholic faith. Jim and Steve Wood are offering a dynamic weekend, or one-day, apologetics seminar to parishes and groups throughout North America.