Devotion to the Sacred Heart

Abstract

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is perhaps the most popular devotion of modern times, and in its present form it may be said to date from the revelations made by our Lord to St Margaret Mary in the 17th century. But though so ‘modern’ it is as old as the Gospels. Our Lord himself taught the Apostles. Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart', and when, after the Resurrection, he invited Thomas to put his hand into his side, the doubting Apostle must surely have felt there the beatings of the heart of whom he forthwith confessed to be his Lord and his God. St John, who leaned upon the Lord's breast at the Last Supper, and who has left us in his Gospel some account of the secrets he learned there, also describes how the soldier opened our Saviour's side as he hung dead on the cross, so that blood and water gushed forth, and it has always been the belief of saints and commentators that the lance pierced the heart too.