The Sacred Heart
No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known. John 1:18 Perhaps it is a distaste for the iconography, but when I was younger I was at best unimpressed with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Some of the more anatomical renderings or prayers were big time turn offs. I've opened myself a bit more to it, realizing the devotion has its roots in the need to pull God close, to remember that Jesus, while fully God and in majesty at the right had of the Father, is fully human. As such his heart knows sadness, disappointment, grief but above all love and yearning, the very human manifestation of the fundamental nature of God. The Sacred Heart is one way of portraying the aspect of Jesus who is always knocking, always calling, always thirsting for our love. I found a litany in a copy of June's Magificat this morning in the chapel that spelled that out beautifully with none of the treacly Victorian sen