Ty Tomson: The Sacred Heart

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a rather unfamiliar devotion among the younger generations of Catholics, but I think it is a beautifully expressive tradition in our Catholic heritage. How many images do we have in our language that refer to the heart? “It breaks my heart,” “the heart of the matter,” “put your heart into it,” “with your whole heart,” “heart to heart,” and so many others. Scripture also is filled with memorable examples of imagery that refer to the heart: “I am meek and humble of heart,” “do not let your hearts be troubled,” “did not our hearts burn within us,” “sin speaks to the sinner in the depths of his heart,” “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” One meditation about the heart that I have been pondering is from St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Unless you acquire the heart of a child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

I always considered that metaphor an inspiring testament to the innocence, purity, and simplicity of children and a summons to acquire these childlike virtues even in our adulthood. Then I read some of St. Augustine’s writings. He had a different view of children’s behavior. He wrote that children are basically selfish and whatever they do is out of self-interest and greed. At first I thought that was a little harsh, but when you think about it, isn’t there some truth in his suggestion? Think of the time when a baby learns how to say “no.” The parents’ lives are miserable! When does that baby become mature? We could say when he learns to set down the desires of his own will and think of others before himself, that is the point at which he gets beyond this childlike phase. But I would like to reconcile the scriptural notion of the heart of a child and the Augustinian idea. I think the answer lies in the problem that plagues our world so thoroughly and so constantly that we are sometimes so accustomed to it that we hardly realize its presence: the harmful effect of original sin. As a result of original sin, as the Catechism teaches us, “human nature is weakened in its powers; subject to ignorance, suffering, and the domination of death; and inclined to sin (This inclination is called ‘concupiscence.’)” (CCC 418). Scripture encourages us to take on the heart a child should have, as God originally intended, unstained by original sin; St. Augustine calls us to notice the effects of that original sin in our world and in our personal spiritual lives.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus, however, was left untouched by original sin. That is why such strong emphasis upon devotion to the Sacred Heart is fitting. The Heart of Jesus is a model for us all since, as the Catechism goes on to say, there is a struggle between the spiritual ideal of perfected human nature to which we are called and for which we were created and the reality of our inheritance of fallen human nature. This struggle leads us into spiritual warfare, and the goal that we must have is that sinless childlike disposition that is exemplified in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As we notice more and more the iniquity of man in his fallen and miserable state, we should be driven more and more to venerate the Sacred Heart of our Savior. For, unless we make our hearts like His, we shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.