Being fully God and fully human, Jesus has a human heart and that human heart is the heart of God. The Sacred Heart of Jesus represents his divine love and infinite mercy for all men.
For centuries, devotion to the wounded heart of Jesus has allowed faithful Catholics to focus on the love of Jesus that moved him to give up his life to atone for the sins of men.
The devotion spread after St. Margaret Mary Alacoque experienced a series of apparitions between 1673 and 1675, where Jesus revealed a vision of his Sacred Heart to her.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is depicted as a human heart shining with light representing his divine and human love. The heart sits on the chest of Jesus as he points to it with his wounded hand.
A Cross crowns the heart reminding that Jesus lived among men in the Incarnation and atoned for man’s sin by his Passion and Death. Flames shooting from the heart represent the burning love of God which caused Him to send his only Son.
The heart is wrapped with a crown of thorns symbolizing the suffering that Jesus endured for humanity’s sins. Water and blood coming from the wounded heart represents God’s love poured out that washes away man’s sin.
All of humanity was consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.
The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated by the Church nineteen days after Pentecost, falling on the Friday after the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
The entire month of June and the first Friday of each month are also dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The heart that loved so deeply:
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus consists of love and reparation:
So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
John 19: 32-34
The heart is the seat of love:
His heart is literally on fire with love for you:
More than a metaphor for the love of Jesus:
Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave Himself up for each one of us: “The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me.” He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, “is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings” without exception.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 478
“Make my heart like unto thine.”:
The bond between Jesus’ humanity and his divinity:
An indication of who Jesus truly is:
If someone understands that they have been loved, loved to a supreme and unthinkable degree, even unto death—silent, gratuitous, cruel, and endured to the point of utter consummation—by someone we do not even know, and after having known them, whom we have denied and offended; if someone—We said—has understood that they are the object of such love, of so much love, they can no longer remain indifferent. Dante also said it: “Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving”; the liturgical hymn says it: “Who would not love a lover back?” This is the origin of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, when we know that the word “heart” is a symbol, a sign, a synthesis of our Redemption, seen in the divine and human interiority of Christ. Jesus loved us, says the Council, also “with a human heart”. And how! This is the theme of our dialogue today. Dearest sons, are you aware of this? Have you thought about it? How do you intend to respond?
Pope Paul VI, Reflection, 2 June 1969
A wounded heart, thorns, a cross, and fire:
The month of June is devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
God’s is love and mercy:
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