“But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

Gospel of Saint John xix.34

“The Evangelist has expressed himself cautiously; not struck, or wounded, but opened [ἔνυξε, aperuit] His side: whereby was opened the gate of life, from whence the sacraments of the Church flowed, without which we cannot enter into that life which is the true life: And forthwith came thereout blood and water. That blood was shed for the remission of sins, that water tempers the cup of salvation. This it was which was prefigured when Noah was commanded to make a door in the side of the ark, by which the animals that were not to perish by the deluge entered; which animals prefigured the Church. To shadow forth this, the woman was made out of the side of the sleeping man; for this second Adam bowed His head, and slept on the cross, that out of that which came therefrom, there might be formed a wife for Him. O death, by which the dead are quickened, what can be purer than that blood, what more salutary than that wound!”

Doctor Gratiæ Saint Augustine
Taken from Doctor Angelicus Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea

“Then, in order that the Church might be formed out of the side of Christ sleeping on the cross and that the words of Scripture might be fulfilled which say: They will look upon him whom they have pierced [John xix.37; Zacharias xii.10], the divine plan permitted that one of the soldiers should pierce open his sacred side with a lance. While blood mixed with water flowed, the price of our salvation was poured forth, which gushing from the secret fountain of the heart gave power to the sacraments of the Church to confer the life of grace and to become for those already living in Christ a draught of the fountain of living water springing up into eternal life [John iv.14].”

Doctor Seraphicus Saint Bonaventure
Lignum Vitæ (The Tree of Life)

“O Jesus, a soldier opened Your side with his lance, so that, through the gaping wound, we might know the charity of Your Heart, which loved us unto death, and that we might enter into Your unutterable love through the same channel by which it came to us. Approach, then, O my soul, the Heart of Christ, that magnanimous Heart, that hidden Heart, that Heart which thinks of all things and knows all things; that loving Heart, all on fire with love. Make me understand, O Lord, that the door of Your Heart was forced open by the vehemence of Your love. Allow me to enter into the secret of that love which was hidden from all eternity, but is now revealed by the wound in Your Heart.”

Saint Bernardine of Siena
Taken from Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen’s Divine Intimacy

“If we lift our eyes and hearts to heaven, the Church Triumphant, what shall we see? We shall behold an innumerable army of saints, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors and virgins. What are all these saints? They are so many flames from the immense furnace of the divine Heart of Jesus. Is it not the love of that kind Heart which brought them into the world, enlightened them with the light of faith, and gave them strength to conquer the devil, the world and the flesh? Is it not the goodness of that amiable Heart which adorned them with all virtues, sanctified them in this world and glorified them in the other; which kindled in their hearts the love they bear to God, inspired their lips with His divine praises, which is the source of all that is great and holy and admirable in them? If then one celebrates during the course of the year so many feasts in honor of these same saints, what a solemnity is due to this divine Heart which is the principle of everything that is glorious and noble in all the saints!”

Saint John Eudes
The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today, June 27th, the Third Friday After Pentecost, is the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In The Saint Andrew Daily Missal, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre provides a brief summary of the history of today’s festival and the origins of the pious devotion to the Sacred Heart: “The two Benedictine virgins, St. Gertrude and St. Mechtilde, in the thirteenth century, had a clear vision of the grandeur of the devotion to the Sacred Heart… But in order to make this worship public and recognized, Providence first raised up St. John Eudes, who in 1670 composed an Office and a Mass of the Sacred Heart… Providence then chose one of the spiritual daughters of St. Francis de Sales, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Jesus showed His Heart at Paray-le-Monial, on June 16th, 1675, Sunday after Corpus Christi, and asked her to institute a feast of the Sacred Heart on the Friday following the Octave of Corpus Christi. Lastly, God employed for the propagation of this devotion Blessed Claude de la Colombière… In 1765, Clement XIII gave his approbation to the feast and the Office of the Sacred Heart, and in 1856 Pius IX extended it to the universal Church. In 1929 Pius XI composed a new Mass and Office for this feast and gave it a privileged Octave of the third order.”

In Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen’s Divine Intimacy, the Belgian Carmelite priest and spiritual master succinctly describes the purpose of devotion to the Sacred Heart: “The object of devotion to the Sacred Heart is, properly speaking, the physical Heart of Jesus which is worthy of adoration, because it is a part of His sacred humanity, hypostatically united to the Word. However, the ultimate object of this devotion is the love of Jesus, the symbol of which is His Heart. In other words, ‘beneath the symbolic image of the Heart, we contemplate and venerate our divine Redeemer’s immense charity and generous love’ (Pius VI). This is the real meaning of the devotion to the Sacred Heart by which the Church asks us to honor the Heart of Jesus as the visible representation of His invisible love… the principle object of this devotion is the love of Jesus, an uncreated love with which He, as the Word, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, loved us from all eternity, and from all eternity willed to become incarnate for our salvation. It is also the created love of charity with which, as Man, He loved us even to the death of the Cross, meriting for us by His love that same charity by which we are enabled to love Him in return.”

In Haurietis Aquas, His Holiness Pope Pius XII’s 1956 encyclical on devotion to the Sacred Heart, the venerable pontiff emphasizes the importance of this devotion, and laments the sad fact that it has fallen out of favor: “The Church has always valued, and still does, the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus so highly that she provides for the spread of it among Christian peoples everywhere and by every means… In spite of this it is much to be regretted that, both in the past and in our own times, this most noble devotion does not find a place of honor and esteem among certain Christians and even occasionally not among those who profess themselves moved by zeal for the Catholic religion and the attainment of holiness.” To conclude, let us remember the words spoken by our Lord to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, “Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part of men only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this sacrament of love,” and let us pray, with the rest of Holy Mother Church, “Cor Iesu sacratissimum, miserere nobis!”