ENGLISH:
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a popular thing in the Roman Catholic Church of today. Frequently we see depictions of the Heart, and in Roman Catholic prayer books there are prayers to it, and consecrations of persons and places to the Heart. It is being called “God’s gift for our age.” What is this gift?
Devotion to the Heart first appeared in the 1600s under the auspices of the Jesuit order, which sought to emphasise the humanity of Christ. This was part of their campaign to make Christianity less demanding, less “other,” more approachable. To forge their new “minimum Christianity,” Jesuit theologians, for example, tried to prove that for a sinner to be absolved, he need only fear hell, or regret the consequences of his sins. The so-called Jansenists, on the other hand, with others who upheld Catholic practice, countered Jesuit teaching, saying it is the love of God which must motivate penitents to come to confession. Whereas Jesuit teachers debated how often it is necessary to love God, one Jesuit divine of the times concluding it is enough if a person love God one time before he die, Orthodox Christianity concerns the fullness of life in Christ and is scarcely interested in what the absolute minimum to achieve salvation would be. The form taken by the newly forged devotion to Jesus’ humanity as popularised by the Jesuits also strayed outside the bounds of Orthodox doctrine. We know that there have been seven Oecumenical Councils of the Church, from whose dogmatic teaching there can be no appeal. The Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), responding to the teachings of Nestorius, the heretic Patriarch of Constantinople, taught that the Word, the second Person of the Trinity, was made man—that He took a human body and a human soul—that He appeared in the world under the name “Jesus,” and under the title “Christ.” Thus there is only one Person of Jesus Christ, and this Person is to be worshipped with a single worship, that of latria, the kind of worship rendered to God almighty. Nestorius, however, attempted to separate the honour paid to Christ’s humanity from that offered His Divinity. Thus Nestorius had said in a Christmas sermon at Constantinople that it was demeaning for him to worship a babe!
St. Athanasius of Alexandria pointed out the wrongness of worshipping Christ’s body in a separate way, in these words: “We do not worship a created thing, but the Master of created things, the Word of God made flesh. Although the flesh itself, considered separately, is a part of created things, yet it has become the body of God. We do not worship this body after having separated it from the Word. Likewise, we do not separate the Word from the body when we wish to worship Him. But knowing that “the Word was made flesh,” we recognise the Word existing in the flesh as God.” (Ep. ad Adelph., par. 3)
Do those who worship the Sacred Heart worship, with a single worship, the whole Person of Christ, or do they really worship His body separately? How did this devotion come into being?
The first theologian to have taught this devotion was the Jesuit priest La Colombiere (died 1682). He was the father confessor of a Visitation sister named Marie Alacoque (+1690), who, he said, had informed him of a number of revelations she received, revelations which passed from his papers into Jesuit publications, and into the life of sister Marie published by Languet, Jesuit bishop of Soissons. When Languet published her Life, it provoked such an uproar and scandal that he and his brother attempted to hide all copies. But it was too late; some had already been
sold, and an Italian translation came out. Pope Clement XIV condemned it in 1772.
What were these visions which so scandalized Roman Catholic clergy and faithful in the 18th century?
Marie Alacoque claimed that devotion to the Sacred Heart was revealed to her by Jesus Christ Himself in the following manner. One day as she was at prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus came and showed her His heart, and said that He desired the Friday after Corpus Christi to be dedicated to the worship of His heart, “for the love He had given to me.” “Address yourself,” He said, “to My servant, the Jesuit father La Colombiere; tell him for Me to work as hard as he can to establish this devotion, in order to give pleasure to My heart.” Marie delivered this
message, adding, “Jesus Christ has great hopes for your Society.”
Then the revelations increased. Sister Marie spent whole nights in “amorous colloquies with her beloved Jesus.” One day, He permitted her to lean her head on His breast and asked for her heart. She consented. He removed her heart from her chest, placed it upon His own, then returned it to her chest. From that time she felt a continuous pain in
that side, where her heart had been extracted and replaced. Jesus told her to bleed herself when the pain became too great.
Bishop Languet’s Life dwells upon the “promise of marriage” which took place between Jesus and sister Marie, on their “betrothals and espousals.” (Actually, the terms he uses are too graphic to be printed in an article intended to be read by Christians.) Languet also relates that the first Friday of every month the pains in sister Marie’s side were so sharp she had herself bled. Since this occurred from 1674 to 1690, she would have been bled 192 times in honour of the Sacred Heart, believing she was obeying Christ’s express injunctions.
The Jesuits used their campaign of spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart as a means to spread other of their doctrines, including the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Sister Marie Alacoque aspired also to sow the seeds of this belief: that the Mother of God was conceived in a manner beyond the human experience. She also insisted that those within her circle of influence swallow little slips of paper with pertinent messages written on them.
“You promised,” she wrote to her brother, a priest, “that you would take the notes which I am sending you, one each day, on an empty stomach, and that you would have said nine masses, on nine Saturdays, in honour of the Immaculate Conception [of the Virgin Mary] and as many masses of the Passion, on nine Fridays, in honor of the Sacred Heart. I believe that none of those who shall be particularly devoted to It shall perish.”
After these vigorous promotional campaigns, Rome’s Congregation of Rites was solicited to establish a feast of the Sacred Heart, a request denied in 1697. Thirty years the Order waited, using images, medals, booklets, pictures, stories, sermons, confraternities, and exhortations at confession to advance the Sacred Heart devotion.
In 1727 and 1729, two more requests for a feast of the Sacred Heart were submitted. The Promotor of the Faith for the Congregation at that time was named Prospero Lambertini. He was a well-educated man and not much inclined towards the Jesuit programs, and he denied the requests. In his work “On the Canonization of Saints,” Lambertini left us an account of the affair. “If one requests a feast for the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” he marvels, “Why not also ask for one for the Sacred Side or the Sacred Eyes of Jesus? Or, even for the Heart of the Blessed Virgin!?” Prospero Lambertini later became the Pope-scholar Benedict XIV. Little could he have foreseen that what he knew to be so preposterous would, after his day, infect the entire Roman Church. In the 19th century, the Roman Church established a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and even instituted a feast day in its honor.
It was observed that the new Sacred Heart devotion was not favored by Rome, and was frowned on by Benedict XIV. But at the close of the 18th century Pope Clement XIII, a friend of the Jesuits, tried to reverse Rome’s negative position by the following means. He had some Polish bishops write him some letters begging him to approve the devotion, and alleged he had received a letter of the same import from Philip V, the King of Spain. However, the king was warned, and he made it known publicly that “his” letter was quite spurious. The Jesuits, the Pope, and the Pope’s minister Torregiani were involved in this sordid affair. As a result, in 1765, Clement XIII authorized a feast day in honor of the heart of Jesus. He did not dare to approve a feast of the physical heart, but of the symbolic heart of Jesus, as an emblem for the Savior’s love of mankind. In fact, soon after, when a certain French bishop interpreted the feast as in honor of Jesus’ physical heart, Rome intervened. The canon lawyer Blasi published a dissertation in 1771 to prove that the cult of the physical heart was not authorized, and Pope Pius VI declared the same.
The reticence of the Papal court at Rome was eventually powerless against the tide of popular Roman Catholic devotion. The majority of Roman Catholic bishops issued pastoral letters to establish worship of the Sacred Heart, naming the physical heart as the object of worship. Offices were composed and inserted into the Missals and Breviaries, and prayerbook devotions abounded. Apologists for the devotion tried to exonerate it from charges of Nestorianism. (Nestorius honored Jesus as man in one way and Jesus as God in another; the Faith teaches us that we must worship Jesus Christ as one Person both human and Divine, not as one or the other separately.)
The apologists argued they worshipped the Heart for the sake of its union with the Godhead. What they forgot is that Nestorius himself, when cornered at the Council of Ephesus, also claimed he “adored what was visible for the sake of that which was hidden.”
Such niceties could not conceal that the original devotion was an actual worship of the physical heart. The Jesuit Fr. Galifet wrote: “It is a question of the heart of Jesus Christ in its proper and plain sense and is by no means metaphoric. Jesus Christ speaks of His own literal heart [in the “revelations” of Sister Margaret Mary]; this is shown by His action of uncovering His heart and showing… Here then is the palpable object of the devotion…” He sought to validate worship of the Heart by seeking a precedent in the Feast of Corpus Christi. “The sole and proper object of the Feast of Corpus Christi is the flesh of Jesus Christ; from this it must be concluded that this feast was not really instituted to honor the Person of Jesus Christ, but in order to honor His flesh, His Body, His Blood, since neither His Divinity nor His Person is the formal object of this feast.”
In the end, these qualms and counter-defenses in Catholic circles were rendered effectively obsolete by a single action from the Vatican. Pope Pius IX canonised Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque. There was no doubt how she intended to honour the Heart, so there was no longer any thought that the Sacred Heart could be confined to a symbol of God’s love. Its “palpitations,” “dilations,” “beating in heaven,” were worshipped, as they are today by Roman Catholics. The historian Father Rene Francois Guettee, in his polemic work “The Heretical Papacy,” remarks that by singling out for worship not only Christ’s human body as opposed to His whole Person, but the heart as opposed to the rest of His body, an error even worse than that of Nestorius has been devised. We may note that it was the same Pius IX who made other official Roman Catholic formulas which militate against Orthodox Christian traditions of the East and West. He formally taught (1) the Immaculate Conception of Mary; (2) the Divine right of the Roman Church to use armed force, and (3) Papal Infallibility.
Many in America are converts to the Orthodox Faith and may keep Sacred Heart images in their homes, as literal baggage from their pre-Orthodox days. Also, well-meaning friends may give Sacred Heart prayers or images as gifts. The faithful should replace all such images with genuine Orthodox icons. They should not place Sacred Heart images, or any other non-Orthodox images, in their icon corners. (Emphasis Mine)
Hieromonk Aidan (Keller),
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
La devoción al corazón apareció por primera vez en el siglo XVII bajo los auspicios de la orden jesuita, que buscaba enfatizar la humanidad de Cristo. Esto fue parte de su campaña para hacer que el cristianismo sea menos exigente, menos “otro”, más accesible. Para forjar su nuevo “cristianismo mínimo”, los teólogos jesuitas, por ejemplo, intentaron demostrar que para que un pecador sea absuelto, solo necesita temer al infierno o lamentar las consecuencias de sus pecados. Los llamados jansenistas, por otro lado, junto con otros que defendían la práctica católica, se opusieron a la enseñanza de los jesuitas, diciendo que es el amor de Dios lo que debe motivar a los penitentes a confesarse. Mientras que los maestros jesuitas debatieron cuán a menudo es necesario amar a Dios, un jesuita divino de la época concluyó que es suficiente si una persona ama a Dios una vez antes de morir, el cristianismo ortodoxo se refiere a la plenitud de la vida en Cristo y apenas le interesa lo que el mínimo absoluto para lograr la salvación sería. La forma adoptada por la devoción recién forjada a la humanidad de Jesús, popularizada por los jesuitas, también se desvió de los límites de la doctrina ortodoxa. Sabemos que ha habido siete Concilios Ecuménicos de la Iglesia, de cuya doctrina dogmática no se puede apelar. El Concilio de Éfeso (431 d.C.), respondiendo a las enseñanzas de Nestorio, el patriarca hereje de Constantinopla, enseñó que el Verbo, la segunda Persona de la Trinidad, se hizo hombre, que tomó un cuerpo y un alma humanos, que Apareció en el mundo con el nombre de "Jesús" y con el título de "Cristo". Por lo tanto, hay una sola Persona de Jesucristo, y esta Persona debe ser adorada con una sola adoración, la de latría, la clase de adoración que se rinde a Dios todopoderoso. Nestorio, sin embargo, intentó separar el honor que se le otorga a la humanidad de Cristo del que se le ofrece a Su Divinidad. ¡Así Nestorio había dicho en un sermón de Navidad en Constantinopla que era degradante para él adorar a un bebé!
San Atanasio de Alejandría señaló lo incorrecto de adorar el cuerpo de Cristo de manera separada, con estas palabras: “No adoramos a una cosa creada, sino al Maestro de las cosas creadas, la Palabra de Dios hecha carne. Aunque la carne misma, considerada por separado, es parte de las cosas creadas, se ha convertido en el cuerpo de Dios. No adoramos este cuerpo después de haberlo separado de la Palabra. Asimismo, no separamos la Palabra del cuerpo cuando deseamos adorarlo. Pero sabiendo que "el Verbo se hizo carne", reconocemos al Verbo que existe en la carne como Dios." (Ep. Ad Adelph., Párr. 3)
Marie Alacoque afirmó que la devoción al Sagrado Corazón le fue revelada por Jesucristo mismo de la siguiente manera. Un día, mientras ella estaba orando ante el Santísimo Sacramento, Jesús se acercó y le mostró su corazón, y dijo que deseaba que el viernes después de Corpus Christi se dedicara a la adoración de su corazón, “por el amor que me había dado. " “Dirígete”, dijo, “a mi siervo, el padre jesuita La Colombiere; dile de mi parte que trabaje lo más que pueda para establecer esta devoción, a fin de dar placer a Mi corazón ”. Marie entregó esto mensaje, agregando: "Jesucristo tiene grandes esperanzas para su Sociedad."
La vida del obispo Languet se basa en la "promesa de matrimonio" que tuvo lugar entre Jesús y la hermana María, en sus "esponsales y esponsales." (En realidad, los términos que usa son demasiado gráficos para ser impresos en un artículo destinado a ser leído por cristianos). Languet también relata que el primer viernes de cada mes los dolores en el costado de la hermana Marie eran tan agudos que ella misma se había desangrado. Dado que esto ocurrió de 1674 a 1690, habría sido sangrada 192 veces en honor al Sagrado Corazón, creyendo que estaba obedeciendo los mandatos expresos de Cristo.
Después de estas vigorosas campañas de promoción, se solicitó a la Congregación de Ritos de Roma que estableciera una fiesta del Sagrado Corazón, una solicitud denegada en 1697. Treinta años la Orden esperó, utilizando imágenes, medallas, folletos, fotografías, historias, sermones, cofradías y exhortaciones. en la confesión para promover la devoción al Sagrado Corazón.
Se observó que la nueva devoción al Sagrado Corazón no fue favorecida por Roma, y fue mal vista por Benedicto XIV. Pero a fines del siglo XVIII, el Papa Clemente XIII, amigo de los jesuitas, trató de revertir la posición negativa de Roma por los siguientes medios. Hizo que algunos obispos polacos le escribieran algunas cartas pidiéndole que aprobara la devoción, y alegó que había recibido una carta de la misma importancia de Felipe V, el rey de España. Sin embargo, el rey fue advertido y dio a conocer públicamente que "su" carta era bastante falsa. Los jesuitas, el Papa y el ministro del Papa Torregiani participaron en este sórdido asunto. Como resultado, en 1765, Clemente XIII autorizó una fiesta en honor al corazón de Jesús. No se atrevió a aprobar una fiesta del corazón físico, sino del corazón simbólico de Jesús, como emblema del amor del Salvador por la humanidad. De hecho, poco después, cuando cierto obispo francés interpretó la fiesta como en honor al corazón físico de Jesús, Roma intervino. El canónigo Blasi publicó una disertación en 1771 para demostrar que el culto al corazón físico no estaba autorizado, y el Papa Pío VI declaró lo mismo.
La reticencia de la corte papal en Roma fue finalmente impotente contra la marea de la devoción católica romana popular. La mayoría de los obispos católicos romanos emitieron cartas pastorales para establecer la adoración del Sagrado Corazón, nombrando el corazón físico como objeto de adoración. Se compusieron e insertaron oficios en los Misales y Breviarios, y abundaban las devociones a los libros de oraciones. Los apologistas de la devoción intentaron exonerarla de los cargos de nestorianismo. (Nestorio honró a Jesús como hombre de una manera y a Jesús como Dios de otra; la Fe nos enseña que debemos adorar a Jesucristo como una Persona tanto humana como divina, no como una u otra por separado).
Tales sutilezas no podían ocultar que la devoción original era una verdadera adoración del corazón físico. El jesuita P. Galifet escribió: “Es una cuestión del corazón de Jesucristo en su sentido correcto y sencillo y de ninguna manera es metafórica. Jesucristo habla de Su propio corazón literal [en las “revelaciones” de la hermana Margaret Mary]; esto se muestra por Su acción de descubrir Su corazón y mostrar… Aquí, pues, está el objeto palpable de la devoción… ”El buscó validar la adoración del Corazón buscando un precedente en la Fiesta del Corpus Christi. “El único y propio objeto de la fiesta del Corpus Christi es la carne de Jesucristo; de esto se debe concluir que esta fiesta no fue realmente instituida para honrar a la Persona de Jesucristo, sino para honrar Su carne, Su Cuerpo, Su Sangre, ya que ni Su Divinidad ni Su Persona es el objeto formal de esta fiesta."
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a popular thing in the Roman Catholic Church of today. Frequently we see depictions of the Heart, and in Roman Catholic prayer books there are prayers to it, and consecrations of persons and places to the Heart. It is being called “God’s gift for our age.” What is this gift?
Devotion to the Heart first appeared in the 1600s under the auspices of the Jesuit order, which sought to emphasise the humanity of Christ. This was part of their campaign to make Christianity less demanding, less “other,” more approachable. To forge their new “minimum Christianity,” Jesuit theologians, for example, tried to prove that for a sinner to be absolved, he need only fear hell, or regret the consequences of his sins. The so-called Jansenists, on the other hand, with others who upheld Catholic practice, countered Jesuit teaching, saying it is the love of God which must motivate penitents to come to confession. Whereas Jesuit teachers debated how often it is necessary to love God, one Jesuit divine of the times concluding it is enough if a person love God one time before he die, Orthodox Christianity concerns the fullness of life in Christ and is scarcely interested in what the absolute minimum to achieve salvation would be. The form taken by the newly forged devotion to Jesus’ humanity as popularised by the Jesuits also strayed outside the bounds of Orthodox doctrine. We know that there have been seven Oecumenical Councils of the Church, from whose dogmatic teaching there can be no appeal. The Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), responding to the teachings of Nestorius, the heretic Patriarch of Constantinople, taught that the Word, the second Person of the Trinity, was made man—that He took a human body and a human soul—that He appeared in the world under the name “Jesus,” and under the title “Christ.” Thus there is only one Person of Jesus Christ, and this Person is to be worshipped with a single worship, that of latria, the kind of worship rendered to God almighty. Nestorius, however, attempted to separate the honour paid to Christ’s humanity from that offered His Divinity. Thus Nestorius had said in a Christmas sermon at Constantinople that it was demeaning for him to worship a babe!
St. Athanasius of Alexandria pointed out the wrongness of worshipping Christ’s body in a separate way, in these words: “We do not worship a created thing, but the Master of created things, the Word of God made flesh. Although the flesh itself, considered separately, is a part of created things, yet it has become the body of God. We do not worship this body after having separated it from the Word. Likewise, we do not separate the Word from the body when we wish to worship Him. But knowing that “the Word was made flesh,” we recognise the Word existing in the flesh as God.” (Ep. ad Adelph., par. 3)
Do those who worship the Sacred Heart worship, with a single worship, the whole Person of Christ, or do they really worship His body separately? How did this devotion come into being?
The first theologian to have taught this devotion was the Jesuit priest La Colombiere (died 1682). He was the father confessor of a Visitation sister named Marie Alacoque (+1690), who, he said, had informed him of a number of revelations she received, revelations which passed from his papers into Jesuit publications, and into the life of sister Marie published by Languet, Jesuit bishop of Soissons. When Languet published her Life, it provoked such an uproar and scandal that he and his brother attempted to hide all copies. But it was too late; some had already been
sold, and an Italian translation came out. Pope Clement XIV condemned it in 1772.
What were these visions which so scandalized Roman Catholic clergy and faithful in the 18th century?
Marie Alacoque claimed that devotion to the Sacred Heart was revealed to her by Jesus Christ Himself in the following manner. One day as she was at prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus came and showed her His heart, and said that He desired the Friday after Corpus Christi to be dedicated to the worship of His heart, “for the love He had given to me.” “Address yourself,” He said, “to My servant, the Jesuit father La Colombiere; tell him for Me to work as hard as he can to establish this devotion, in order to give pleasure to My heart.” Marie delivered this
message, adding, “Jesus Christ has great hopes for your Society.”
Then the revelations increased. Sister Marie spent whole nights in “amorous colloquies with her beloved Jesus.” One day, He permitted her to lean her head on His breast and asked for her heart. She consented. He removed her heart from her chest, placed it upon His own, then returned it to her chest. From that time she felt a continuous pain in
that side, where her heart had been extracted and replaced. Jesus told her to bleed herself when the pain became too great.
Marie Alacoque gave her heart to Jesus by a physical document, a deed, which she signed in her own blood. In return, Jesus gave her a deed, which designated her as the heiress to His heart for time and eternity. “Do not be stingy with It,” He said to her, “I permit you to dispose of It as you wish, and you will be a plaything for My good pleasure.” Upon hearing these words, sister Marie took a pocket knife and carved the name of Jesus into the flesh of her breast “in large and deep letters.”
Bishop Languet’s Life dwells upon the “promise of marriage” which took place between Jesus and sister Marie, on their “betrothals and espousals.” (Actually, the terms he uses are too graphic to be printed in an article intended to be read by Christians.) Languet also relates that the first Friday of every month the pains in sister Marie’s side were so sharp she had herself bled. Since this occurred from 1674 to 1690, she would have been bled 192 times in honour of the Sacred Heart, believing she was obeying Christ’s express injunctions.
The Jesuits used their campaign of spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart as a means to spread other of their doctrines, including the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Sister Marie Alacoque aspired also to sow the seeds of this belief: that the Mother of God was conceived in a manner beyond the human experience. She also insisted that those within her circle of influence swallow little slips of paper with pertinent messages written on them.
“You promised,” she wrote to her brother, a priest, “that you would take the notes which I am sending you, one each day, on an empty stomach, and that you would have said nine masses, on nine Saturdays, in honour of the Immaculate Conception [of the Virgin Mary] and as many masses of the Passion, on nine Fridays, in honor of the Sacred Heart. I believe that none of those who shall be particularly devoted to It shall perish.”
After these vigorous promotional campaigns, Rome’s Congregation of Rites was solicited to establish a feast of the Sacred Heart, a request denied in 1697. Thirty years the Order waited, using images, medals, booklets, pictures, stories, sermons, confraternities, and exhortations at confession to advance the Sacred Heart devotion.
In 1727 and 1729, two more requests for a feast of the Sacred Heart were submitted. The Promotor of the Faith for the Congregation at that time was named Prospero Lambertini. He was a well-educated man and not much inclined towards the Jesuit programs, and he denied the requests. In his work “On the Canonization of Saints,” Lambertini left us an account of the affair. “If one requests a feast for the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” he marvels, “Why not also ask for one for the Sacred Side or the Sacred Eyes of Jesus? Or, even for the Heart of the Blessed Virgin!?” Prospero Lambertini later became the Pope-scholar Benedict XIV. Little could he have foreseen that what he knew to be so preposterous would, after his day, infect the entire Roman Church. In the 19th century, the Roman Church established a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and even instituted a feast day in its honor.
It was observed that the new Sacred Heart devotion was not favored by Rome, and was frowned on by Benedict XIV. But at the close of the 18th century Pope Clement XIII, a friend of the Jesuits, tried to reverse Rome’s negative position by the following means. He had some Polish bishops write him some letters begging him to approve the devotion, and alleged he had received a letter of the same import from Philip V, the King of Spain. However, the king was warned, and he made it known publicly that “his” letter was quite spurious. The Jesuits, the Pope, and the Pope’s minister Torregiani were involved in this sordid affair. As a result, in 1765, Clement XIII authorized a feast day in honor of the heart of Jesus. He did not dare to approve a feast of the physical heart, but of the symbolic heart of Jesus, as an emblem for the Savior’s love of mankind. In fact, soon after, when a certain French bishop interpreted the feast as in honor of Jesus’ physical heart, Rome intervened. The canon lawyer Blasi published a dissertation in 1771 to prove that the cult of the physical heart was not authorized, and Pope Pius VI declared the same.
The reticence of the Papal court at Rome was eventually powerless against the tide of popular Roman Catholic devotion. The majority of Roman Catholic bishops issued pastoral letters to establish worship of the Sacred Heart, naming the physical heart as the object of worship. Offices were composed and inserted into the Missals and Breviaries, and prayerbook devotions abounded. Apologists for the devotion tried to exonerate it from charges of Nestorianism. (Nestorius honored Jesus as man in one way and Jesus as God in another; the Faith teaches us that we must worship Jesus Christ as one Person both human and Divine, not as one or the other separately.)
The apologists argued they worshipped the Heart for the sake of its union with the Godhead. What they forgot is that Nestorius himself, when cornered at the Council of Ephesus, also claimed he “adored what was visible for the sake of that which was hidden.”
Such niceties could not conceal that the original devotion was an actual worship of the physical heart. The Jesuit Fr. Galifet wrote: “It is a question of the heart of Jesus Christ in its proper and plain sense and is by no means metaphoric. Jesus Christ speaks of His own literal heart [in the “revelations” of Sister Margaret Mary]; this is shown by His action of uncovering His heart and showing… Here then is the palpable object of the devotion…” He sought to validate worship of the Heart by seeking a precedent in the Feast of Corpus Christi. “The sole and proper object of the Feast of Corpus Christi is the flesh of Jesus Christ; from this it must be concluded that this feast was not really instituted to honor the Person of Jesus Christ, but in order to honor His flesh, His Body, His Blood, since neither His Divinity nor His Person is the formal object of this feast.”
In the end, these qualms and counter-defenses in Catholic circles were rendered effectively obsolete by a single action from the Vatican. Pope Pius IX canonised Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque. There was no doubt how she intended to honour the Heart, so there was no longer any thought that the Sacred Heart could be confined to a symbol of God’s love. Its “palpitations,” “dilations,” “beating in heaven,” were worshipped, as they are today by Roman Catholics. The historian Father Rene Francois Guettee, in his polemic work “The Heretical Papacy,” remarks that by singling out for worship not only Christ’s human body as opposed to His whole Person, but the heart as opposed to the rest of His body, an error even worse than that of Nestorius has been devised. We may note that it was the same Pius IX who made other official Roman Catholic formulas which militate against Orthodox Christian traditions of the East and West. He formally taught (1) the Immaculate Conception of Mary; (2) the Divine right of the Roman Church to use armed force, and (3) Papal Infallibility.
Many in America are converts to the Orthodox Faith and may keep Sacred Heart images in their homes, as literal baggage from their pre-Orthodox days. Also, well-meaning friends may give Sacred Heart prayers or images as gifts. The faithful should replace all such images with genuine Orthodox icons. They should not place Sacred Heart images, or any other non-Orthodox images, in their icon corners. (Emphasis Mine)
Hieromonk Aidan (Keller),
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
ESPAÑOL:
La devoción al Sagrado Corazón de Jesús es algo popular en la Iglesia Católica Romana de hoy. Con frecuencia vemos representaciones del Corazón, y en los libros de oraciones católicos romanos hay oraciones a él y consagraciones de personas y lugares al Corazón. Se le llama "el don de Dios para nuestra época". ¿Qué es este don?Quienes adoran al Sagrado Corazón, ¿adoran con una sola adoración a la Persona entera de Cristo, o realmente adoran Su cuerpo por separado? ¿Cómo surgió esta devoción?
El primer teólogo que enseñó esta devoción fue el sacerdote jesuita La Colombiere (fallecido en 1682). Él era el padre confesor de una hermana de la Visitación llamada Marie Alacoque (+1690), quien, dijo, le había informado de una serie de revelaciones que recibió, revelaciones que pasaron de sus papeles a las publicaciones jesuitas y a la vida de la hermana Marie. publicado por Languet, obispo jesuita de Soissons. Cuando Languet publicó su Vida, provocó tal alboroto y escándalo que él y su hermano intentaron ocultar todas las copias. Pero fue demasiado tarde; algunos ya habían sido vendido, y salió una traducción al italiano. El Papa Clemente XIV lo condenó en 1772.
¿Cuáles fueron estas visiones que tanto escandalizaron al clero y a los fieles católicos romanos en el siglo XVIII?
Entonces aumentaron las revelaciones. La hermana Marie pasó noches enteras en "coloquios amorosos con su amado Jesús". Un día, le permitió que apoyara la cabeza en su pecho y le pidió su corazón. Ella consintió. Él sacó su corazón de su pecho, lo colocó sobre el suyo y luego lo devolvió a su pecho. A partir de ese momento sintió un dolor continuo en ese lado, donde su corazón había sido extraído y reemplazado. Jesús le dijo que se desangrara cuando el dolor fuera demasiado grande.
Marie Alacoque entregó su corazón a Jesús mediante un documento físico, una escritura, que firmó con su propia sangre. A cambio, Jesús le dio una escritura que la designó como la heredera de su corazón por el tiempo y la eternidad. “No seas tacaña con él," le dijo, “te permito que lo deseches como desees y serás un juguete para mi buen placer." Al escuchar estas palabras, la hermana Marie tomó una navaja y grabó el nombre de Jesús en la carne de su pecho "en letras grandes y profundas."
Los jesuitas utilizaron su campaña de difundir la devoción al Sagrado Corazón como un medio para difundir otras de sus doctrinas, incluida la Inmaculada Concepción de la Virgen. Sor María Alacoque aspiraba también a sembrar la semilla de esta creencia: que la Madre de Dios fue concebida de una manera más allá de la experiencia humana. También insistió en que aquellos dentro de su círculo de influencia se tragaran pequeños trozos de papel con mensajes pertinentes escritos en ellos.
“Prometiste," le escribió a su hermano, un sacerdote, “que tomarías las notas que te envío, una cada día, en ayunas, y que habrías dicho nueve misas, los nueve sábados, en honor a la Inmaculada Concepción [de la Virgen María] y tantas misas de la Pasión, los nueve viernes, en honor al Sagrado Corazón. Creo que ninguno de los que se dediquen especialmente a Él perecerá."
En 1727 y 1729, se presentaron dos solicitudes más para una fiesta del Sagrado Corazón. El Promotor de la Fe de la Congregación en ese momento se llamaba Prospero Lambertini. Era un hombre bien educado y no muy inclinado a los programas jesuitas, y negó las solicitudes. En su obra "Sobre la canonización de los santos", Lambertini nos dejó un relato del asunto. “Si uno pide una fiesta para el Sagrado Corazón de Jesús”, se maravilla, “¿por qué no pedir también una para el Sagrado Costado o los Sagrados Ojos de Jesús? ¿¡O incluso por el Corazón de la Santísima Virgen !? " Prospero Lambertini se convirtió más tarde en el Papa erudito Benedicto XIV. Poco podía haber previsto que lo que sabía que era tan absurdo, después de su día, infectaría a toda la Iglesia Romana. En el siglo XIX, la Iglesia Romana estableció una devoción al Inmaculado Corazón de María, e incluso instituyó una fiesta en su honor.
Los apologistas argumentaron que adoraban al Corazón por el bien de su unión con la Deidad. Lo que olvidaron es que el propio Nestorio, cuando fue acorralado en el Concilio de Éfeso, también afirmó que "adoraba lo que era visible por el bien de lo que estaba oculto."
Al final, estos escrúpulos y contradefensas en los círculos católicos quedaron efectivamente obsoletos por una sola acción del Vaticano. El Papa Pío IX canonizó a la Hermana Margaret Mary Alacoque. No había duda de cómo pretendía honrar al Corazón, por lo que ya no se pensaba que el Sagrado Corazón pudiera limitarse a un símbolo del amor de Dios. Sus "palpitaciones", "dilataciones", "latidos en el cielo", eran adorados, como lo son hoy por los católicos romanos. El historiador Padre René Francois Guettee, en su polémica obra "El papado hereje", comenta que al señalar para la adoración no solo el cuerpo humano de Cristo en oposición a toda Su Persona, sino el corazón en oposición al resto de Su cuerpo, un error incluso peor que el de Nestorio. Podemos notar que fue el mismo Pío IX quien hizo otras fórmulas católicas romanas oficiales que militan contra las tradiciones cristianas ortodoxas de Oriente y Occidente. Enseñó formalmente (1) la Inmaculada Concepción de María; (2) el derecho divino de la Iglesia Romana de usar la fuerza armada, y (3) la infalibilidad papal.
Muchos en Estados Unidos son conversos a la fe ortodoxa y pueden tener imágenes del Sagrado Corazón en sus hogares, como equipaje literal de sus días pre-ortodoxos. Además, los amigos bien intencionados pueden regalar oraciones o imágenes del Sagrado Corazón. Los fieles deben reemplazar todas esas imágenes con iconos ortodoxos genuinos. No deben colocar imágenes del Sagrado Corazón, o cualquier otra imagen no ortodoxa, en sus esquinas de iconos. (Énfasis mío)
Hieromonk Aidan (Keller),
Iglesia ortodoxa rusa fuera de Rusia
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