A Preliminary Word

My acquaintance with the Spirituality of the Sacred Heart dates back to my childhood. However, I should be honest in admitting that the whole notion of this spirituality, which, I had then, has changed. It is no longer the “sad-Jesus” crying for good deed (an interpretation that governed the piety to the Sacred Heart in my family circle), but a God who loves me unconditionally through His son Jesus and through my brothers and sisters.

In my visits with friends and relatives I have realized the very word reparation can discourage them, because for them it suggests too much self-denial and makes incessant demands for consolation. After having encountered these strange and embarrassing views on such an inexhaustible and amazing spiritual treasure, I resolve to make it my novitiate project, to put in black and white my reflection on the happiness that this spirituality offers. This study is an attempt to uncover the existential dimension of this spirituality. My own experiences, convictions and thoughts surface indirectly. Being a novice I remain limited in the exposition of such a vast subject. I intend to develop it further. I remain indebted to my Novice master, Fr. Sebastian Pitz scj, for giving me this opportunity and providing me the time, books and computing facilities. Fr. Tom Garvey scj deserves special thanks for doing the proof - reading of the text. As we enter the new millennium the need to practice and propagate the spirituality of the Sacred Heart seems ever more urgent and indispensable.

Human beings are on the threshold of the third millennium. As the human race ushers in a new era the destiny of the human race appears to be immersed in materialism and rationalism. This poses a great challenge to the existence of men and women: “As a crisis of rationalism, what has appeared finally is nihilism. As a philosophy of nothingness... In the nihilist interpretation, life is no more than an occasion for sensations and experiences in which the ephemeral has pride of place”.(1) There is an urgency to return to the divine origin of the human existence and live the human life in the circle of God’s love, mercy and joy. Rationalism and human progress should serve as the greatest means to reach God, to explore the human mystery and to promote the values of God’s kingdom. Does the human family feel confident of its future in the new age? Or does it sense chaos and crisis ahead? The Sacred Heart of Jesus, the perfect manifestation of divine love is the pathway to the new era. The spirituality of reparation comes to the rescue of all those desperately seeking an answer to human frustration. God’s love and the reparation by Jesus should urge us to respond. The daunting reality of sin that threatens the human race with extinction can be remedied through reparation. The failure to integrate reparation in the spiritual beliefs and life principles by many has led to an unhealthy dualism. Happiness, which is the ultimate end of spirituality, remains unrealized. The spirituality of reparation aims at human happiness rather than the happiness of God. Finally, after having seen the death of ideologies that promised an egalitarian society and wars that assured justice, we have the way of Jesus: Forgiveness and love, which pave the path to happiness. The words of a prayer written in a Nazi concentration camp illustrates this:

“Peace be to men of bad will, and an end to all revenge and to all words of pain and punishment... So many have borne witness with their blood! O God, do not put their suffering upon the scales of thy justice.

Lest it be counted to the hangman, lest he be brought to answer for his atrocities.

But to all hangmen and informers, to all traitors and evil ones, do grant the benefit of the courage and fortitude shown by those others, who were their victims...

Grant the benefit of the burning love and sacrifice in those harrowed, tortured hearts, which remained strong and stead fast in the face of death unto their weakest hour.

All this, O Lord, make it count in Thine eyes so that their sin be forgiven may this be the ransom that restores justice.

And all that is good, let it be counted, and all that is evil, let it be wiped out...

May peace come once more upon this earth, Peace to men of good will; and may it descend upon the others also. Amen”.(2)

I. Spirituality of Reparation and its misconceptions

It will not be a matter of surprise to discover the fact that the reparative spirituality is dubbed by many as facing an irrevocable crisis. Many will not hesitate to say that it appears dated and on the verge of extinction. A good number of people will acknowledge that the “reparatory - spirit” evident in the last centuries does no longer seem to be exercising influence on the modern Catholics. On the other hand it is very obvious that in the Church pockets of Catholics faithfully follow “reparative - exercises” and practice with great devotion the piety associated with the cult of the Sacred Heart in the yesteryears.

Before I fuel more speculation on this theme, let me affirm that according to me the misunderstanding concerning reparation is unwarranted and largely a consequence of a poor presentation, lack of sufficient renewal, intellectual updating and contemporary interpretation of the spirituality: “Because of this widespread ignorance, the devotion is seen as merely the outward manifestations of popular piety. Some of these forms of personal piety have become stumbling blocks, which hinder the acceptance and the authentic practice of the devotion. At other times, the manner in which the devotion has been presented by some spiritual writers and preachers has had the same effect”.(3) Needless to say that this spirituality, like any other bears the stamp and standard of its time. I will not enter into details concerning the apparitions at Paray-le-Monial and the French school. It is sheer ignorance of the biblical and Christo-centric foundation of the reparative spirituality that seems to undermine the richness of this great spiritual fountain and way to human happiness. There is also the much forgotten Eucharistic center to the devotion. The folly of attributing this spirituality to some set of private and pious observances originated from St. Margaret Mary Alacoque only adds to the problem. Every age sins and falls short of God’s grace. The former generation might have not gone as far as we are going; nevertheless it can be presumed that it went as far as it could. Therefore, immaterial of age and time, sin exists and so does the need for reparation to save us from the inhuman consequences of sin and to enrich us with true happiness.

II. Love: the Foundation of Reparation

The saga of creation narrated in the first chapter of the book of Genesis describes God creating man in the most loving manner. The imagery used by the author is simply heart-rending. For all other things that God created before man, the author puts very impersonal creation-ordinances in the mouth of God: “Let there be” (Gn 1:3). God forms man by his own hands. God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life and the spark of divinity. This graphic description indicates the depth of intimacy that God risks in bringing man to birth. The psalmist would later confirm this: “What are human beings that you spare a thought for them, or the child of Adam that you care for him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, you have crowned him with glory and beauty... (Ps 8:4-5). The history of salvation is replete with proofs of God’s loving fidelity to men. God weeps for His people. He is a God with a Heart that is ever sensitive to the struggles of His children: “Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the Israelites... I shall free you...” (Ex 6:5). “The Lord saw the affliction of His people reduced to slavery, heard their cry, knew their sufferings and decided to deliver them. In this act of salvation by the Lord, the prophet perceived his love and compassion. This is precisely the ground upon which the people and each of its members based their certainty of the mercy of God, which can be invoked whenever tragedy strikes... “God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”. It is in this central revelation that the chosen people, and each of its members, will find, every time that they have sinned, the strength and the motive for turning to the Lord to remind Him of what He had exactly revealed about Himself and to beseech His forgiveness”.(4) God established a “relationship” and wants it to be very deep and special. In this relationship God can be seen as a zealous lover. There is no end for the assurances of love, which God gives to His beloved people. “I have loved you with an everlasting love and so I still maintain my faithful love for you” (Jer 31:3). “Can a woman forget her baby at the breast, feel no pity for the child she has borne? Even if these were to forget, I shall not forget you. Look, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Is 49:15). These powerful and life giving messages of love come at a time when the people of Israel are experiencing catastrophes in the form of exiles and a severe identity crisis. The prophet Hosea has portrayed Yahweh in beautiful literary images. Yahweh’s love is that of a long-suffering and faithful husband calling back an unfaithful wife. Divine love is like that of a Father for his youngest child. The culmination of God’s love is found in the New Testament. “After God has spoken many times and in various ways through the prophets, in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1-2). For He sent His Son, the eternal Word who enlightens all men, to dwell among men and to tell them about the inner life of God. Hence, Jesus Christ, sent as “a man among men”, “speaks the words of God” (Jn 3:34), and accomplishes the saving work which the Father gave Him to do (cf. Jn 5:36; 17:4). As a result, he Himself - to see who is to see the Father (cf. Jn 14:9) - completed and perfected Revelation and confirmed it with divine guarantees. He did this by the total fact of his presence and self - manifestation - by words and works, signs and miracles, but above all by His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and finally by sending the Spirit of Truth. He revealed that God is with us, to deliver us from the darkness of sin and death and to raise us up to eternal life”.(5) Jesus is the incarnation of Perfect Love. In Him we behold the face of “Abbà”. The Father who runs to embrace and kiss the wounded human race represented by the prodigal son (Lk 15:20).

“On May 15, 1956 Pope Pius XII issued the Sacred Heart encyclical, Haurietis Aquas... The pope begins with the prophecy of Isaiah, “you shall draw waters with joy out of the Savior’s fountain” (Is 12:3). Using this highly significant imagery, the prophet foretells the abundant graces which were to flow during the Christian era”.(6) Jesus loves those considered the least lovable. This is precisely the paradox of love: “I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting than over ninety-nine upright people who have no need of repentance” (Lk 15:7). Love is the basis of our creation and salvation: “A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief had to impart: the salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who as nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “the angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory”.(7)

III. Reparation by Jesus

The aim of Jesus’ reparation is to restore the dignity of human beings lost through sin. Uniting human beings again with God does this. When a human being is at peace with God, himself and others he can experience the pristine happiness for which he was created. The happiness and well being (physical and spiritual) of humanity were the priorities that consumed the life of Jesus. This is evident in the scriptures: “I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” (Jn 10:10). All this presupposes human sinfulness and divine mercy healing it. The sacrifice on Calvary is the greatest act of reparation or expiation: “No one can have greater love that to lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). The letter to the Hebrews summarizes the eternal redemption and nature of this sacrifice: “But now Christ has come, as the high priest of all the blessings which were to come. He has passed through the greater, the more perfect tent, not made by human hands, that is, not this created order; and he has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves, but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11-12). “The mystery of divine redemption as described in the New Testament is primarily and essentially a mystery of love... Christ, through His loving death, restored completely and elevated the covenant between God and man, broken by the fall of our first parents”.(8) The life and ministry of Jesus had a definite focus on “seeking and saving” the Lost. “The theme of the entire New Testament is the many ways that the Heart of Jesus expressed His love during His earthly life. St. Paul summed up the whole life of Christ in two words: He Loved me and gave Himself up for me (Eph 5:2)”.(9) The evangelists present a few outstanding testimonies of individual salvation. The healing of the Gerasene demoniac (Mk 5), the repentance and conversion of the public sinner (Lk 7:36), the parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15), Jesus and Zacchaeus (Lk 19), Jesus and the Samaritan woman (Jn 4), Jesus and the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8) and the parable of the good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37). All these persons had touched the lowest ebb of life. In the case of Zacchaeus and the Samaritan woman there is an urge for reparation: “Look, sir, I am going to give half my property to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody I will pay him back four times the amount” (Lk 19:8). Zacchaeus makes an instinctive act of reparation. “The Church Fathers see Christ Himself, sent by the Father to heal the wounds of mankind, in the person of the Samaritan. Ven. Dehon repeats the same message: “The Sacred Heart is the heart of the good Samaritan who stops to help and assist the one who lies wounded along the road” (Oeuvres Sociales, I, p. 8).(10)

IV. God’s Passionate Love and Our Response

“Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God loved us and sent His Son to expiate our sins” (1 John 4:10).

God’s unconditional love facilitates a response. It is an invitation for a happy life. Human beings can never claim to have achieved complete fulfillment and meaning in life without responding to God’s love. He made us for Him. God is the Alpha and Omega of human existence. It is the eternity we share with God and the everlasting love of God that gives the meaning and purpose to life. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God”.(11) Modern man is engineering a ruin of life by refusing to acknowledge the presence of God in the depths of his being. What a pity to limit the origin of humanity to a big bang and the end to oblivion! How does one explain the mystery of humanity and its yearning to touch the absolute and reach the extraordinary in lofty pursuits of human, scientific and artistic realms? Why is an unsaturated longing for happiness sequel to the climax of individual-collective materialism and egalitarism? Quo Vadis? Human beings will save themselves from unhappiness by acknowledging the finiteness of human intelligence and the short sightedness of human vision. There is a need to stop playing God, let go of the false thinking and drop the load of illusion that complete us to live independent and isolated from God and one another to seek happiness. The prodigal son was awakened to this liberating reality by sinking to the filth. This is exactly where we discover the “who am I” and begin to respond to life. God has a plan for our happiness: “Yes, I know what I have in mind for you, Yahweh declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11). Human beings are often ignorant of God’s passionate love and struggle therefore cannot respond to it. This is the fundamental cause of human misery and increasing unrest in personal, social and political spheres. The refusal to abide in God’s love and share it with other human beings and care for the earth results in the tragedy of sin. His Holiness Pope John Paul II writes of this danger: “When the sense of God is lost, the sense of man is also threatened and poisoned... when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible... Enclosed in the narrow horizon of his physical nature, he is somehow reduced to being “a thing”, and no longer grasps the “transcendent” character of his “existence as man”.(12) In his book “The Sacred Heart Yesterday... Today”, Fr. Matthias P. Cremer scj, attributes the conflict present in the world to the loss of genuine human identity: “This conflict is carried into the smaller and larger units of our living; in families, it leads to crises, separation and divorce; in society, it leads to class conflict and racial intolerance; in the international world, it leads to hatred among nations, and, at the present, to the terrifying split of the world”.(13)

V. The Reality of Sin and the Urgency of Reparation

The reality of sin is stronger than our conception of it. Sin deceives the sinner in a most subtle and elusive manner. “Although set by God in a state of rectitude, man, enticed by the evil one, abused his freedom at the very start of history. Man therefore is divided in himself. As a result the whole life of men, both individual and social, shows itself to be a struggle, and a dramatic one, between good and evil, between light and darkness”.(14) This is the inherent dichotomy of human life. However, human beings are aided by the redeeming grace to transcend the darkness and live as children of light. In every sin the sinner seeks fleeting pleasure, a “quick-fix” to escape from the pain and emptiness acquired through a sinful life itself. The sinner mortgages true happiness for something below human dignity, accepts enslavement, refuses to cooperate with saving grace. The consequence of all this is that the sinner pays a greater price than the sacrifice or effort needed to participate in the happiness destined for the children of God. Human beings can never find happiness in things for which they were not created. Rather they miss the joy of life. In one’s personal life sin distorts the image of God and breeds psychological problems and psychosomatic maladies. There is enough scientific evidence to vouch for a such conclusion. All sin, even those of the most personal character, have a social repercussion, though not intended by the sinner himself. The passage of sinful effects from a purely personal to a social level needs no impetus. It is in the nature of sin. This can be applied to any sin even those that are judged to be exclusive to the sinner. All social, political, economic and structural injustice along with the total disrespect and destruction of life witnessed today is the graves expression of personal sin. “Without doubts frequent upheavals in social order are in part the result of economic, political and social tensions. But at a deeper level they come from selfishness and pride, two things, which contaminate the atmosphere of society as well. As it is, man is prone to evil, but whenever he meets a situation where the effects of sin are found, he is exposed to further inducements to sin, which can only be overcome by the unflinching effort under the help of grace”.(15) “According to the current Magisterium, personal sin and social sin are not in contradiction: one is rooted in the order”.(16) “The dichotomy affecting the modern world is, in fact, a symptom of the deeper dichotomy that is in man himself. He is the meeting point of many conflicting forces”.(17) The presence of sin can render our best spiritual efforts ineffective: “So then, if you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering” (Mt 5:23-24).

In the face of unprecedent violence, fear, insecurity and loss of life through sin, only individual and collective reparation will prove salvific. Reparation is not understood and appreciates precisely because there is an almost invincible ignorance of the weight of sin. His Holiness John Paul II has condemned it as the loss of the sense of sin. The sensitivity to sin gives rise to the urgency for reparation. The word is hungry for love - the answer is the Sacred Heart, because there is found the fullness of love: “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4). The Heart of Jesus offers the renewed humanism rooted in everlasting love. Reparation ought to restore love in the heart of a sinner, but especially in the family and society. At whatever level we speak of reparation it is essential to relate it to the reality of life drawn from human living. It is very appropriate at this point to list the fundamental elements of the apostolate of reparation.

“1. To announce the Gospel of work, justice and mercy for sinner.

2. To educate the laity to oblative love (to spread the practice of the act of daily oblation) but that it be, at the same time, an active love so that it becomes a movement of the laity imbued with a spirituality - civilization of life, justice and peace.

3. To announce the Gospel of suffering and tribulation illuminated by the mystery of the love of the Cross and Resurrection.

4. To animate groups of workers so that in the work place justice, honesty and respect for religious values may reign along with a human and Christian sense of sensuality.

5. To spread the consecration of families to the Heart of Jesus to form a nucleus of a civilization of love.

6. To stress the importance of the sacrament of God’s pardon as the strong point of grace for reconciling hearts with God and neighbor as a joyous celebration of the divine mercy of the Heart of Jesus who receives, saves, frees and recreates the sinner in love.

7. To animate with light and evangelical courage the movements of justice and peace.

8. To animate the formation of the institutes consecrated to the Heart of Jesus so that their formation would be an effective formation, specialized in the apostolate of mercy”.(18)

NOTES

1. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 1998, p. 21.

2. Christopher News notes forgiveness, New York, June-July 1979, no. 242.

3. Timothy T.O. Donnell, Heart of the Redeemer, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1992, p. 259.

4. John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, 1980, p. 15.

5. Dogmatic constitution on Divine Revelation, 751.

6. Timothy T.O. Donnell, Heart of the Redeemer, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1992, p. 189.

7. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s search for meaning, Bombay, St. Paul’s, 1998, p. 42.

8. Timothy T.O. Donnell, Heart of the Redeemer, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1992, p. 192.

9. Paul J. McGuire scj, Fr. Dehon: a Spirituality of the Heart, Wisconsin, The Dehon study center, 1997, p. 71

10. Letter of Rev. Fr. Virginio Bressanelli, scj, superior general of the congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, to the members of the Dehonian family, Rome 1996, p. 2.

11. Saint Augustine, Confessions, England, Penguin Books, 1984.

12. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995, p. 30.

13. Rev. Mathias P. Cremer, scj, The Sacred Heart Yesterday... Today, Wisconsin, SCJ - North American Province, 1966, p. 22).

14. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world, p. 914.

15. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world, p. 926.

16. Angelo Cavagna, scj, “Actuality: Reparation in the spirituality of the Heart of Jesus”, Dehonian, Year XVIII, n. 72, 1989/2, p. 170.

17. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world, p. 910.

18. Angelo Cavagna, scj, “Actuality: Reparation in the spirituality of the Heart of Jesus”, Dehoniana, Year XVIII, n. 72, 1989/2, p. 170.