My parish church in New Jersey, as I remember it, had a life-sized statue of the Sacred Heart on the front lawn. I wondered why Jesus’ heart was outside of his chest, and why He was pointing to it. Later on, I would see paintings of Jesus actually holding his heart in his left hand, offering it to the viewer. I couldn’t make much sense of that.
The Christian God is the first god, and I think the only god, with a heart, and who offers that heart to everyone, the good and the bad. We can’t make sense of the Absolute, the prime mover of the universe, who bridges the infinite gap between creator and created with personal love. One of the ways Christians try to make sense of God’s heart is with a statue of a man holding his cardiovascular organ outside of his body, offering it to the viewer.
The older prayers of the Catholic Church often call upon “Jesus who suffered.” The second question before baptism in the 1962 ritual, for example, asks: Credis in Iesum Christum, natum et passum (who “was born and who suffered”). His suffering is the most compelling reason to believe in a loving God. He suffered for me, He died for me, blood and water flowed from His open heart for me. God became man to suffer our human tragedies, indignities, and abandonment. No other god does this. That’s why we have a statue of the Sacred Heart in front of my church today. I will process past this statue on my way to a sung high Mass tonight, thanking God for offering His Heart for the life of the world.
The Christian God is the first god, and I think the only god, with a heart, and who offers that heart to everyone, the good and the bad. We can’t make sense of the Absolute, the prime mover of the universe, who bridges the infinite gap between creator and created with personal love. One of the ways Christians try to make sense of God’s heart is with a statue of a man holding his cardiovascular organ outside of his body, offering it to the viewer.
The older prayers of the Catholic Church often call upon “Jesus who suffered.” The second question before baptism in the 1962 ritual, for example, asks: Credis in Iesum Christum, natum et passum (who “was born and who suffered”). His suffering is the most compelling reason to believe in a loving God. He suffered for me, He died for me, blood and water flowed from His open heart for me. God became man to suffer our human tragedies, indignities, and abandonment. No other god does this. That’s why we have a statue of the Sacred Heart in front of my church today. I will process past this statue on my way to a sung high Mass tonight, thanking God for offering His Heart for the life of the world.
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