[Catholic Caucus] The Sacred Heart: Synthesis of All Catholic Doctrine

Rorate Caeli ^ | July 16, 2023 | Ven. Louise Margaret Claret de la Touche (1868-1915)

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[Catholic Caucus] The Sacred Heart: Synthesis of All Catholic Doctrine

The Sacred Heart is not a simple devotion of sentiment - it is not even a special isolated dogma. It is the synthesis of all Catholic doctrine, of the whole Catholic moral law summed up in the love of Jesus Christ for us and of our love for Jesus Christ. There is then for us a theology of the Sacred Heart. This theology, according to Saint Augustine and Bossuet, from the consideration that God is the eternal Heart -- God is love (1 Jn 4:8) -- finds in this charity the purpose if not the explanation of the whole series of Christian mysteries.

God loves: to love is to give. God has given us everything, and has given himself to us. He commenced by giving existence to us and to all beings:  that is creation.

God loves: to love is to speak. To make oneself heard by the person who is loved: that is Revelation, the Sacred Scripture, God’ law.

God loves: to love is to make oneself like the person loved: that is the Incarnation.

God loves: to love is to save the person loved, cost what it may, to die for the person loved: that is Redemption.

To love is to wish to be perpetually present to the person loved: that is the Blessed Eucharist, the Real Presence, the altar.

To love is to give oneself to each of those whom one loves: that is Holy Communion, the Last Supper.

Finally, to love is to wish to make happy with oneself all those whom one has loved: that is eternal happiness of Heaven!

A vast synthesis of love, which is also a synthesis of our faith!

As for us, cries, Saint John, "we believe in love which God has for us" (1 Jn 4:16). Everything is included in that.

Saint Francis de Sales was right when he said: “In the Church of Jesus Christ everything belongs to love.  God, who has created man after his own image, wishes that in man, as in God, everything be regulated by love and for love.”

--Ven. Louise Margaret Claret de la Touche (1868-1915)

Mother Louise Margaret was a French Visitandine nun and mystic and the foundress of the Sisters of Bethany of the Sacred Heart community.

We wish all of our readers a most blessed feastday!

Cor Jesu sacratissimum, miserere nobis.

Cor Jesu sacratissimum, miserere nobis.

Cor Jesu sacratissimum, miserere nobis.

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