Questions about Jesus' Sacred Heart

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Tis_Bearself

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I am currently a little confused about how the Eastern Catholics regard Jesus’ Sacred Heart.

My understanding of Jesus’ Sacred Heart is that it is a Western Church teaching relating to emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, and stemming in part from approved private revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 1600s. Displaying a picture of the Sacred Heart in one’s home has been a popular devotion among many RCs for as long as I can remember and going back to my parents’ and grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ day. In Ireland for example, every time you see a display of a historic dwelling for Irish Catholics, there’s a picture of the Sacred Heart somewhere and it was the same in Irish-American homes pre-Vatican II and often afterwards as well despite the decline in private devotions.

My further understanding is that the Eastern churches do not relate to this devotion as focusing on a body part of Jesus, and sometimes some strong language of disapproval (to the point of being a bit hurtful or offensive to those of us who are very attached to this Western devotion) is used especially from the Orthodox.

Yet now I see there is a Sacred Heart Byzantine Catholic Church in the Eparchy of Parma. So now I am very confused. How do the Eastern Catholic churches regard the Sacred Heart?
 
Hi @Tis_Bearself,

I’ve heard those arguments/disapprovals from Orthodox (and some Eastern Catholics) that the Sacred Heart devotion doesn’t make sense because you’re just reverencing one of Jesus’ body parts. In my experience, this criticism stems from ignorance - plain and simple.

The Christian East has a highly developed theology of the “heart” that grew from the Scriptures and from Eastern Fathers like Evagrius and pseudo-Macarius. Why we can’t apply this same “theology of the heart” to the devotion to the Sacred Heart makes no sense to me. Growing up Roman Catholic, my family consecrated to the Sacred Heart, and our home enshrined to the Sacred Heart. I never once understood the devotion to be an emphasis on the actual physical organ of Jesus’ heart. I never even heard of that understanding until I heard it from an Orthodox person.

That being said, adoption of the devotion to the Sacred Heart in the East is, strictly speaking, a Latinization. The fact that there are Eastern parishes named after the Sacred Heart is simply evidence of the extent of Latinization. Is the devotion itself “bad” for Eastern Catholics or Orthodox? Of course not!

By the way, Sacred Heart Byzantine Catholic Church in Detroit is a wonderful parish. Fr. Joseph Marquis - the pastor of that parish - is almost single-handedly responsible for launching me off on my journey Easterward. Fr. Deacon Lawrence Hendricks and his family, especially his son Greg, also played a critical role in helping me take my first steps East. If you ever have a chance to attend Divine Liturgy there, go! Fr. Joseph’s voice literally sounds like the voice of God thundering out of the sanctuary. Any time I went to the Divine Liturgy there I was reminded of the psalm that says, “The voice of God shatters the cedars of Lebanon.”
 
Thank you for the helpful response.
Are there any sources to read online about this “Theology of the Heart” that you mention?

I am okay with people not wanting to practice the devotion if they didn’t grow up with it or have their own preferred tradition, as long as they don’t say derisive things about it to those of us Latin Catholics who find it a central and important devotional concept.
 
I completely agree with you. I have no problem if people don’t want to pray the Jesus Prayer, so long as they bash the practice as “un-Catholic” or “inferior” to devotions like the rosary. I’ve heard Eastern Catholics bash the practice of Eucharistic Adoration. Then a wise Dominican priest I know once told me to think of it this way: “Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is the ‘great icon’ of the West.” Folks shouldn’t bash a devotion that they don’t understand. If a devotion doesn’t speak to my spirituality, I simply don’t adopt it.

Since the East in general (not just the Byzantine-Orthodox East) is much less systematic in our theological approach than is the West, I can’t think of a good online source where you could learn more about “the heart.” If you do a google search for terms like “nous” you might find some interesting blog posts or discussions.

Better would be to grab a copy of Tomas Cardinal Spidlik’s book The Art of Purifying The Heart. Using the insights of the Eastern Fathers, he discusses in a much more systematic way what Christian tradition means by “heart” and (as the title implies) how we go about purifying it.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
…
My further understanding is that the Eastern churches do not relate to this devotion as focusing on a body part of Jesus, and sometimes some strong language of disapproval (to the point of being a bit hurtful or offensive to those of us who are very attached to this Western devotion) is used especially from the Orthodox.
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The devotion has only one essential object, the united sensible and spiritual, just as body and soul are essential to man. Note that in the Catholic Encyclopedia is stated “Devotion to the Heart of Jesus alone, as to a noble part of His Divine Body, would not be devotion to the Sacred Heart as understood and approved by the Church”.

Catholic Encyclopedia
… But there is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries, any worship was rendered the wounded Heart. …
(2) It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we find the first unmistakable indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart.
…
Devotion to the Heart of Jesus alone, as to a noble part of His Divine Body, would not be devotion to the Sacred Heart as understood and approved by the Church, and the same must also be said of devotion to the love of Jesus as detached from His Heart of flesh, or else connected therewith by no other tie than that of a word taken in the metaphorical sense. Hence, in the devotion, there are two elements: a sensible element, the Heart of flesh, and a spiritual element, that which this Heart of flesh recalls and represents. But these two elements do not form two distinct objects, merely co-ordinated they constitute but one, just as do the body and soul, and the sign and the thing signified. Hence it is also understood that these two elements are as essential to the devotion as body and soul are essential to man.
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Bainvel, J. (1910). Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07163a.htm
 
That what you posted, Vico, would presumably be the Western Catholic view. It’s understood that devotion to Jesus’ Heart is not just a devotion to some part of Jesus’ human body, but rather also using the heart to represent and encompass Christ’s burning love for us. For example, there are pictures of the Sacred Heart where Jesus is handing us his flaming heart. Obviously it’s not meant to be a literal representation of Christ ripping his flaming heart out of his body and presenting it to us. It’s like a Valentine, “I give you my heart”. I think even small children who venerate the Sacred Heart understand this or at least I did.

Are you saying that is also the Eastern Catholic view?
 
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Thank you for the great explanation. I always had a hard time understanding this concept.
 
The eastern criticisms I’ve seen is accusations of Nestorianism in which we Catholics (allegedly) elevate a human body part alone apart from the personhood of Christ. That the humanity of Christ can only be worshipped insofar as its united to the Divine Person, and that separating out the heart for adoration runs counter to this. That’s not to say we don’t have responses to this misconception, of course.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
That what you posted, Vico, would presumably be the Western Catholic view. It’s understood that devotion to Jesus’ Heart is not just a devotion to some part of Jesus’ human body, but rather also using the heart to represent and encompass Christ’s burning love for us. For example, there are pictures of the Sacred Heart where Jesus is handing us his flaming heart. Obviously it’s not meant to be a literal representation of Christ ripping his flaming heart out of his body and presenting it to us. It’s like a Valentine, “I give you my heart”. I think even small children who venerate the Sacred Heart understand this or at least I did.

Are you saying that is also the Eastern Catholic view?
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There are many eastern Catholic sui iuris churches and they do not have the identical devotions. Some have incorporated practices from the west. For example, the Ukrainian sui iuris church established from the time of 1596 Union of Brest (Poland-Lithuania) has many parishes including one in Johnson City, NY, Sacred Heart UCC. They show on the site, light from the heart of Jesus:
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Iconostasis:
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Tis_Bearself said:
Yet now I see there is a Sacred Heart Byzantine Catholic Church in the Eparchy of Parma.
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Wait a minute . . . you want us to be consistent on this stuff . . . ??? 🤣🤣🤣

There are a number of Sacred Heart parishes. They came about from latinization. They shouldn’t get created any more, but pulling the name off of a parish is kind of a major thing to do.

You also used to find (and probably still do) Stations of the Cross in many US EC parishes.

This is why some of us are now quite quick to complain when a “Why doesn’t the east love the rosary” or some such comes up: while there is nothing wrong with these western practices, they invariably displace eastern practice.
Tis_Bearself said:
as long as they don’t say derisive things about it to those of us Latin Catholics who find it a central and important devotional concept.
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We certainly don’t object to your practice of these devotions, but rather both he historical and current attempts to force them on us . . .
Margaret_Ann said:
This Eastern Catholic ❤️ Eucharistic Adoration!!
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Also, It is explicitly presented to the people both before and after distribution . . .
 
The inscription on the left & right sides of Our Lord says "Jesus Christ Lover of Mankind.

The left page says “I am the Good Shepherd”.

The right page looks like a quoatation from the Gospel of St. John (possibly ch. 10) but I’m not sure.
 
dochawk said:
There are a number of Sacred Heart parishes. They came about from latinization. They shouldn’t get created any more, but pulling the name off of a parish is kind of a major thing to do.
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Like “Our Lady of Purgatory” Maronite Church :roll_eyes:
 
It seems to me the route of this problem is the same one that frequently leads to problems between humans - misunderstanding. Eastern Christians are not criticising Latin Catholics for what we do but for what they [incorrectly] think we do.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
My further understanding is that the Eastern churches do not relate to this devotion as focusing on a body part of Jesus, and sometimes some strong language of disapproval (to the point of being a bit hurtful or offensive to those of us who are very attached to this Western devotion) is used especially from the Orthodox.

Yet now I see there is a Sacred Heart Byzantine Catholic Church in the Eparchy of Parma. So now I am very confused. How do the Eastern Catholic churches regard the Sacred Heart?
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There isn’t anything wrong per se about using the Sacred Heart devotion as a Byzantine Catholic, but it is a Latin devotion and has never been part of the Byzantine liturgical and spiritual tradition.

Unfortunately there are many parishes in various Greek Catholic Churches which maintain various levels of latinization in liturgy and public devotion. Naming a parish after a Latin devotion obviously falls into this category. In my opinion these latinizations should be phased out in order to preserve the liturgical and devotional integrity of Byzantine parishes, but this should be done slowly and with prudence to avoid scandal (especially out of concern for older members of latinized parishes who may be attached to specific non-Byzantine practices).

Devotions to body parts (even in a metaphorical sense) have never been part of the devotional life of Byzantine Christians

For all Byzantine Catholics, praying the Jesus prayer, along with various canons and akathists, forms the backbone of a daily prayer rule.
Phillip_Rolfes said:
I’ve heard Eastern Catholics bash the practice of Eucharistic Adoration.
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I have no problem with Eucharistic adoration in the West, but the fact is that it simply is not consistent with Byzantine Eucharistic theology, which emphasized the communal and liturgical role of the Eucharist, as opposed to the Latin emphasis on devotion to the blessed sacrament. There’s a reason that there’s no “Akathist to the Eucharist.”
 
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I’m an Eastern Catholic and I love the Sacred Heart devotion. I think some Orthodox might disapprove of it (?) But we are Catholic and there is a difference between just not practicing a devotion and disapproving of it. Like a Latin rite Catholic wouldn’t disapprove of an Eastern devotion so imo we shouldn’t disapprove of Adoration or Latin rite devotions - they are approved and since we are Catholic, we should believe the Church. The Church wouldn’t approve something heretical. I love the devotions and Adoration personally but even if I wasnt familiar with them, imo I shouldn’t talk negatively of them.
 
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