Jesus, Mercy Incarnate

The Sacred Heart and The Divine Mercy According to the popes of the last one hundred years, there is no devotion more important to the life of the Church than devotion to the Heart of Jesus. For example, in 1899 Pope Leo XIII, in what he called “the greatest act of my pontificate,” consecrated the whole world to the Sacred Heart on the threshold of the new cen- tury, and he wrote of the Sacred Heart as “the symbol and sensible image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ.” 1 In 1928, in his encycli- cal Miserentissimus Redemptor , Pope Pius XI taught that devotion to the Heart of Jesus is “the summary of our religion,” which, if practiced, “will most surely lead us to know intimately Jesus Christ, and will cause our hearts to love more tenderly and to imi- tate Him more generously.” 2 Then in 1956, in his famous encycli- cal on the Sacred Heart Haurietis Aquas , Pope Pius XII was even more effusive than his predecessors in praise of this devotion: It is altogether impossible to enumerate the heavenly gifts which devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has poured out on the souls of the faithful, purifying them, offering them heavenly strength, rousing them to the attainment of all virtues. 3 Consequently, the honor paid to the Sacred Heart is such as to raise it to the rank — so far as external practice is con- cerned — of the highest expression of Christian piety. For this is the religion of Jesus which is centered on the Mediator who is man and God, and in such a way that we cannot reach the Heart of God, save through the Heart of Christ. 4 After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI pleaded with the Church not to forget the devotion to the Sacred Heart. In his apostolic letter of 1965, Investigabiles Divitias Christi , he wrote: