Jesus, Mercy Incarnate

According to the Bible, some people are cold-hearted, or hard- hearted; they have hearts of “stone” (e.g. Ezek. 11:19). The mys- tery of theHeart of Jesus , however, has been revealed to us through the Gospels, and beautifully expressed in His apparitions to St. Margaret Mary. Whatever we may say about other human hearts, this person, Jesus of Nazareth, has a Heart that is aflame with love: love for His heavenly Father, and love for us. That is why He showed His physical Heart to St. Margaret Mary as flaming with fire, surmounted by a cross, and pierced and surrounded by thorns. All of these were clear signs and symbols that this Heart — the person of Jesus Christ — is pure love : the Sacred Heart of Jesus as all love and all lovable . That is also why one of the great theologians of our century, Cardinal Luigi Ciappi, OP, defined the devotion to the Sacred Heart in terms of the loving person of Jesus Christ: Devotion to theSacredHeart is nothingother thanveneration for the person of Jesus Christ because of His love for sinful humanity, symbolized by the physical Heart of the Redeemer. 22 Our task in this devotion is to try to return love for love: by the grace and fire of His Holy Spirit, to love our Lord back for all of His infinite, generous, and tender love for us. However, there is another way we can view the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. Catherine of Siena put it best back in the Middle Ages that God’s love always crosses a bridge of mercy to reach us. 23 In other words, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is all love, but the form that love takes when it reaches out to human beings is merciful love . For mercy is compassionate love; mercy is love that seeks to over- come and relieve all the miseries of others. St. Thomas Aquinas defined “mercy” as “the compassion in our hearts for another per- son’s misery, a compassion which drives us to do what we can to help him.” 24 Divine Mercy, therefore, is the form that our Lord’s love for us takes when He meets our need and our brokenness. Whatever the name of our misery may be — sin, guilt, suffering, or death— the Heart of Jesus is always ready to pour out His mer- ciful, compassionate love for us, to help in time of need. 111 The Sacred Heart and The Divine Mercy