p. 16The Sacred Heart and the Heart of a Man

It is one of the tragedies of things as they are, that so many men, struggling wearily in the conflicting current of that wild sea called life, are unaware either of the power or tenderness of the Heart of their greatest friend. They have need of a friend, God knows, both in the tedious striving of every day and in the fierce occasional battles with temptation and discouragement which they must fight through at intervals. But while they feel their own weakness and realize it through many sad experiences, they do not know where to turn nor whom to ask for aid.

Strange lack of realization! Many a Catholic man, desirous of living up to the high principles and holy teachings of his faith, driven by temptation and trial, afraid of his own weakness, never rightly appreciates the strength and security, the power and consolation that wait for him in devotion to the Sacred Heart. He seeks, perhaps, other friendships and to a greater or less degree they fail him. No matter how sincere and genuine they may be, his merely human friends have little power and less knowledge to aid him. Here, in the Sacred Heart, is a love for him individually which has at its service, so to say, the all-wisdom and all-power of God Himself.

The Catholic man who disregards devotion to the Sacred Heart as being, in his esteem, meant rather for children and women than for men, shows an ignorance and a want of realization that shames him and his teachers. The very symbol of the Sacred Heart, flaming with love, encircled with a crown of thorns, and crowned with a cross, is in itself a book wherein he who runs may read the manliness and strength of this sublime devotion.

Look upon this symbol, Catholic man, and ask “whose heart is here depicted?” It is the Heart of the eternal God-made Man, become like unto us in all things, sin alone excepted. Here, then, is the Heart of a Man Who is God, the manliest of men, the Man Whose courage exceeds all other courage as His strength exceeds and surpasses all other strength. What characteristic or what quality of true manliness but is found in Him to a supreme degree? What merely human hero, what man of history or legend, past or present, can bear comparison with Him even in the mere point of manliness? Devotion to His Sacred Heart is devotion to the very ideal of manly courage, strength, and goodness. Such a devotion is most proper for all the world and, if one can say so, especially suited to the manliest man.

Look again at that holy symbol. What mean those flames which leap from the Sacred Heart? They symbolize the strong fire of manly love that burns forever in the Heart of Christ. They blaze forth the heat and power of that pure love wherewith Christ cherishes every man for whom He has died. There is in His love nothing merely sentimental, nothing selfish, nothing of the earth. It is the love of the God-man for all mankind, who are His brothers and for whom He died. Here is a Heart full of compassion and tenderness, not only for the just but for sinners. He is come to save those whom the world despises and rejects, no less than the rich and powerful. The man, therefore, who is bowed down with miseries, in need of a friend, has only to turn to the Sacred Heart. Those others, also, who are full of success and proud of their own achievements are even more in need of the friendship of the Sacred Heart. Pride goeth before a fall and a successful man, a so-called self-made man, a man full of this world’s goods, has sore need of devotion to the Sacred Heart to make him humble and save him from that blinded selfishness which leads to calamity.

Consider, Catholic man, the crown of thorns which encircles the Sacred Heart. It is the symbol of the mental anguish which Christ bore for love of you. In these days, many a man suffers agonies of anxiety and fear for his own future and for that of those whom he loves. The sympathy of the Sacred Heart will aid and sustain them as nothing else can, for here is a friend Who has drunk much deeper of the chalice of mental anguish for love of us, than it will ever be given to us to drink.

Look at the cross, the symbol of Christ’s physical sufferings. None of us are so perfectly and delicately constituted as He was, and none of us can suffer as He suffered, purely for love of us. The man who has to undergo strain and weariness, physical agony, wearing toil, needs devotion to the Sacred Heart to give him courage. Christ’s life was, throughout all its years, a life of toil and suffering. He chose to be a laboring man and made, as St. Justin tells us, “plows and yokes for oxen,” rude carpentering indeed, and wearisome labor which strained His muscles and roughened His hands. This He did, that He might be the friend of the workingman, a model to all who have to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, and the comforter of the toiler.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is a devotion for men; the manlier we are ourselves, the more this devotion should appeal to us. There is a false and lying idea of manliness, conceived in hell, which makes manhood consist in vice and wantonness. To follow such ideals is not to become a true man, but an unmanly and degraded brute. Devotion to the Sacred Heart has indeed nothing to do with such notions of manliness. But, to true manliness, honorable, strong, self-contained, faithful in word and deed, this great devotion is the most powerful aid. It gives support and courage. It strengthens the weak will and sets the soul on fire with the love of God. It conquers temptation and it directs the will to what is good and true. It supplies in all trials and sorrows a Friend and Consoler Who knows human nature intimately, has tasted its sorrows and trials, and Who is omnipotent and all-loving. To heal and to save is the work and the office of the Heart of Christ in the heart of a man.